Clear the Prop!

Many people say that flying is hours and hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror. That was certainly true, many times, while I served during World War II, because sometimes we flew for 11 hours without ever touching the ground. And there certainly were moments of sheer terror as we flew through skies filled with flak and flying bullets, with our planes exploding around us or crashing in flaming infernos. After World War II, aviation became my life-long career. The stories in my memoirs include forced landings, miracle landings, foeigners landing illegally, and planes flying upside down. They show that life was anything but dull at a rural Wisconsin airport during the heyday of private aviation.