The production of the naval aviator, regular and reserve, is the work of the great training station at sol Pensacola, Florida. Here the energy, persistence, and inspired faith of a few Navy officers as developed from an antiquated navy yard a plant second to none for the winnowing of the chaff from the grain; the elimination of those who won't do, no matter how enthusiastic they may be, from those who can, by patient effort of instructors, be developed into dependable, competent naval aviators. The Naval Air Station, Pensacola, is not the sole source of the naval aviator in reserve, but it is the ambition of naval aviation to have all its reserve Navy trained. This not only means trained in Navy air tactics and strategy, but indoctrinated in Navy ways of thought, Navy flying discipline and its customs and usages. Indoctrination points to completing the transformation of the civilian into the officer of the Navy in reserve.
Commercial aviators of high civil standing and of long experience are taken into the volunteer Reserve of the Navy. Some of these commercial fliers whose qualifications are exceptional have earned a place in the Reserve Squadrons, but only after two arduous 15-day training periods covering a total of ninety hours of military flying and a satisfactory demonstration to a board of aviators of their ability. With these exceptions, and they are not numerous, the finished product passes through the mill that grinds so thoroughly and considerately at Pensacola, Florida.
The distinction between the crack commercial flier and the naval aviator is knowledge of aerial tactics and marksmanship and a thorough indoctrination in ground and air discipline. All Navy trained aviators must not only be masters of land and seaplanes but capable of employing this knowledge in the accomplishment of naval air missions.
There is no substantial difference in the training of regular and reserve in Pensacola. Officers and enlisted men of the Navy and Marine Corps and their reserves follow the same routine, the only difference being that the reservist is given a course in navigation such as will qualify him to pass the ensign's professional examination and is taught something of Navy regulations, administration, usages, and customs. This latter is to make him feel at home with the regular officers, to get him in step, and avoid petty embarrassments ashore and aboard ship.
Admittedly, one qualified naval aviator is costly. Let us follow the training of one Jimmy Jones, a young man whom we met last summer as squadron commander of VN-XYZ during the 2-week training period. His case is typical of that of many other competent reserve aviators who today are paying interest on the $20,000 invested in their training by their conscientious effort to maintain themselves in a state of readiness for immediate call to active service.
Jimmy Jones went from high school to Princeton. There he became air-minded and took the ground-school course in aeronautics. When he graduated he made application to the commandant of his naval district for the course in naval aviation. In a short time Jimmy was authorized to present himself at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, for physical examination. Duly he did put in appearance, was examines, and found bodily sound, and then went before a board of flying officers who sized him up and liked him. These matters being settled he was told to go home and await further developments. The local board works only in an advisory capacity for the commandant of the naval district, final decision upon an applicant’s case being taken by the Navy Department in Washington. In due time he received a letter from the Bureau of Navigation authorizing James Jones to enlist in the Naval Reserve. When he reported at the aircraft factory in the navy yard he was put through a simple routine, concluding with an instruction to hold up his right hand and sign on the dotted line. When these formalities were over he was a seaman second class in the U. S. Naval Reserve. Then came his orders to the Air Base at Squantum, Massachusetts. There he found a dozen other college men and was put through a course of primary aerial sprouts in training seaplanes to determine his aptitude and liking for flying. Elimination was going on, though Jimmy did not know it until one morning his name was included in a list of four neophites who were selected for the course in flying at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola.
When he reached Pensacola, he was allowed a few days in which to familiarize himself with the scene of his future labors. He soon became accustomed to the morning symphony of Pensacola—the thunder of eighty planes warming up for the day’s duty. As the other members of his class, representing the principal colleges in the States, reported in, he found among them men he had met on baseball and football fields during his Princeton days—Yale men, Dartmouth men, men from Northwestern, and from the far west, representing Stanford, California, and Washington. He drew his flight gear and was introduced to his instructors. He interviewed the paymaster and was placed on the rolls at $45 per month.
