On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, I was a 19-year-old playing in a semipro game in Pasadena, Calif., not far from where I grew up. It was a game just like any other, until we heard the shocking news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Upon hearing about the attack, we all immediately said the same thing: You can’t do that to this country! The next day, instead of playing baseball, I went and enlisted in the United States Navy. It happened that fast.
I wasn’t required to report right away, so I spent the first half of 1942 playing for Toronto in the International League. But then in June, I was called to report for duty. I was to begin training in the Naval aviation program immediately. Almost all of my fellow ballplayers who enlisted had signed up for the Army, but something about the challenges of becoming a pilot really intrigued me.
The program was extensive and difficult. We were required to challenge both our minds and our bodies, as the curriculum required just as much studying as physical training. We had to study for months before we were allowed anywhere near an airplane. And when we finally did get to fly, we mainly just learned how to get the plane up and down without crashing. It was a heck of a primary objective.
From there, we had to do more studying before we could really learn to fly. I was sent to St. Mary’s, a college in California that was a national football power under the great coach Slip Madigan. But during World War II, the college was taken over by the Navy as a place to train pilots. We did a lot of mechanical and flight study there, and I met a few other ballplayers who were also stationed at St. Mary’s. Baseball legend and future Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer was one of my instructors, and Dodgers great Cookie Lavagetto used to be in charge of passing out equipment. We didn’t play much baseball, though. In fact, in the two-and-a-half years I served, I played in only 12 games.
Gamingboy
Posted: November 10, 2009 at 12:50 PM |
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It really was. Not that I was there or anything, but it was a very difficult job. Learning to fly today, which is an interesting little challenge, is vastly different from back then.
Of course, that's why no one really dies flying today. Bully to those kids.
Yes. During the war, we lost far more pilots to training accidents than to combat losses. Something like (IIRC) three to one.
Today's simulators are so good, one can be proficient before ever setting foot in the actual airplane.
So was Jerry McNertney. He was also a White Sock and a Cardinal.
Yeah, but you never really get the feel for toeing the flirting/sexual harassment line with the Flight Attendants until you're on the line.
Not only that, when Kiner garduated from flight school and was flying combat patrols in the South Pacific, he was flying PBY and PBM flying boats, large twin-engined aircraft took off and landed on water. They required a lot of skill to fly.
That's not actually true, although we did lose a lot of pilots to accidents. I don't have the exact figures for the Navy, in which Kiner flew, but for the Army Air Forces, the number of men who died overseas in combat was 40,061, and the number who died in the continental US in training accidents was 14,903. Nevertheless, as I noted, that's an awful lot of pilots killed in training accidets.
He had a "lost year" that he spent whacked out on peyote.
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