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"A GATHERING OF EAGLES" By Michael J. Larkin Captain TWA (Retired) Aviation Cadet Class 61 – Foxtrot |
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“HALT, RABBIT!” |
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Are we overhearing a pre-flight aviation cadet being hazed by an upperclassman? No, just a group of ex-aviation cadets, now aged or retired airline pilots and senior military officers, having fun and remembering their days at Lackland, Kelly, Randolph and Brooks AFB, Texas, where they were rudely introduced to the Aviation Cadet flying programs many years ago.
Thanks to the efforts of retired Delta Captain Errol Severe and his very talented wife Beth, approximately one thousand former aviation cadets from the United States Air Force with their wives or guests traveled to San Antonio, Texas on October 15th, 1997, to renew old acquaintances, make new friends, and reminisce about days spent as students from 1917 until 1961.
This was the first time in history that all classes and positions, pilot, navigator, bombardier, and observer were brought together in one place. The Fraternity of the Air! It was truly a moving “window” in time for all who were there. The agony and the ecstasy of learning to fly.
If you are under the age of forty, you are probably asking, “What is (or was) an Aviation Cadet?” Good question. I think I know the answer.
From the first class of flying students in 1917 until the last cadet graduated in 1961, about 350,000 young men were trained by the USAF to be pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and observers. They helped the French and British defeat the Kaiser in World War I. They were the Flying Tigers in China. They defeated Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini in World War II, scored a 16 - 1 kill ratio in Korea against the superior Mig -15, fought the “Cold War” with Mother Russia, fought and died in Viet Nam and the Gulf War. And when not hobbled by politicians, they always won!
Who was this boy/man?
He was an Irish farm kid from Illinois, a Brooklyn second—generation Italian, a German immigrant, a Mississippi sharecropper's son, a California movie star. He was a lumberjack from Minnesota, a rancher from Montana, an oil field roughneck from Texas, a cowboy from Kansas. He had a dream, something in his gut from age 13. “I want to be a fighter pilot. I want to fight for my country! Here’s the deal: I can’t afford to go to college. You teach me how to fly, you pay for the gas, and I’ll risk my butt.”
And woe betide the enemies of America!
And risk they did. A bomber pilot once told me this story. He was an Aircraft Commander flying raids over Schweinfurt, Ploesti, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne and Hamburg. In those days his life expectancy was thirty days.
In one raid, as a leader of the second echelon, the entire first echelon was shot down! He was now the mission commander. Twenty-three years old, growing up very rapidly in the left seat of a B-17! |
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