He took his final physical examination. Having been twice examined already in his efforts to become a naval aviator, he approached the examination room with a feeling of slight boredom. He was not prepared for what happened. The doctors did things to Jimmy. They put him through a series of stunts to test his muscle co-ordination. They spun him in the Barany chair. They tested him for self-balancing, and then in a darkened room put him through a rigid eye test. From this experience Jimmy emerged slightly confused, a little dizzy, but with a triumphant smile, for he had passed.
While waiting for his classmates to be put through a similar ordeal, he had opportunity of looking over the station. He wandered through the hangars on the water front. He watched the maneuvers of the morning classes, his eyes following some forty seaplanes in the air above the blue waters of Pensacola Bay.
The lofty tower of steel that constantly watches the flying planes and signals any mishap greatly interested him. He soon discovered that upon the alertness of the observers hundreds of feet above dependent the safety of a pilot who had come to grief. He spent many hours within sight of the control tower, secretly hoping to witness the rescue routine and was rewarded. Without warning the brazen alarm of the crash bell muted the roar of airplane motors. In an instant things began to happen. A seaplane near by, always warmed up, was off with a rush of spray and into the air, taking its directions by signal from the, tower. In the wet basin the duty speed boat, its crew ever in readiness, shot by the end of the grey stone dock, slowing down for a second to permit the medical officer of the day to spring aboard, and then with a roar of its motors was off in pursuit of the plane. An ambulance drove rapidly to the dock and stood-by, stretcher and first-aid bandages spread and ready. Then last, but by no means least in importance, the salvage boat, stolid, stubby, its derrick cleared for action, waddled out into the bay, tailing the speeding craft. Jimmie was to learn that this comical little craft was affectionately known as "Mary Ann." As he watched there was something about prim unhurried gait that seemed to suggest her nickname. In a short while the rescuers returned, student and instructor in the speed boat, wet but unharmed. Later, "Mary Ann" steamed sedately to the dock, the crippled plane upon her wide deck.
Jimmy discovered that this tower served still another purpose. The observers there controlled the air traffic. Woe be it to the young aviator who felt his oats and deemed the time was ripe for stunting or other maneuvers not included in the routine of his day's flying. He might feel he had got away with it, only to be rudely surprised when put on the carpet by the flight superintendent.
Jimmy Jones was soon at home. The pep, dash, and quick tempo of the station were not unlike college, the principal difference being that the natural exuberance of youth was held in check by the rigid routine and a strict discipline, unnoticed unless one did not play the game.
All preliminaries out of the way the new class was ordered to flying training and entered immediately upon the course of fifty-two weeks of arduous, exacting duty. Every moment of his day from seven o’clock in the morning until he was all washed up after three in the afternoon belonged his instructor. Saturday afternoon and Sunday were free. Jimmy Jones first was assigned to Squadron No. 1 for primary seaplane training. Daily he ate his breakfast to the symphony of roaring phrases, to report to his instructor on the front before seven o'clock. All morning his duty held him here, by turns in flight under instruction, or standing by on the beach. Each afternoon was given over to classroom or shop work in the ground school. Jimmy soon found that the radio key was to play a large part in his life as a naval aviator. One hour of each afternoon was given over to radio communication, building up a proficiency of twenty words a minute, a standard required of all students and essential to the proper performance of spotting board practice.
The spotting board is a game; a serious game, interesting and requiring keen observation and quick understanding of the scene represented before the student. This spotting board practice was carried on in a large classroom. On the floor miniature ships cruised upon a blackboard ocean. In response to the will of the instructor, white “splashes,” indicated by vertical insets, automatically rose to mark the fall of a “shot” around the toy ships. The student spotter takes his place behind a shutter which also is automatically operated by the instructor, giving him but a momentary glance at the blackboard ocean, the ships and the markers, from which he is required to report by radio the effectiveness of the target practice. The report is made direct to other students on the receiving end, representing operators aboard ship. Upon this ground-school spotting the future naval aviator builds to check the target practice of the battle wagons of the fleet.
