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Jack Cook continues his story of flying the B-24 during World War II.

Part II, Training Continues and then Overseas

After completing the cadet program, I was sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico for transition training in the B-24. This occurred in June and July of 1944. We trained almost daily and received classroom instruction on the various systems of the aircraft, as well as flight instruction on the flight characteristics. As I recall we concentrated on landings, takeoffs, emergency procedures and formation flying, in the daytime and at night. The temperatures were high that time of year, and we became conscious of the effect heat had on the flight characteristics of the aircraft.

My wife, Lillian, accompanied me to Albuquerque and we found a motel that had a small kitchen included. This was before the days of air conditioning. This was our first experience of living together as husband and wife. Rationing was the norm during wartime and Lillian's mother had thoughtfully provided some "meat stamps" so we could buy meat. My memory is not firm on this, but I don't think poultry and fish were rationed. I recall once when Lillian was preparing supper, she had opened a can of peas and was cooking them on the small stove. She was salting the peas with a salt shaker, and after a while I spoke up and said "I think you have salted those peas enough." Without saying a word she unscrewed the cap of the salt shaker and poured all the salt into the peas. I may be somewhat dense about the ways of women, but I realized I made the wrong remark. I ate the peas without comment, and have never made any further suggestions about her cooking methods. We have now been married over 52 years.

As I recall, the B-24 training required about 10 or 12 weeks. At the end of the duty at Albuquerque, I was assigned to RTU training at Tonopah, Nevada. Lillian returned to Kansas City and continued to live with her parents. RTU training was where I met my crew, and we started training as a unit. My co-pilot, bombardier and navigator and I lived on base in bachelor officer's quarters, and spent time together, off duty, as well as on duty to become better acquainted. The wives of the co-pilot and navigator arrived shortly after, and found places to stay in Tonopah, so those two moved out. It turned out my bombardier was a "party animal" and also had a drinking problem. He would drink anything. I recall one instance he had consumed some doubtful beverage and in a couple of days his skin erupted with dozens of large boils. He could tend the ones on the front part of his body, but couldn't reach those on his back. He pleaded with me to "pop" those on his back, and I reluctantly did so. In so many words I told him the booze would kill him if he didn't mend his ways. As far as I know, he is still living and still drinking.

The RTU training was focused on getting the crew members to function as a team. Each day we had classroom instruction in our various specialties for half the day, and then we would fly a half day and practice what we had learned in class. We had numerous practice bombing missions, cross country navigation missions, gunnery missions, and formation flying missions. We had practiced emergency situations, and any situation that required participation of all crew members.

During our 12-week RTU training phase, our class lost five crews to accidents. Two went down at night, two had a mid-air collision during formation practice and one went during daytime. I witnessed the daytime crash and called the information in to the airport. We were flying at the time, and were about 10 miles from the airport when I saw a black cloud of smoke erupting from the desert floor. There was no question as to the cause. A sad part of that accident was the instructor pilot aboard had just returned from a tour of duty in a combat area. It was tragic for all the crew members, but I thought ironic for the instructor since he had just returned from considerably more hazardous conditions.

There is a story to tell about one of the night accidents. This particular day, our crew was assigned a ground strafing practice mission. A range had been established 20 or 30 miles south of the airport, and the procedure was to fly low over the range and allow the gunners to fire at various targets along the range. We would usually circle and make several passes before all the gunners had expended their ammunition. On one pass I noticed a loss of manifold pressure on the left outboard engine. Since we had plenty of speed, there was no major problem. We feathered the engine, climbed to altitude and returned to base. On landing, the old veteran crew chief asked the problem, and I explained what had happened. He started the engine, checked it out and said it was OK. We took off again, returned to the firing range, made a couple of passes, and the engine quit again. This time I re-started the engine in flight and it ran OK for about 20 minutes and quit again. Since we were nearing the end of our mission we returned to base. I made notations about the engine problems in the aircraft log, and left. That evening another crew assigned to that aircraft crashed on takeoff. Three survived. The left outboard engine failed causing the crash. I still have bits of that wreckage as a reminded of what could have been prevented. But that's another story.

