Back in the nineteen fifties I used to spend an inordinate amount of time lying on my back in the grass, gazing upward and wondering how, if ever, I’d manage to slip the surly bonds of Carbon County. Aviation sprang to mind, and so I took a job as assistant manager of the local airport, for which I was paid the princely sum of one dollar per hour. However, only half of that went into my pocket; the other fifty cents was applied to flying lessons.
In May of 1962, at the age of 19, I made my first solo flight—at the controls of a vintage Piper J3 Cub that was manufactured in 1943, the same year I was born. Over the course of subsequent flights, however, it became clear that I just don’t have the “right stuff” to become a professional pilot. For one thing, I never could make sense of the jargon. Conversations between pilots and ground control personnel are supposedly conducted in English, but to my ears it all sounds like a secret code.
Nonetheless, I remain in awe of airplanes and the men and women who can fly them without getting lost and/or airsick. I also admire their courage, because—let’s face it—flying can be dangerous, especially during wartime when someone is trying to shoot you out of the sky.
Near where I grew up, in the shadow of the Book Cliffs, is a cemetery where a homegrown flyboy hero lies buried. Over his grave flies a fanciful whirligig—a miniature Consolidated B-24 fashioned from horseshoes and bits of scrap metal. Trailing the bomber is what appears to be either a Mitsubishi Zero or a Nakajima Hayabusi. Either the Japanese fighter is in the process of attacking the bomber, or else it has been captured in fight and is being towed back to operational headquarters.
The nickname of the bomber is “Sleepy Time Gal,”–evidently inspired by a popular love song of the era.. A Google search reveals that there is a B-17 bearing that nose art on display at the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover, Delaware. Other Sleepy Time Gals weren’t so lucky. One, a B17F and her crew went down over Germany in 1944. Another, a B-24J assigned to the Australian Air Corps, disappeared over the Timor area of the East Indies.
As far as I know, neither aircraft bore the distinctive shark teeth of a P-40 Flying Tiger, and I sincerely doubt that any airman of World War II ever fantasized about a pretty girl in a filmy negligee with a mouthful of sharp, pointy teeth. Then again, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to keep the enemy in the dark regarding just what the heck they’re up against.