With his instructor, Jimmy began his seaplane training by taxiing, learning takeoffs, easy climbs, and progressed to spirals and power landings and finally to slips and wing-overs. Each step was followed by an examination by a check pilot before he was allowed to take up the next. Aviation material and personnel are too valuable to risk without a careful check on the progress of the student. In the ground school he delved into the airplane engine until its mysteries were all familiar to him; he studied the structure of the plane, and was taken gradually to a point where he not only assembled his own plane but was allowed to fly it. Jimmy Jones was so proud of the performance of his plane that he regretted the day it passed the test and was taken away from him. Rigging, parachute packing, aerial photography, aerology, and other phases of this absorbing, many-sided profession, claimed their hours on the ground-school schedule.
Jimmy’s first solo in a seaplane was an event, at least to him. Rather diffidently he suggested a solo flight to his instructor and was surprised and delighted when he was told to “hop to it.” He took up his plane alone, brought it down at the completion of his flying program, and with a sense of a job well done taxied up to his landing. His classmates met him, and after patting him on the back, took him firmly by the arms and legs and heaved him into the bay. This is the custom at Pensacola. The naval aviator may fly but he must be reminded that he is a flying fish.
The weeks passed in an absorbing routine, while Jimmie advanced steadily in proficiency, careful always to keep himself mentally and physically fit. When Jimmy stepped out at the end of a week’s hard work he went into reverse after Saturday night, for trouble is in store for him who does not report on Monday morning clear-eyed and ready for the new week’s routine. Within the limits of his duty the social side of the student’s life is encouraged. The station club, the post exchange, the movies offered a variety of diversion and Jimmy soon learned not to brood over the day’s work and do mental night flying. This is considered bad form at Pensacola.
There came a day when all of Jimmy’s class had completed their solo flights and the following Saturday night they gave their “solo party.” It was a gay event, attended by all of the officers and their families and the commandant of the station. It was a big night not only for the students but for the belles of Pensacola.
Fourteen interesting weeks were passed in this preliminary seaplane training, and before the ending of this phase several of Jimmy’s classmates fell by the wayside. The class learned something more than was written in the flying schedule; they came to "feel" the air in varying weather. In the weather line, Pensacola holds a wide range of tricks—hurricanes, white squalls, chilly northers mixed with a liberal supply of sky and water as blue as ever was seen from Capri.
Jimmy and the survivors of his class passed on to Squadron 2, the training landplanes, and transferred the scene of their labors to Corey Field, named for a young naval aviator who gave his life that another might live. Located in the flat Florida coastal terrain, the wide expanse of Corey Field unobstructed by timber of any considerable height presents an excellent site for landplane training. Later, when Jimmy had a forced landing, he found he could safely sit down in the scrub live oak and palmetto that surrounds the field in all directions. The landing surface d was sandy and Jimmy quickly acquired the earmarks of all Corey Field pilots—a neck begrimed with dirt, wind-driven by whirling propellers, defying all scrubbing.
During the next fifteen weeks, Jimmy spent some seventy hours in the air and learned to stunt, to land within a restricted space, and to fly in normal formation. He learned to keep his place in the "suicide circle," while alternately the planes sailed down for a carrier landing. Ticklish work and thrilling, producing confidence in the judgment and ability of those flying with him. He developed a sixth sense in order to avoid the tail of the plane ahead and the propeller of that following.
He was dispatched in squadron and section formation, learning the teamwork essential to such flights. This phase of the training took heavy toll upon his class mates, for the trials and hardships of Squadron 2 bring out the weak spots in the student and here every class suffers its greatest percentage of outs.
Jimmy did not hate himself at all whom he found he had survived the ordeal of Corey Field. Gladly he passed on to the Observation Squadron, the third stage of his training. Eventually he got the sand of Corey Field out of the skin of his neck—it wore off gradually. In this new squadron special emphasis was laid upon radio communication, the sections of the flying formation being radio controlled from the main station. Jimmy put into practice the classroom lessons of the spotting board, spotting the fall of projectiles from his plane high above the sea and reporting their fall by radio. He progressed by easy stages to navigation and scouting. Finally he went through flights by instruments alone and took up the gunnery exercises.