The next day we reported to the flight line for duty. All the officers were assembled in the ready room awaiting assignments for the day's missions. The flight instructors were standing to one side in the front of the room and the operations officer was reading the assignments. At the conclusion of his remarks, the chief instructor, a captain, asked if there were any questions or comments. I raised my hand. The captain recognized me and asked what my question was. I stood up and related my experiences with the airplane the previous day, and then stated that the same airplane had crashed on takeoff the previous night resulting in several fatalities. I asserted that the maintenance personnel had not properly determined the cause of the engine failure and that I would refuse to fly until proper maintenance was provided. There was a long silence in the room. The captain asked, "Does anyone else feel this way?" Another pilot stood up. Then another, and pretty soon all the pilots were standing. The captain made a couple of phone calls then we were dismissed and told to report to our afternoon classes. We attended ground school for two days while extra maintenance was performed on the aircraft. To my knowledge no pilot was ever questioned about the condition of an aircraft after that incident.

The wives of my co-pilot and navigator wanted me to send for my wife, Lillian, but I kept saying there was no place to live in Tonopah. They kept insisting and I finally said, "OK, if you can find a place for us to live, I will send for her." This became their personal challenge and in a couple of days they found a place. So I had to send for Lillian. I decided to play a trick on my officers. We four were having lunch at the mess hall when I announced that since Lillian was coming, they might as well know she was six months pregnant. My navigator was somewhat of a prude, and he dropped his fork when I said that. My co-pilot and bombardier had no reactions whatsoever. Bear in mind we had been married three months at this time.

The day came for Lillian's arrival in Tonopah. We were flying, so arrangements were made that the two wives of the navigator and co-pilot would meet her at the bus depot. Lillian later told me that she was most impressed by the solicitous attitude of these women. They insistent they carry her luggage, and asked if she were comfortable, etc., and drove her to our living quarters in Tonopah. After helping her get "settled", they departed.

Our new living quarters were one unit of an eight -unit "motel". There was dirt trail as a front street, and the bathroom was an outhouse in back. Heating was by a coal burning stove and the coal was out back. A bucket and scoop was furnished. A small sink with a cold water tap, and a two-burner hot plate completed the kitchen. The lady manager of the establishment always kept her eye on the light meter and if Lillian used her electric iron the lady would promptly knock on the door and demand she stop using it. I later suspected that four of the units were rented out to GI's, and the other four were used by "ladies of the night" for other purposes. I am sure the manager, or madam, was convinced she was doing the proper thing to support the war effort by allowing a few GI's to pay exorbitant rent to live there.

The evening of Lillian's arrival, we three couples got together at the navigator's place for a social gathering. The navigator, Harry Phillips, and his wife Elsa, were living in a converted garage and it was by far the roomiest and most deluxe compared to what the rest of us had. During conversation that evening it was discovered that Lillian was not pregnant, and for a few minutes I had a great laugh. When Lillian expressed her opinion of what I had done, my laughter faded. I can't attribute her later actions to that incident, but I can home late one night after flying and found the door locked. She would not respond to my knocking and I finally had to force a window open and crawl through it. The path to a happy marriage is not always easy.

Toward the end of our training at Tonopah, we were flying a local mission and time hung heavy on our hands. My co-pilot, "Rick" Giannarelli, said, "Let's buzz Tonopah." I replied, "No way." Then I said, "Rick, if we are caught, my rear end will be in big trouble." As the pilot I knew who would be held responsible. After several minutes, Rick said, "Come on, Cook, let's buzz the town." I thought about it for awhile and finally said, "OK, but we will do it right."

Tonopah was an old mining town and had a couple of active mines when we were there. Three tipples, or super structures, were standing above these mines, and they were placed along the route I intended to fly. A two-land highway ran generally north and south through the town, with small hills on the south edge of town and a large open valley to the north. I explained to Rick, and the crew, that we would use the hills south of town to mask our approach, buzz the town, and depart to the north. In theory, we would be over the town and gone before anyone realized what had happened. And that is what we did. As we rounded the hills south of town I had to "rock" the wings to stay clear of the tops, and as we flew over the town, I had to "rock" the wings to clear the mining tipples. We were really low, and going as fast as a B-24 would go, about 200 miles an hour.

The crew was excited and thoroughly "turned on" by the buzz job. I knew if word leaked out, I would be in serious trouble, so I extracted a solemn promise from each that they would tell no one, not even their wives. A couple of days later we repeated the exercise only this time we approached from the north and exited to the south. After we landed and returned to the ready room, a large notation had been chalked on the blackboard, "There will be no further buzzing of the town of Tonopah." We had obviously escaped detection and this was a warning to whomever the guilty party might be. Later that evening we three couples, consisting of the navigator, co-pilot, myself, and our wives, were eating at a local Chinese restaurant, when one of the wives said, "An airplane flew over real low today and nearly scared me out of my wits." This sparked some excited conversation among the wives because they all heard, or saw, the plane, and finally my wife turned to me and said, "That was you, wasn't it?" I denied it, of course.

