Read an Excerpt

The Adventures and Misadventures of Ace the Pilot

iUniverse

A Flight with Reverend Bunch

Ace and his family went to church in a small town in Southwest Oklahoma. The preacher, Bob Bunch, lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, and was a pilot. The family went to Wichita Falls one Sunday after church, and Bob took them all for a ride in a small, single-engine, two-seat aircraft. He didn't know what kind it was, but he knew that he loved it. His two older sisters were big enough that they each got separate rides. He and his other sister were small, so they had to share the seat. Ace got the window seat and never forgot the sight of the wheel leaving the ground. He was flying! He wondered, Are we leaving contrails? Was someone's china rattling? Was some other young boy straining his eyes to see them? It didn't matter to him that they were only a few hundred feet up. He was, for that moment in time, in a B-36 at forty leven million feet. All too soon, the flight was over, and he and his family went home. A lifetime memory had been burned into his mind. Reverend Bunch taught Ace at a young age how to pray, much more important than how to fly, and a very handy tool when a pilot finds himself or herself in a situation deplete of altitude, airspeed, and brains at the same time.

Airmail Sunday Morning

Ace lived eight and one half miles out in the country. As the crow flies, it was more like six, but Southwest Oklahoma is laid out like a checkerboard, a result of the 1907 Oklahoma land rush. The state was laid out in sections. A section was one square mile. The new landowners did not want a road through their property, so roads were made along the edges of the sections, thus the checkerboard appearance, and the distance home was measured from Fifteenth Street in town four miles east on Highway 5 then four and a half miles south on a gravel road. Nothing much exciting happened out there till Billy Holly, a hometown pilot, started delivering the Sunday paper. He delivered it by air. Ace was hard to get up in the morning, but on Sunday morning, he was the first one up. He would go to bed on Saturday night, thinking of the delivery of the paper the next morning. At first light, he was out of bed and out on the porch, listening for the sound of the approaching aircraft. He would hear it, then it would appear from the southwest. He would see an arm emerge from the window with paper in hand. He would let go, and the paper would plop down about three feet from the corner of the house, then he would turn, and Ace would watch that plane till it disappeared then go back into the house and begin his wait for the delivery next Sunday.

First Airline Ride

A new era was opening in his life. He had grown up and joined the army. He had had his basic training at Fort Chaffie, Arkansas, had his first army leave back home, and was now going to report to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was going to travel by air from Oklahoma to North Carolina. This was going to be the thrill of his life. It was over three hours in a DC-3. It was a fifty-five-mile trip from Frederick to the airport in Lawton, Oklahoma. The trip was filled with anticipation of the plane ride. When they arrived at the airport, there it sat, a bright shining DC-3 gleaming in the sunlight. Ace could hardly wait to get on board. His seat was just aft of the wing trailing edge. Taxiing was akin to the carnival ride, Tilt-A-Whirl. He liked the Tilt-A-Whirl, so he liked the taxiing. The takeoff run was another thrill. Ace was not expecting the tail to come up first. He thought the plane was starting to cartwheel, and he was going to die right there in front of his parents, but it only came up a few feet, then the whole airplane was off the ground. Ace was caught in a state of stark terror and grand excitement at the same time, a state that would not be matched for many years to come. The flight was fairly uneventful except for the coffee. He was given a cup of coffee, and there was a vibration that caused little balls to form on top of the coffee and roll around on the surface. He spent most of the ride just watching the little balls dance around. The plane landed in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A sergeant was there to meet Ace, and big changes were in store for poor Ace.

Life at Fort Bragg

Ace was assigned to the Twenty-Eighth Artillery, which was based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Twenty-Eighth was deactivated after World War II and had just been reactivated and was to gyro to Germany in November. The officers and Noncoms (NCOs) were transferred from other units, and the enlisted were recruits fresh out of basic training.

