Free The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-1945 by Stephen Ambrose

parachute to safety. “Then for some reason it was just like my instructor was there, telling me, Now just calm down, pull the power back, neutralize the controls, go through your spin recovery procedure.” He did, regained control, and landed without a hitch. “What happened?” Lieutenant Chilton asked. Barmore told him. “He was pretty happy that I had done what he wanted me to.”35 After completing the three months at basic school, McGovern went on to advanced school. It was at that point that his class split, with the men being prepared to become fighter pilots going to one base, the bomber pilots to another.  McGovern went to a twin-engine school at Pampa, Texas, in the Panhandle.  The AAF used a combination of factors to make the selection. First was the current need for fighter and bomber pilots. Then came the aptitude of the student and his physique. Some men were too big for a fighter cockpit. Further, the AAF assigned to twin-engine advanced school all men with the physical capabilities to handle the heavy controls of the bombers. Finally, and hardly used at all in making the selections, was the cadet’s own preference. More men wanted to be fighter pilots, but their numbers exceeded the demand for them.36 Before leaving to go to Texas, the McGoverns had “a little celebration” with the couple living in the next apartment. McGovern wrote Pennington, “Even Eleanor and I got thoroughly drunk. It was Eleanor’s first time and my third. Believe me I’ve never seen anything funnier than Eleanor that night. She swears she’ll never touch another drop, but I had so much fun watching her and listening to her rattle off Norwegian poetry that I’ll probably talk her into it again. She’s just as sweet drunk as she is sober, and much more of a comic.”37 At Pampa, McGovern flew the AT-17 (Advanced Trainer 17) and the AT-9. The AAF had originally developed the AT-9 as a twin-engine combat attack plane, but did not like it and sold it to Mexico. When the war brought about a desperate need for training planes the Air Force bought the AT-9 back.  It was on the AT-9 that McGovern learned to fly with the instruments on a twin-engine plane. He had a gyro that showed the airplane’s attitude, such as nose up or wing down. He learned to fly formation, how to do night flying. He shot landings, setting down, then taking off without cutting the engines or coming to a stop. All kinds of things. He would take off and his instructor would get him to look out the left window and then shut down the engine on the right. McGovern had to recover and get the plane back on the level and flying straight ahead with just one engine. Or coming in for a landing, the instructor would suddenly pull the power on the left engine, producing drag on that side.  He would take the AT-9 away from the field and make McGovern find his way back - he had to remember the terrain sufficiently to get to the airfield.38 In pilotage, navigation techniques involved relating what was on the map to what the pilot saw on the ground. Railroad lines were most helpful - they were called the “iron compass.” The names of small towns on water towers were excellent navigation aids. So were instruments. The trainees learned how to use them on a Link trainer, a small airplane set on a stand that could simulate actual flight.  The inside of the Link was totally dark, except for the lighted instruments.  John Smith recalled learning about vertigo on his Link, and later in real flying. “The semicircular canals in your inner ear are your primary balance mechanism,” he noted. “They are tuned to your eyes and gave you a sense of balance. But if in a Link or a night flight, when your eyes lose their reference points, they can fool you.” If Smith made a turn when he couldn’t see, then returned to a straight and level path, his inner ear would not get the signal and would tell him he was still turning, so “instrument flying requires that you trust your