Lubbock

We were assigned rooms in the Officers BOQ so that we had a roomate in the double sized room. The only difference in these rooms and the ones that we had in Basic Flying training was that in the Basic, there was only one big room where we all lived. We were also told to report to the flight line the following morning to have our students assigned. We were also told that we would have six students assigned to us to teach and that we had to "wash out" so many in this class! We did not have a choice in this except to pick out the ones to let go. I thought that this was very unfair and the Major giving us the "scoop" agreed but said that nothing could be done about it as those instructions were handed down from the top brass and were fixed without exception.
The next morning I met all six of the students that I was to instruct and managed to fly an hour with each of them that day. They seemed like an eager bunch to learn and did quite well in spite of the usual mistake of not "rounding out" high enough to keep from hitting hard on the landing. This was normal for students transitioning from light weight aircraft to the heavier bomber type that was the B-25. The object was to get as many of them soloed as soon as possible so that they could then fly by themseves to get the experience that they needed. All went well except for one cocky student. He had an older brother that was a major. One morining as I came in, I heard him tell the others that I did not know what I was doing and that his brother had told him that. He had a bad habit of cranking in aileron to keep the airplane level when in slow flight. Slow flight was when you were very slow and right on the edge of stalling the plane so that it would fall quite a distance. Using aileron when in this exagerated attitude would cause it to even spin. I had to teach this student a lesson! I took him up and got him into a slow flight attitude. When he cranked aileron in to keep the plane level, I quickly stuck down full flaps. The plane rolled over on it's back and went into a spin. We were losing altitude at the rate of over a thousand feet per turn in the spin. He turned white, threw his hands over his face and screamed. I quickly pulled up the flaps, landing gear and recovered from the spin. I did not say a word to him as we flew back to the home field. When we got into the ready room where the other students were, I simply said, "I think Mr.xxx has something to tell you." He then told them what had happened, that I had saved his life and that what he had said before about me not knowing was wrong. That was a big relief to me.
They all did quite well from that point on and I was having a hard time trying to figure out which ones I would have to wash out. As it turned out, I did not have to do that!

My roomate was told that he was going to go overseas. He took a thirty day leave and went home to see his folks. When he came back he seemed fine except he went out that night alone. When I saw him the next morning his knee was all swollen. He went to the hospital on sick call.
I was flying with my students and came back in from a flight about ten o'clock in the morning and was told to report to my commanding officer. When I did so he informed me that I was to replace my roomate by going overseas and that I was to be ready to catch a train that evening at five o'clock PM. In addition to that, I was assigned as the "Courier" for the group leaving. I hustled around, cleared the base and got all the papers that the " Courier" had to handle for the group and made the location where the rest of the group were gathered to go to the train by the allotted time. Several of the others had been drinking at the Officers Club so were "feeling no pain"!


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