Issue 21.13
The history of those in America who fly planes in battle is about one hundred years long. It started with a few rickety airplanes in the days before the First World War and then it was an arm of the signal corps. After that war, its status was upped to be called the Army Air Corps.
When we entered World War 2, it was then named the Army Air Force but we members of it still called it the Air Corps. In 1947, it then became a military organization equal to the Army and Navy and was then called the United States Air Force. We had our own songs praising our branch. My experience in the military is that we individuals sing a great deal.
We had parodies of most popular songs. The navigators sang a parody of the popular song “I’ll walk alone” that went like this:
I’ll bomb Cologne with my Mickey and my G box to guide me with ten coverage to hide me I’ll bomb Cologne.
Mickey was the name given to the radar placed in a dome beneath 6-17’s and 6-24’s in the place of the lower ball turret that was removed in Squadron lead planes. A “G” box was the navigation system that navigators used on missions over the continent and was accurate to within 500 feet (when it wasn’t jammed by the Germans. It consisted of two stations at a distance from each other in England sending out signals that an instrument in the bomber could receive and with triangulation could determine the position. Ten tenths coverage refers to the cloud cover. We all hoped for ten tenths cloud cover so that the FLAK guns on the ground would not have the sight of our contrails to assist their radar to make their fire more effective. Only the group lead planes on a mission had perhaps three navigators. They would be guiding an armada of perhaps one thousand bombers. A group usually consisted of three squadrons of twelve flying in a protective box formation. This gave us protection from enemy fighters and made a good destructive bombing pattern but it was also bad for us for anti-aircraft fire. A navigator whom I knew about was one of the lead navigators on a mission that a new wing commander was sitting in the second seat of his bomber. This man was just transferred from the States to this responsible position composed of three groups. On this mission he wanted it to be very successful. The first run over the target was not successful so he ordered the wing to go around and take their place in the bomber train and go through all that FLAK again. Everyone must have let out a groan when that happened. Doing this was almost like going on two missions but getting credit for only one mission. This man was not endeared to his men. We crewmen all had confidence in our pilot and co-pilot and then our navigator. As happens, perhaps a bomber can’t keep up with the group and it’s the navigator that we depend on to get us home.
The Army Air Corps Song
Here’s a toast to the host
Of those who love the vastness of the sky
To a friend we’ll send a message from
Those brother men who fly
We’ll drink to those
Who gave their all of old
Then down we’ll dive to score
The rainbow’s pot of gold.
A toast to the host of the men we boast.
The Army Air Corps.