Jimmy felt he was getting somewhere when he drove at his target with his machine gun blazing; he felt self-reliant when he could take himself away from the main station and find his way back by instrument, or come home when mountain, river, and town of the country beneath checked by his map, became sign posts along his aerial road. Jimmy's periods of instruction grew shorter and his hours of solo flights prolonged. The eight weeks with the Observation Squadron passed quickly; there was less drudgery here than in the primary training. Once out of the primary class the students were taught naval tactics and the performance of Navy air missions. This they found much more to their liking. The survivors of the class passed on from the Observation Squadron and were introduced to the torpedo and patrol planes.
Jimmy liked the patrol boats. The rush of the take-off across the sparkly water, motors humming, spray flying even above the wings; then the lift into the air and the fall of the sea beneath the big boat, the widening wake of foam trailing; these things thrilled him and lifted his duty above the plane of mere labor and study. He had a sense of being aboard ship although in the air. He, with others of his class, was dispatched fifty miles to sea on some flight problem. Navigation was emphasized and Jimmy and others were quick to realize that there are no sign posts in the ocean to tell you the way to go home or elsewhere. He formed part of a crew of these sturdy, bimotored flying boats and he and his mates shifted duties as chief pilot, navigator, gunnery officer, and the like. In this squadron he was taught to drop torpedoes and practice bombing. Finally he was taken over to the dock and shot from the catapult; his seaplane, throttle wide open, seemed to jump from beneath him as he was launched into the air.
When he completed this stage of his training, forty-five weeks of flying were behind him, each representing a phase in the development of the naval aviator. While never forced, it was a stiff routine, months in duration, demanding all of one’s time, intelligence, and stamina. Step by step, Jimmy and his classmates went forward toward their goal-wings. Each step was subject to test and if Jimmy's instructor was satisfied all went well. When he got a ''down" on any performance from his check pilot, Jimmy tried not to let it worry him and concentrated on getting by the recheck by another pilot. He well knew that if a second down faces the student he is brought before the advisory board, where his fate is decided. The board will either recommend additional instruction or determine that the student is unfit to pursue the course.
From the Patrol Squadron Jimmy passed on to the final seven weeks of his course, these in the fighting plane. In these seven weeks there is a minimum of forty-eight hours' flying in formation, executing tactical problems, night flying, gunnery, and bombing. And every problem was to be solved by Jimmy alone.
In this climax of his year's hard work, Jimmy experienced pride in individual achievement. He was on his own, thousands of feet above the land and sea. He thrilled to the unity between the rushing plane and his mind and muscle; he controlled absolutely this darting silver speck in the sky, a thing of beauty and an engine of destruction when called into action. Here was some tangible return to Uncle Sam who had gambled heavily on his courage, persistence, and ability. Jimmy was proud of James Jones. Behind him lay 52 weeks of study and effort, 300 hours in the air, over half of which was spent in solo flights. Along the hard road he had come lay the blasted ambition of 30 per cent of the original class; their failure no disgrace—they simply could not make the grade. Ahead of him were his wings, the golden emblem of achievement, and the commission of an ensign in the U. S. Naval Reserve. Jimmy Jones from around the corner had arrived—he was now a naval aviator.
Upon graduation from the Air School in Pensacola, the survivors of Jimmy’s class, now numbering twenty-eight of the original forty, were commissioned as ensigns in the Fleet Naval Reserve and second lieutenants in the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve. In a short time orders to active duty were received and the class scattered.
Ensign James Jones was highly gratified by orders assigning him to the U.S.S. Lexington. With enthusiastic haste he set about assembling his uniform and reporting to the ship that was to be his scene of duty for the ensuing year.
