Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [49]
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After Memphis, my next stop was the huge naval air station at Corpus Christi, Texas. Corpus Christi was a vast complex of airfields, and if the wash-out monster didn’t tap me on the shoulder, it would be at Corpus Christi where I would complete my flight training, be commissioned as an ensign, have the commanding officer pin my wings of gold on my chest, be assigned to fighters, get leave, go home, and marry Dorothy Jo. All in that order.
Getting my wings and being assigned to fighters were certainly important to me, but my ultimate goal was to make Dorothy Jo my bride. I had looked forward to having Dorothy Jo become Mrs. Bob Barker since our first date six years before when we listened to Ella Fitzgerald sing “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” at the Shrine Mosque in Springfield. We wrote to each other regularly, and I called her frequently. Every letter and call was filled with “when you get your wings” plans. These were not detailed wedding plans. Actually, we never bothered with those. It was just a matter of “we’ll get married.” And we did.
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But before that, the next step was what the navy called basic training. “After all the training I had already had,” I thought, “are we only now getting down to basics?” I was assigned to Cabaniss Field for basic, and this phase of our training concentrated more on flying and less on everything else. Not only were we flying more, we were flying in our biggest airplane yet, the BT-13. It had a retractable cockpit hood and retractable landing gear—wheels, that is. And woe be to the cadet who forgets to pull up his wheels after takeoff. Or even worse—much worse—the cadet who forgets to put down his wheels before landing.
Takeoffs and landings are considered emergencies. Bad things can happen, and when they do, you want to get out of the airplane fast. Hence, the cockpit hood is retracted on takeoffs and landings and closed in flight. After checking out in the BT-13, we decided that we might not be hot pilots as yet, but we were certainly getting warmer. In a month or two, we were completely comfortable at the controls of a BT-13, takeoffs, landings, formation flying, night flying, dogfighting, dive-bombing, acrobatics—we did it all. We were ready to move on, and move on we did.
Next, we went from all the good stuff I listed above—stuff that was genuinely fun for anyone who aspired to go to the fleet as a fighter pilot—to something new and mentally demanding: instrument flying. I was sent to the field at Beeville for my instrument training. At Beeville we flew the SNJ, an even more powerful plane than the BT-13. The SNJ was a trainer that was the next thing to a fighter. In fact, I understand that in some countries not as advanced as the United States in airpower, the SNJ was used as a fighter plane in combat.
In instrument training, the cadet closed a canvas hood over his cockpit, effectively blinding him to anything outside the cockpit. Of course, the instructor in the front cockpit was on the alert for other aircraft and prepared to prevent any catastrophe that the cadet under the hood might otherwise cause. The instruments we used were an airspeed indicator, altimeter, compass, and turn-and-bank indicator. With the turn-and-bank indicator, we could determine whether we were flying straight and level. If we weren’t straight and level, the turn-and-bank indicator would show us which way we were banking and how steeply.
These instruments are very basic and simple, and can serve you very well. However, if a cadet misreads them or fails to give them his full attention while under the canvas hood, these instruments can send the cadet to the Great Lakes, washed out. It happened to many a would-be ace.
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Advanced training was next, and supposedly it was the last hurdle before graduation—more about that a bit later. I went to Waldron Field for advanced, and it was more of the good stuff, including dogfighting, this time flying the SNJ. It was at advanced that I received a compliment I have savored