Morning Reports

A Boyhood in Ecru

"The day the power was turned on, I recall my Dad gathering us three boys and telling each of [us] to turn the wall switch on and off about ten times."

The night the lights came to town, a country-doctor father with "no one to talk to," and the Halloween the boys greased the rails out of town.

Eighty Bucks a Month

"My salary was 80 bucks a month… [the principal] had been in the business about 12, 14 years… And his salary was $120 a month."

He became a pilot because teaching paid $80 a month — the unromantic origin of a romantic career.

The Night of the Premiere

"My first night after leaving Ecru was in Atlanta which was agog with the premier of 'Gone with The Wind' with Gable and the rest of the cast in town."

A nobody lieutenant passes through Gable's biggest night — four years before flying a combat mission with him.

Galapagos Patrols: Navigation by Whitecaps

"The streaks gave you a wind indication but the size of the white caps gave a close idea of the wind velocity... Crude as this methodology was, to my knowledge, only one crew missed landfall and was not heard of again."

7-8 hour flights each way. No navigators. No radio aids on the island. Just time, distance, and reading the ocean surface at 1,500 feet.

The Perfect Navigation

"When my watch came to the minute, I signaled that we were there. With this, the pilot rolled into a 90 degree bank and, lo and behold, the base was directly under us."

Navigation by stopwatch in a converted DC-3. The moment that made Bob the squadron adjutant.

The Shirts in the Hatch

"I reached behind me and as I brought the shirt toward me, it got sucked right out of my hand. Hicks simply reached back and got my shirt and tossed it out the hatch."

Target-towing for the Coast Artillery at 1,500 feet. Hot sun. No shirts. One very decisive squadron commander.

Pearl Harbor at Howard Field

"The base duty officer came in and told me to get moving, that the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor and that we were at war."

Alone at Howard Field. Six B-17Bs. All night loading bombs and ammunition. The attack that never came — but the patrols that went on for months.

Motorcycle Crash in Guatemala

"I have no idea what triggered it, but I was suddenly aware that the cycle was in a vicious shuddering in the front wheel. Immediately, I was thrown off and slid down the road, face first."

Harley from a Guatemalan colonel. Violent front-wheel shudder. Face-first onto gravel. Flew the Galapagos route with his face not quite right.

The '39 Ford: First Car, First Command

"It was '39 Ford convertible with every extra that could be added, which was a radio, white sidewall tires and a deluxe steering wheel. This cost me $685 of which I had to borrow the whole amount from a bank in San Antonio."

Arabian Sand paint. 28 miles of paved road on the Atlantic side. Three army posts, one Navy base, five movie theaters. "I did long for the open road."

Flight Officer Comfort: 8 Hours Hand-Flying

"I asked Comfort if he knew how to fly on instruments. His response was that he reckoned that he couldn't. That he had had no training for it. So I told him to lie back in his seat and enjoy his ride to England."

Autopilot failed. Copilot couldn't fly instruments. Bob hand-flew the Atlantic for eight hours through the night.

Three Engines Over a Lake

"As I neared going into the lake, I eased the nose back a trifle and there was just a smidge of lift. I nursed the plane for what seemed like an eternity until I could get enough airspeed to start a climb."

Propeller failure. Should have diverted to Wright-Patterson. Instead: three-engine takeoff, full fuel, nearly into Lake Huron.

Meeting Willie Hatcher

Forming the 351st Bomb Group. Lt. Col. Hatcher, Bob Bowles, Ross Milton (later 4-star). Six B-17s on the ramp.

The Thomason Act: Becoming a Regular

Tried to resign for Eastern Airlines. National emergency declared. The 4-hour exam. One of 30 selected nationwide for regular commission.

New Year's Eve at Biggs Field

"I discovered that I had brought my gas mask along instead of the oxygen mask. We finished the mission but I didn't get above 16,000 feet."

Clark Gable was in the Officers Club. Bob had a flight at midnight. He did not get a snoot full again when he had a flight scheduled.

Heroic Beyond All Reason

"You got to salute those guys… They were absolutely heroic beyond all reason. But… loss of life that really just shouldn't have happened."

A burning Fortress flown home by men who weren't pilots, a dying captain they would not leave, and the rescue Bob led from the air.

Recognition Training in the Latrines

"Fraudulent to some degree," he admitted—and chose it as his prime example of integrity.

Ordered to log aircraft-recognition training while flying combat round the clock, Bob tacked silhouettes in every latrine and reported the arithmetic. On "acting as God."

"I Didn't Need That Kind of Exposure"

"I could see four or five flares having been dropped from their pathfinder boards… they could hit my hotel room, any one of them."

He'd fly into the flak over Berlin, but he stopped taking leave in London — and his reason is pure Bob.

First Mission: Emden

"There was a little flak, and I recall my indignation when fighters kept making passes at us, even after we were back over the water. I suppose that I felt that they had had a fair shot at us and ought to have left us alone."

Hatcher aborted the group's first mission. Bob led the second. Fell asleep in his chair at debrief; woke hours later in his bed.

D-Day from a Hospital Bed

"They put me in the hospital and I was there when D-Day occurred. I called my deputy at Polebrook for an airplane to get me back to the base and I did my recovery there."

A terrible cold. The biggest day of the war. He called for a plane and flew missions anyway.

Irving Berlin in London

"Irvin Berlin staged a show in a London theater featuring all his music pertaining to the Army. I got tickets and Ruth came over to London. We saw the show, which was my first Broadway production."

Then dinner at Maxim's Chinese restaurant. A night away from everything.

Seeing the Vision: Meeting Ruth

"I went over one afternoon to see them and while I was talking to one of their people, I saw this vision come riding by on her bike. I think she stopped for a minute or so and I knew then that I wanted to see her again."

