SABRE-RATTLING - Flying F-100s and F-86s in Korea

I GREW UP IN TOLEDO, OHIO with my mother, who provided the most influence in my life and my two sisters. My father, who was a World War I veteran, had died when I was only seven years old, right at the beginning of the Second World War.

- JAMES P. BUSHA

Life was tough; we lived between the railroad tracks and Swan Creek in Toledo. Eventually we upgraded and moved to a one bedroom a stone’s throw away from the Willys Jeep plant. To make some extra income, we provided room and board to soldiers passing through who were going on to pilot training.

The relationship between the soldiers and my family developed to the point where they really took to our family. Throughout the War, I would get boxes from the Navy guys of balsa wood for my model airplane projects, which was a strategic material at that time. My sisters would get letters. We became a Gold Star house. That’s when I knew I wanted to fly the P-51 Mustang. Later on, it turned into a P-47 because Gabby Gabreski became my hero. He passed through Toledo, and I went to one of the war bond drives he was at. Little did I know I would not only meet him but fly with him as well. I went through Toledo Central Catholic High School, which at that time was a tech training school. They prepared you for an occupation as soon as you left. I went through the engineering curriculum, and I worked through my senior year for the Fairbanks Morse Pump Company doing their engineering drawings. The three nuns at the school took me under their wing because they knew I wanted to fly, and they coached me for the Annapolis entrance examination. I passed the examination and got the congressional appointment, but unfortunately, I failed the physical. I had no choice but to join the AirForce.