On completion of our training at Tonopah, we were shipped by rail to Hamilton Field near San Francisco. The wife of the navigator, Elsa Phillips, drove the wives in the Phillips' car, a Studebaker coupe, and we all reunited in the town of San Rafael, California. We and the Phillips, shared a motel "suite." The Phillips took the bedroom, and Lillian and I slept on a twin bed in the "living room". I recall clearly one night I awoke with the knowledge that a mouse was chewing on my hair. I was on my back, and in one mother I raised up, turned my body, and swatted the mouse against the wall with my right hand. This awakened Lillian, and soon we were all up, looking for the mouse. We had an empty glass milk bottle (they aren't used anymore), and I placed it on its side near a baseboard, and herded the mouse into the bottle. Elsa was amazed that I knew the mouse would run into the bottle. We flushed the unfortunate mouse down the toilet and returned to bed.

To celebrate Lillian's birthday, November 22, 1944, we had dinner at the "Top of the Mark" at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. I remember it due to the size of the bill, and Lillian remembers it as a most delightful and romantic evening. The view from the "Top" was most impressive.

During our short stay at Hamilton field we were issued additional items of clothing and equipment for use in the Pacific Theater. And we were given last-minute physical exams and inoculated for various diseases we could encounter. We were finally notified our departure date was December 7, 1944. After all our training, this was the moment we faced with some trepidation.

We were put aboard a C-54, along with an assortment of cargo, and flown to Lae, New Guinea with stops at Hawaii and a couple of other places I have since forgotten. Our elapsed time from San Francisco to Lae was 47 hours. Lae was used as an indoctrination facility for new arrivals in the Pacific Theater and we attended several classes on jungle survival and survival at sea. During our stay at Lae, we flew our first combat mission by bombing the port of Rabaul. This was an "indoctrination" mission so as to give us an idea what later missions would be like. The Japanese still held Rabaul, although they were cut off from further supplies by our air and sea forces, but they were able to fire a number of rounds of anti-aircraft shells at us. This was our first experience in combat.

During an idle day while at Lae, my co-pilot "Rick" persuaded me to go with him and explore some of the jungle outside our camp. We strapped on our canteens, machetes and .45 caliber pistols and started along a native trail. The trail soon disappeared in the undergrowth and we were wading through various plants and rotten vegetation. We came upon a small clearing, about 15 feet across, and in the middle of the clearing was a hooded cobra. The snake was coiled with it's head pointed in our direction. We stopped and considered a few options when Rick pulled out his .45 and said, "I'll blow it's head off." Rick emptied his pistol, at practically point-blank range, and never hit the snake. It was now my turn. I also emptied my pistol and never hit the snake. Rick used his machete and cut the snake to pieces. We proceeded down the trail.

We soon found ourselves in a ravine with trees and undergrowth covering the sides. When it started to raid. I said to Rick, "This ravine could fill up with water, so we had better climb to higher ground." The slope was slippery and we had to grab shrubs and small trees to make progress up the slope, and one of the limbs I grabbed was the home of a large hornet's nest. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. We were being stung one very exposed part of our bodies by swarms of angry hornets. We ran as fast as we could and finally got out of their territory.

Now comes the interesting part. The next morning my hands and face were swollen. My fingers looked like large sausages and I could hardly flex them. My eyes were swollen almost completely shut. And this was the day we were to fly our mission over Rabaul. We attended the briefing and proceeded to our assigned aircraft. There was a certain apprehension amongst the crew about a real bombing mission, and my crew had the added uncertainty of flying with a pilot who displayed certain unusual characteristics. I briefed Rick as to my limitations, and relied on him to "stay with me" on the controls in case I got into a situation I couldn't handle. As it turned out, we had no major problems, and we flew the mission without incident. We never went into the jungle again.

On return from the mission, it was the custom for each crew member to receive a two-once shot of "medicinal" whiskey. I suppose this was to calm our nerves and erase the jitters of combat. I had never drank whiskey in any form prior to this, and I was the first in line. All the crew was watching as I downed the whiskey. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and my throat constricted, but I pretended it was really great. Such is the price of being the crew leader.

© 1996-2005 by A. J. Cockrell
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