to make you a squadron commander. I’ve got a lot of very healthy, very impetuous young men who need a stabilizing influence. In my day, it took ten years to make captain. Now we’re making them in a year, and then making them B-17 aircraft commanders with a hundred twenty hours’ total time. It’s working better than I thought it would, but I would still like as many officers like you as I can get. I really need officers with five hundred hours and some instrument experience. Who can really navigate.”
“I was about to say that I might well be more use as a lawyer,” Fine said.
“That’s not my decision to make,” the colonel had told him. “I have one other officer, Major Thomasson, who was an aircraft commander before last week. I’m going to introduce you to him, explain the situation, and see what he thinks.”
“Yes, Sir,” Fine said
“On the basis of your extensive civilian aeronautical experience, Captain Fine,” the colonel said dryly, “Headquarters, Army Air Corps, has seen fit to designate you as a military aviator. You are now a pilot, Captain Fine. Congratulations.”
He tossed Fine a pair of aviator’s wings still pinned to a piece of cardboard.
“If you can’t handle the Seventeen,” the colonel said, “and I really hope you can, there are other places where you can be put to good use.”
The next day, Fine began what he was sure would be at least a two-week course in the B-17 aircraft. Major Thomasson turned out to be a bright-eyed twenty-three-year-old West Pointer who told Fine that he had graduated from the last prewar, yearlong pilot training course.
Thomasson almost casually went through the B-17E dash-one with him for most of the day, then took him to the flight line for what Fine expected would be a hands-on explanation of the aircraft.
“I’ve never seen one up close before,” Fine confessed.
“It’s a pretty good bird, Captain,” Thomasson said. “It’s the E model. I picked this one up in Seattle last week.”
Fine had been introduced to the crew. There was a navigator and a bombardier, both officers, and an engineer, a radioman, and tail and turret gunners. There was no copilot.
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with it, Captain,” Thomasson said to him, then raised his voice. “You guys get aboard.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. They were obviously about to take the B-17 aloft—without a copilot. The incredible truth seemed to be that on his first time up in a B-17E, he would fly as copilot.
“I think I should tell you,” Fine said as he sat down in the copilot’s seat and looked around the cockpit, “that I have a total of zero hours’ twin-engine time.”
“That’s exactly as many as I had when I first came down here,” Major Thomasson said. “They sent me to Seventeens right out of primary.”
“Jesus!” Fine said.
“The way you fly this thing,” Thomasson said, “is that the copilot reads the checklist out loud.” He handed Fine a sheet of cardboard three inches wide and six inches long. “And the pilot does what it says. Got it?”
“We’ll find out,” Fine said. He read the first item on the list: “Master power buss on.”
“Master power buss on,” Thomasson parroted.
“Uncage gyros.”
“Gyros uncaged.”
Fine looked at the artificial horizon on the instrument panel before him. There were two sets of instruments—one for the pilot and one for the copilot. He reached out and uncaged his gyro. The ball inside began to move.
“Verify crew in position, crew hatches closed,” Fine read. He didn’t understand that and looked at Thomasson.
“You have to get on the intercom to do that,” Thomasson explained, and showed him how to switch it on.
“Crew report,” Thomasson’s voice came over the intercom. One by one, the crew reported their presence.
“Navigator, yo!”
“Bombardier here, forward hatch closed and locked.”
“Radio here, Sir.”
“Tail here, Sir.”
“Belly, yo!”
“Engineer, rear door closed and locked.”
“Fire extinguisher in place,” Fine read. “Ground crew clear.”
Thomasson looked out his window and reported: “Clear!”
“Number one engine, full rich,” Fine read.
“One full rich.”
“Prime number one engine.”
“One primed.”
“Start number one engine,” Fine read.
“Starting number one,” Thomasson replied.
There came the whine of the starter, and then the cough of the engine as it tried to start, and the aircraft began to tremble. The engine caught, smoothed out.
Fine looked across the cockpit to the left wing. He could see the propeller turning.
“Number one running smoothly,” Thomasson said.
“Lean and idle number one,” Fine read. “Number three engine, full rich.”
“Number one lean and idle,” Thomasson replied. “Number three full rich.”