The recruits trained hard and played hard and made friends with GIs from all over the country. Ace had made friends with James, a GI from South Carolina. They both got weekend passes, and Ace hitchhiked to South Carolina with James. That was when it was safe to hitchhike and people were glad to pick up GIs. James's family was very hospitable and made Ace feel right at home. James had a little sister about six years old and was fascinated that Ace was from Oklahoma and asked, in typical little girl fashion, if he was an Indian. Ace replied that he was only part Indian. Her eyes widened and very excitedly asked, "Do you eat snakes?" Everyone in the room began laughing uncontrollably. That alone was worth the trip. Too soon, the weekend was over, and it was time to hitchhike back to the sergeants and marching.

What the Heck Is Airborne?

Time passed since Ace had completed his army artillery training, and military life was becoming routine. At one of the many daily formations, the sergeant asked if anyone would like to volunteer for airborne take one step forward. Ace was the first to step forward. The sergeant asked Ace if he had ever jumped from an aircraft. Ace told him that he had not. The sergeant then asked him why he thought he would like it. Ace told him that he did not want to jump out of them. He wanted to fly them. The sergeant laughed and told him that airborne were paratroopers and that they jumped from aircraft. Ace got back in ranks and wondered why the hell anyone in his right mind would jump from a perfectly good aircraft anyway. Remember a couple of months ago, our hero was on a farm in Southwest Oklahoma.

Off to Germany

The day finally came when the CQ came through the barracks, screaming at the top of his voice to roll out and pack bags. Ace and about a thousand other GIs rolled out of their bunks and started packing all they owned or what the government had issued them into their duffel bags. They put on their dress greens and fell out on to the parade field. What a sharp-looking bunch of soldiers. They were then loaded in busses, not trucks, but in real busses. The gyro had started. The Twenty-Eighth Artillery Battalion was under way to relieve the Fourteenth Artillery battalion in Bad Kissingen, Germany. They took the busses to the train station and the train to New York City. Ace had never been to New York City and was very excited, but he had never ridden a train before either. The big deal was the dining car with linen tablecloths and flatware that shone like new money. After dinner, he returned to the berth. The beds had been turned down. This was real service. He thought he could ride trains the rest of his life and crawled into the bed and went to sleep to the sound of the steel wheels rolling over the tracks. The next morning came, and the yelling started again. They were herded off the train, through processing, and onto the ship. Now Ace was beginning to understand how the cattle must have felt when he was herding them to a different pasture back home in Oklahoma. The only thing missing was the whips. Funny that seemed so long ago in another world, another life.

On board the ship, the USS Simon B. Buckner, after they had been herded about three decks down into a big dark room, they were told to put their duffel bags in a chained-off area and find a bunk. The good life was over! The bunks were frames made with one-inch steel pipe hinged to an upright H beam and a chain welded to the outside corner and welded to the H beam just below the hinge on the bunk above. The pipe frame was about six and a half feet long by about two feet wide and about a foot and a half below the one above it with canvas stretched over it. It was a very cramped quarters. When Ace wanted to turn over, he had to get out of his bunk and get back in on his back or belly, whichever he wanted to lay on.

The trip took two weeks, Ace didn't show up on any duty roster, so he was free to roam the ship and be bored all day. One day he had a conversation with a crew member. He told Ace that this would be the last voyage of Buckner, that as soon as it got back, it was going into drydock to be scrapped because the bottom was so rusty they could not repair it. What a comfort to tell a young recruit. He had not thought about the condition of the ship till now! The last day of the voyage, there was a thunderstorm going on when they passed through the English Channel. Just my luck, he thought. The only time there is something to see, the White Cliffs of Dover, you can't see them. They arrived at Bremerhaven. Again, they were herded onto the train. This time, it wasn't so far, and the ride was only a few hours. The busses were waiting to take them on post. The train and busses were not as plush as the ones in the States, but Germany was still recovering from the war.

When they arrived on post, the band was playing, and the Fourteenth was on the parade field in front of the barracks and saluted the busses and then marched to the other side of the parade field, then the Twenty-Eighth unloaded and fell into formation where the Fourteenth had been, came to attention, did an about-face and a hand salute to the Fourteenth, another about-face, and filed into their new home for the coming years. Their part of the gyro was over. The Fourteenth had just started.

