The Piper Cub to Wales

The Problem

In mid-1943, Ruth's hospital moved from the Polebrook area to the southeast corner of Wales, near the town of Abergavenny. Bob flew down in his P-47 to locate the hospital area—but there was no airport anywhere around. Just a sizeable sheep pasture very close to the hospital compound.

He needed a different solution.

The Airplane

"At this same time, an Army Piper Cub had crash landed near Polebrook and we trucked it onto the base. There was no damage to it save for a shattered prop. I got the engineers to order a new engine and prop to add this machine to my personal fleet of airplanes."

The Cub was perfectly suited for the mission: it could land in a sheep pasture. But it was also about as basic as an aircraft could get.

"You need to know that the Cub was a pretty simple craft. The gas tank was right in front of the windshield and the gauge was a float. There was a magnetic compass, a tach, and an airspeed indicator. That was the total instrument package."

The First Flight: The Map Funnel

Bob loaded a jerry can (5 gallons) of gas in the back seat and took off for Wales. He had an RAF map of the area, but navigation was "solely pilotage"—visual landmarks only.

"Somewhere in southwest England, with my gas indicator getting low, I landed in a grassy strip beside a river to refuel."

That's when he discovered the problem.

"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 which would have solved the problem."

Desperation breeds innovation.

"In desperation, I rolled my map into a funnel shape and managed to get most of the gas in the tank. But I then found that the gas had made my map unusable."

He pulled the propeller through to start the engine (the only starting method available) and took off—now with no map. He found the hospital area, and Ruth, who he had called before leaving Polebrook, was waiting at the edge of the pasture. But a flock of sheep was in the middle.

"Astute person that she was, she drove the sheep down to one end and I landed."

Next day, he returned to Polebrook "with no problem but also no map."

The Second Flight: Solid Fog

The next trip to Wales was uneventful on the way down. But the return was not.

"Shortly after takeoff, I saw fog in the low lying areas and further along, the fog got to be a solid undercast. I was flying at about 2,500 feet and decided to go on until I reckoned I was in the Polebrook area."

"A stupid decision. As far as the eye could see, there was a solid fog bank. I then reversed course and headed back. Night is coming on, I have no parachute and no blind flying instruments. I determined that if I ran out of gas, I would stall the bird onto the ground and hope for the best, like maybe hitting a tree top."

The Blue Light

After full night fell, Bob spotted something through the murk: a faint blue light.

"Shortly after full night was upon me, I spotted a faint blue light, the landing light for an RAF airfield. Going over the field, I could make out a runway and a paved apron in front of a building. I landed on the apron and taxied to the building."

An irate RAF officer came out, demanding to know what Bob thought he was doing parking his airplane in front of the operations building.

"I told him that that wasn't my airplane. I had just presented it to the RAF. All I wanted from him was a ride to the railroad station and we would call it an even swap."

The officer gave him the ride. After a few more hours, Bob arrived at Peterborough, where he got a ride back to Polebrook.

The End of the Cub

That was the last time Bob flew the Piper Cub. He later added that only group commanders or deputies could stable airplanes at the base, and he couldn't recall that Col. Hatcher ever had any interest in personal aircraft.

Bob, on the other hand, maintained what he called his "personal fleet"—at various times including the Cub, a B-17, a P-47, and later a B-26. When Ruth's hospital moved to Bath, there was an airport right outside of town, making visits much easier. He could arrive in any plane he chose.

But the Piper Cub flights to Wales—with the rolled-map funnel, the sheep-clearing landings, and the final fog-bound night flight—remained among his most memorable flying stories. Not for heroism or combat, but for sheer improvisation and the lengths a pilot would go to see "the vision" he'd spotted riding a bicycle at Lilford Hall.