He found the Lexington anchored off North Island in San Diego, California. His first view of the giant carrier gave him the impression of tremendous mass. She lay outlined against Point Loma and loomed as massive as one of the buttes he had seen while crossing the Mohave Desert.
In the course of the next few days Ensign Jimmy Jones met his brother-officers on duty aboard the carrier, in numbers approximately 200, naval aviators and officers on line duty with the carrier. The air force of the carrier was divided into two squadrons of fighters, one of scouting planes, and one of the torpedo and bombing planes.
His first week was given over to familiarization with his new surroundings, and to precision landings on North Island. Then came his real test; to set down his fighting plane on the deck of the Lexington. Often in Corey Field he had practiced carrier landings on a deck outlined by flags, but he quickly realized that the test before him was a very different ordeal. To miss the deck on the field was simply an error to be corrected; but to miss the deck of the carrier had all the aspects of a catastrophe.
Jimmy Jones had reason to remember his first successful landing on the deck of the carrier Lexington; also his first failure. From 1,000 feet he circled, losing altitude to make his landing. Every move that he made when coming aboard was directed by the signal officer and his assistant. Jimmy had only these two upon whom to depend. Confidence and almost blind faith, coupled with instantaneous reaction to the signal, he knew to be essential to a safe landing. His first try was a failure and to his humiliation he was waved away. When he gained altitude he circled above the ship giving himself a thorough dressing down, for he knew that his failure was attributable solely to a bad attack of jitters, which resulted in a lack of flexibility with his controls. His second attempt was a success. He held a high altitude in gliding in; he came on with a greater speed, and as he lost sight of the deck completely, he experienced a breath-taking second of uncertainty, and then felt the wheels of his little fighting had plane take, and his hook which he had thrown down engage in the arresting gear.
The newcomer to the fleet usually arrives during the summer concentration and is checked out in the type of plane to which he is assigned. Immediately he is set to qualifying in carrier landings and formation flying, first by section and then as a member of the entire squadron. This is followed by navigation flights and extended training flights. The summer concentration lasts for about three months and toward the end each squadron, through training, becomes a flexible machine and engages in wing and interwing tactics which assimilate actual war conditions. This is all in preparation for the winter cruise, where the carriers take part in the fleet operations.
Through this course of training passed Jimmy Jones and other members of his class. Some were assigned to the Saratoga and the scouting planes, and others of his classmates to torpedo bombing planes. In general, the reserve ensign draws the same assignments as the line officer and must carry his own weight as a part of the fleet air force. He passes through the progressive stages—gunnery practice, dive bombing, navigational, scouting flights at sea, and the many other aspects of aviation as the game is played with the fleet. He is in every sense a naval officer and a member of that great family.
During this year of active duty with the fleet he forms friendships with officers of the regular service that are lasting; contacts that he carries back with him into civil life. The value of these connections cannot be overemphasized in time of national emergency. When the call comes, the naval aviator in reserve takes his place in the regular squadrons among friends who speak his language; he comes home again and swings back into a familiar routine; teamwork is quickly established, and the fighting air force of the Navy is expanded upon safe and efficient lines.
At the end of the year, Ensign Jimmy Jones, our typical naval aviator in reserve, goes back to civil life. It is optional with him whether in the inactive status he will continue his training in naval aviation.
There are two roads open to the reserve aviator by which he may pursue his connection with naval aviation and keep himself in readiness for service in a national emergency. If he locates in one of the large cities in which there is a naval base, he can join the reserve air squadron there located; or should he live at too great a distance from such a base to be able to attend drills regularly, he can, when funds are available, be ordered for fifteen days’ flying with the nearest squadron.
In the first case he becomes actively engaged in training during the year and spends two weeks with the squadron in the summer; in the other status he is free to do as he pleases, his time is his own and he takes the summer training if he desires.
To hold one’s place in the squadrons requires 80 per cent attendance at drills, covering the year’s program of groundwork, lectures, movies, as well as flying, and entails considerable sacrifice of spare time and money. Be it known that the drill and training pay hardly covers the cost of travel to and from the base, replacement of uniforms and flying gear, and increased premium on insurance. That there is a fine spirit of patriotism and sacrifice in these men is amply evidenced by the fact that the squadrons show better than an average of 90 per cent of drill attendance and a full strength of personnel.