Ruth Josephine Blackburn, Army nurse, 160th Station Hospital. A chance encounter that changed everything.

The Piper Cub to Wales

"I immediately found out that the gas tank filler cap was so close to the windshield, that I couldn't pour the gas. And I had no funnel."

No airport near Ruth's hospital. Sheep pasture landing. Used a rolled RAF map as a fuel funnel. Flew home blind in fog, gave the plane to the RAF, took the train back.

Schweinfurt: The String on the Wall

"On a wall map of Europe, I cut a string to equate the distance. I swung it from a point on the coast of England in a big arc across the continent and it only passed directly over one city, Schweinfurt."

~360 aircraft. ~30 shot down. Bob deduced the secret target before the briefing.

Polebrook, the 351st, and a Movie Star

Bob's own account, written for a 1999 Mississippi veterans collection. Clark Gable in the group, the Nantes mission, command of the 351st — and the war's biggest disappointment.

"I was pretty indignant about this, at the time; and as a matter of fact, I still am. I'm happy to get that off my chest."

Nantes: The Silver Star

"Out of the murk came about twenty or so fighters in formation headed directly at us. The closing speed was so great that neither I nor Gable had time to fire a shot and the fighter force was in the same boat."

Clark Gable's last mission. Division lead with only two groups. 90-degree turn into sea haze. Silver Star awarded.

P-47 with Ruth on His Lap

Hospital called: urgent orders to move to continent. Single-seat fighter. Ruth sat facing right. "Awkward reach for the stick."

Ice Cream at 18,000 Feet

Mix from powdered eggs. Fly to altitude to freeze. Weekly scotch runs to Scotland. "The staff officers' mess was the finest in the UK."

Tail End Charlie

"I decreed that from now on, he would be scheduled on every mission his squadron flew but his position was 'tail end Charlie.' He could finish his tour with one more completed mission or he could abort without significant loss to the formation."

The Runway Measurer

"He got the foot ruler all right but he nailed it on the end of a four-foot pole and walked the length of the runway, whistling 'The Star Spangled Banner.'"

Norway: Seeing Neutral Sweden

German heavy water plant. Flew at 2,500 feet to avoid radar. Saw neutral Sweden: "how nice it would have been to land there."

The Last Mission: Berlin

Wing commander: "You're being relieved." Longest in theater. Pentagon colonels needed combat experience. War over for Bob.

Paris Reunion

Found agency tracking organizations. Ruth's hospital en route to Amiens. Rail pass. MP drove him to hospital. One last day together.

Greece: The Sea Bass and the CIA's Sports Car

"I raised my gun to shoot and then the thought hit me that this creature could tow me and my gun out to sea… so I swam back to shore."

A maid crying "Klepsi-klepsi," a sea bass he thought better of, a Vespa from Rome, and a TR2 the local CIA flew in by C-54.

The Pueblo Call

"He then said for me to get it there post haste because I was to leave… the next morning for South Korea."

A leave shattered by an after-dinner phone call, an overnight flight to Korea, a dinner with the Chiangs, and an exit by commissioning his own son at West Point.

The Gearhead General

"The missing anti-freeze had burned and effectively glued the pistons to the cylinder walls."

A Triumph that cooked itself across three states, an Austin Healey that lost the family convoy, and a motorcycle ride around the whole country at sixty-four.

The Enola Gay's Pilot

"Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay… was leaving. I met him and he was glad to recommend me… and I got that job."

A flier stuck running base libraries and hobby shops, rescued from the desk he hated by the most famous pilot of the war.

The Brainchild

"Since this had been my brainchild, I was given the command of the 73rd Air Division with my headquarters at Tyndall."

He proposed the reorganization, the idea was bought, and they gave him the division it created — and his first star.

Grounded

"An episode while I was jogging that the medics… determined was some degree of a heart attack… they were going to ground me."

He could have served four more years. A flier who couldn't fly saw no allure in it — so he retired, on his own terms.

The Screwdriver

"Sue was lying on the shelf above the rear seat… and had the blade [of a screwdriver] in her mouth. I was petrified."

The rank stripped off the man: a young father one lane over, helpless, watching the danger his daughter was in.

The Waffle House

"This morning I woke with a sensation of wanting to revisit the Waffle House… the prospects of a shower didn't dismay me nearly as much as has been the case."

The man of 7,451 hours, measuring a good day by breakfast and a bearable shower — from near the very end.

Thornton Wilder at the Cadillac Hotel

Roommates at rest facility. Conversations influenced "The Ides of March." Four letters exchanged 1945–1946.

Greenwich Wedding

Ruth landed at Dover. New York marriage laws. Drove to Connecticut. Found Justice of Peace. "Set up housekeeping" at Mitchel Field.

Rom Puryear: The Co-Boss

"For the first time in my military service, I worked for a boss with whom I felt to be truly a co-boss." Full credit for Bob's B/Gen promotion.

The Missile Crisis at Tyndall

"Tyndall's role in that operation was essentially to provide a support facility for an army unit which was there on standby." The Cuban Missile Crisis from a Florida air-defense division.

Pakistan: The Paper and the Posting

A graduate-school paper on a country he "barely knew where" foreshadowed his posting as MAAG chief — and President Ayub Khan's warning before the 1965 war.

The Grand Ole Opry Tour

"The easiest of the group to get along with were Hank Williams and Rod Brassfield, a comic. But I did get them back to Nashville with no bloodshed."

Pentagon Special Services. Three weeks. Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Rod Brassfield. Thanksgiving on American bases in Europe.

T-39 Cross-Country: 41,000 Feet Non-Stop

Climbed to 41,000 feet. Aide constantly calculating fuel. Steep descent flamed out engine. Landed with just enough to taxi.