A NEW EXPERIENCE Before launching into my last two promised events, a new experience for a Second Lt. comes to mind. When it was decided to change our mission from dive-bombing to the fighter- bomber role, some fighter training became necessary. We had already recieved our full quota of P-40 aircraft but knew nothing of fighter tactics or low level bombing techniques. So the entire Group of four Squadrons flew to Pinellas Airfield near St.Petersburg, Fla. where their was a P-40 Operational Training Unit. We spent a full week of daytime training, and to complete the course, one hour of night flight. The night was black, no moon and no clouds. Unknown until we took off, however. their were 500 ft stratus clouds that had drifted in from the Gulf near the end of the take-off runway. My first surprise was the red and blue flames streaming from the exhaust pipes from our in-line Rolls Royce engines as I advanced to full throttle for take-off. We didn't see this fiery display from the radial engines on our previous planes. As I reached altitude to make the left turn from traffic I entered the cloud deck. The fire from the exhausts turned the clouds into an eerie rosy glow, and already being in a turn, disorientation and vertigo was about to set in. I immediately went totally on instruments and ignored the wrong signals my body was sending. I leveled out , climbed through the clouds and breathed a sigh of relief. I needed to expain the above so you would understand what follows, When I returned from my flight I was told that Lt. Reeves,a member of my flight, had crashed, straight in, nose first into the swamps off the end of the runway. ©whcameron