First Ride in a Chopper

Ace always had his eye on the sky and looked for an opportunity get up in it. As it would happen, there was a helicopter based at the army post where Ace was stationed. It flew the east West German border every day, but on Sunday, if you showed up in uniform, you could ride. Let the fun begin! There were a bunch of things Ace was not expecting. After the engine started, the blades started to slowly rotate, and the whole body of the helicopter started to gyrate. Ace thought the tips were going to hit the ground, worse yet, the whole thing would separate, and they would all be killed. There were fourteen aboard. However, as the blades increased in speed, the gyrations slowed and stabilized; and just like that, they lifted off and the nose went down. We are going to die. But the chopper was going up. How could this be? He looked through the cockpit windscreen, and for crying out loud, they were headed straight for the Bismarck Monument. We are going to die for sure this time! These pilots had to be communists and had kidnapped the real pilots and were on a mission to kill us all, but then we were turning, and the German landscape opened up beneath us, and all fear went away. We were flying, and everything was beautiful. Ace knew that his place was in the sky.

They had been told before takeoff that they would be making a fuel stop at the airport, and it went without incident. As they were flying the border, Ace wondered how the border had been determined. It was as if someone had shattered a pane of glass and put all the pieces together again over a map of Germany and traced one fractured line across Germany and said this is the line that separates East from West. The border itself was about one hundred yards wide with all vegetation removed, and the ground had been plowed so that footprints would be revealed in the loose soil. In the middle, there was a tall fence of barbed wire and rolls of barbed wire on the side belonging to the East. It was a fence designed to keep the East German People in the East. It had been rumored that there were even land mines. There were guard towers at every turn so that every inch of the border was watched day and night A sad but true part of our worlds History.

However our friend Ace was loving every minute of the flight. He looked at the fence and the guards in their towers, who would stand facing the helicopter with their rifles across their chest. Ace wondered what would happen if he would wave to one of the guards. At the next tower he stuck his arm out the window and waved, not knowing what to expect, half way expecting to be shot but to the surprise him and the other solders on board he put his rifle aside and returned a hearty wave. Everyone cheered and they flew on. Another in his short list, so far, of aviation adventures.

Guarding an L-19

Another part of military life is the dreaded "guard duty". Everyone had to pull it and nobody liked it. This time Ace had been assigned to the air strip. This was great! He was guarding real air planes. There was no one around, so he could walk around them, even touch them. He finally actually got into one of them. In his mind, for nearly two hours, he was flying. He had two more two-hour shifts, each of which was spent in the L19. It was a small single-engine aircraft with canvas doors, but for those times that Ace was in them, they were everything from fighters to airlines. He knew that he had to be a pilot.

Lufthansa to NY and Midair

Ace had been in the army for over a year by now and had earned a thirty-day leave He planned to go home for Christmas and had told no one back home he was coming. He had been saving, via U.S. Savings, bonds for the trip the whole time he had been in Germany. He traveled to Frankfurt by train. This train stopped anywhere someone wanted to get on. It didn't matter. He was going home. When he arrived at Frankfurt, he had some time to kill, so he went to a bar for a drink. While he was relaxing from the train ride and looking forward to the plane ride, he saw a pretty girl get up on a stage. When the music started, she took off her top! This was the first time he had been to a topless bar. He had never even heard of one. It was a new thing in the late fifties.

It was a short taxi ride to the airport. He picked up his boarding pass and look through the window, for there was the biggest plane in the world, a Boeing 707. Ace was awestruck. It was huge and beautiful and had only been in service for about a year. He had never even seen one, and now he was waiting to ride in one. Incredible! He was assigned, to his delight, a window seat.

---

Excerpted from The Adventures and Misadventures of Ace the Pilot by Butch Childers. Copyright © 2014 Butch Childers. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---