Tumult in the Clouds by James Goodson

Author:James Goodson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405925525
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Millie

But there were the others. Some had natural flair; some had to make it the hard way. That was Millie’s way. It started way back in Malvern, Iowa, where his father’s heavy drinking and Irish temper kept the family desperately poor. College was out of the question. Millie had to work to support the family. What free time he had he spent developing his talents for baseball, which he studied with the same intensity he later brought to flying; because flying was what he was determined to do. Probably no one ever aspired to become a pilot with more strikes against him than Willard W. Millikan. All he had was iron determination. He gradually overcame every obstacle through enormous personal sacrifice. One of the last hurdles to be overcome before he could qualify as an aviation cadet was the expense of dental work to repair the damage done during fist fights with his father, and in the ball games of those rough days. He had to borrow $350 to get his teeth fixed, but the worry of paying back the money, and Millie’s own intensity, made him another victim of Lindbergh Field’s elimination process. Like Peterson before him, Millie was washed out for ‘lack of inherent flying ability’. He headed straight for Canada and the RCAF. Again through sheer determination, he got his wings, but his instructor recommended that he become a ferry pilot, since he would certainly kill himself as a fighter pilot.

At first it looked as if Lindbergh Field and the RCAF instructor had been right. Millie flew fifty-two missions before he made his first kill; but during those missions, he was probably the most effective and reliable wingman in the squadron. Only one or two of Millie’s fifteen victories were scored while we were flying P-47’s, but he was always around. I remember an early mission to Kiel, which brought home to me again the dependability of the P-47. It also showed something of the dependability of Millikan.

The bombers were hitting the German U-boat and naval base. As usual, we were giving them close escort over the target area. Suddenly the heavy flak opened up, and almost immediately there were black woolly clouds with bright flashes in them floating by. One hit my engine, rocking the plane and filling the cockpit with the acrid smell of cordite. I heard the crump. Black oil hit the windscreen and I started losing power. Fortunately I was at 25,000 feet and already heading for home. I followed the Kiel Canal to the coast of Schleswig-Holstein and had to face the miles of North Sea. I was still at 20,000 feet, but I saw the cylinder-head temperature gauge had gone up to the red danger point. I remembered how Blakeslee’s plane had made it back to Manston covered with oil. I also remembered that a rich fuel mixture made an engine run cool. On the instrument panel was a primer level which we used to pump a squirt of straight fuel into the cylinder for starting.

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