BANSHEE WAIL!

Flying Skulls over Burma

-  JAMES P. BUSHA

BY THE TIME I GRADUATED from high school in Oklahoma in 1940 at the ripe old age of 19, I could see that the United States was going to get dragged into a world war. I had grown up in a farming family during the Great Depression and had felt the terrible hardships it caused us firsthand. The effects of the economic devastation continued to linger throughout our state. Finding a good paying job, or any pay, was like trying to find fertile soil in the ravaged Dust Bowl. I tried to join the Army at Fort Sill and asked about becoming a pilot. A lieutenant with a very sharp tongue shot me down right away.

"Sonny boy," he said, "You got to get yourself two years of college first, and then maybe we will talk to you." I was depressed as the red clay soil under my feet but was determined to earn my wings. I moved to Wyoming, found work, and enrolled in the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) and earned a private pilot’s license in a 50-horsepower Piper Cub with no brakes and a tail skid. A week later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and I got the impression from the Army recruiter I visited that if a fellow could see lightning and hear thunder then they would gladly take me!

Newly minted fighter pilot