For all their hours in the air, flying in formation where teamwork is essential to mutual safety, making their rush upon targets in their gunnery practice, dive bombing and blind flying, accidents in the reserve as well as in the regular service are remarkably few. Now and then an engine falls down on the job. Then courage, alertness, and flying knowledge are all that bring the pilot and his observer, or gunner, safely to a landing.
The squadron commanders ask no one to take risks they will not accept; they are leaders. One morning just after the sun rose, this writer saw a squadron commander high above the field stunting. The motor of the plane he flew had faltered twice the day previous. It had been overhauled and shop tested. Before it was released for service, this officer took it into the air and put it through a thorough flight test, giving it everything he had.
Again, an officer last season had his engine quit on him when but 300 feet from the ground. Ahead lay an inlet and beyond marshes, beneath him the outer reaches of the flying field, covered by bay bushes. Faced with almost certain death ahead, he accomplished the rarely successful maneuver of diving and turning with a dead engine, coming in at a graveyard glide and landing, taking the force of impact on his right wing. While the plane was a wreck, neither he nor his observer was seriously injured. Only courage and flying ability will pull a man out of a jam of this kind. Those two qualities are outstanding in the reserve fliers of our Navy.
These naval aviators in reserve are not fair-weather pilots. During their period of summer training no hour of flying weather can be wasted and a rainy day means double schedule until they are caught up. This is no aerial holiday, this period of two weeks’ training, but arduous duty performed because of their enthusiasm for military flying and a fine spirit of preparedness for a call to active duty.
Each day of the training period is devoted to either gunnery exercises or dive bombing; some of the nights are given to take-offs and landings, as well as to special missions by three-plane sections controlled by radio from the base field. But gunnery and bombing take precedence, for this practice can only be held along the coast, where danger of shooting or dropping a miniature bomb on some citizen can be avoided.
Beginning at eight o’clock in the morning, at half-hour intervals during the day —time out for lunch—there is activity on the field, sections landing and taking off as crews change and targets come in for marking. A target run begins by a yellow training plane, assigned to towing duty, leaving the field. As it clears the ground its sleeve target is released, a cone trailing the plane some 800 feet, a white cloud against the blue.
Then with a roar of full gun, a section of Hell Divers, usually two planes, rush across the field to take up the pursuit; silver streaks in the morning sun, climbing higher and higher until at times the gleam of Old Sol on their wings and fuselage is all that marks them far out over the sea. They cruise above and inshore of the target, each in turn diving and firing a burst from their machine gun. The pilots of these darting specks are busy men during those runs. Not only have they the plane to control, but they must so maneuver it as to close directly on the moving sleeve and at the same time must observe the sea to avoid some party of fishermen far below. As the run ends the planes come into a landing and taxi up to the line, followed by the tow plane.
Again, you may see the dive bombing; truly a thrilling, spectacular exercise. The target may be anchored at sea, or, much better from the spectator's viewpoint, marked upon the field. The planes take the air in formation or may-follow the carrier procedure, taking off singly to rendezvous immediately at 1,000 feet. They climb to 5,000 feet, then each in turn noses over and like a silver plummet rushes earth ward in a dive; at 2,000 feet, speeding 150 miles per hour, the practice bomb is released; they pull out of the dive to zoom skyward. If you can take your eye from the plane, a puff of white smoke will indicate the position of the hit or miss.
A fascinating way to spend an hour or two, Mr. Citizen. A splendid free show. A serious, if enthusiastic group, of your best fellow-citizens are putting on this show every summer, not only along the Atlantic, coast but at Grosse Ile, Michigan, at Great Lakes Training Station north of Chicago, at Minneapolis and St. Louis, and along the west coast at Seattle, Oakland, and San Pedro.