Chapter Two
Up, Up, and Away

John excitedly scanned the notice on the bulletin board. The Civilian Pilot Training Program, he read, was sponsored by the U.S. government. Not only would participants receive all their training free, but they would also get college credit for physics.

Wow, John thought. This was just what he’d dreamed of. He couldn’t wait to tell his mom and dad the great news.

Clara and Herschel Glenn, however, were not happy when John informed them that he wanted to become a pilot. “I’m not in favor of it, Bud,” his father said immediately. “It’s too dangerous.”

The Glenns knew that pilots were often injured or killed in plane crashes in those days. Flying was the last thing they wanted their beloved only son to be doing.

John figured he needed to bring in some outside support. He invited Dr. Paul Martin, the program’s sponsor at Muskingum College, over to his house to talk to his parents. Doc Martin told the Glenns that aviation was an up-and-coming industry. As a trained pilot, John would have his pick of careers—in commercial airlines or in the military.

Reluctantly, Clara and Herschel agreed. John quickly applied to the program before they could change their minds. He was immediately accepted.

April 1941 found Glenn and three classmates at the pilot training center in New Philadelphia, Ohio. They had already done the preliminary academic work, studying up on subjects such as aerodynamics and airplane instruments. Now they were ready to start actual flight training.

Their first plane was a little Taylorcraft that could reach ninety miles per hour. The instructor sat beside Glenn in the enclosed cockpit. At first the instructor took the plane up. He allowed John to take the controls and practice wide, slow turns. After more experience, the instructor permitted him to guide the takeoff, increasing speed until the plane lifted off the ground and climbed into the sky.

Soon the small, light craft felt like an extension of Glenn’s own body. He learned to do wide, lazy S curves and tight figure eights, to make quick touchdowns and forced emergency landings. I think I’m going to be good at this, Glenn told himself.

In just three months he had his pilot’s license. The first thing he wanted to do was show off his new skills to his father.

So one day he rented a small plane at a nearby airfield. As Herschel Glenn climbed into the cockpit next to his son, the plane sank down. John knew this was potential trouble. Herschel was a big man, 230 pounds, and the plane was near its weight limit. Would they be able to get off the ground?

Sure enough, the plane had difficulty picking up speed. The runway was fairly short, with a clump of trees at the end. John could see the trees loom larger as they sped down the runway.

The trees got closer, and closer . . .

Faster! John urged the plane. Go faster!

Beside him, Herschel sat tight-lipped, his hands gripping his seat.

At the last possible second, the plane lifted into the air—and skimmed the tops of the trees.

John let out his breath. His father turned to him with a grin. “Like those exciting takeoffs, do you?” he said.

In fall 1941, John was a college junior. Annie, a senior, had become an accomplished organist and was thinking about continuing her study of music in graduate school. The first Sunday in December, she was to give a solo organ recital at the Muskingum chapel. On his way to the recital, John was listening to the car radio when an emergency broadcast cut into the regularly scheduled show.

“The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor!” the newscaster announced.

Without warning, Japanese planes had attacked the U.S. Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In one day, Japanese bombers destroyed nineteen American ships and two hundred planes. The next day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress and asked them to declare war on Japan. December 7, 1941, he thundered, was a “date which will live in infamy!” Just three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. It looked as if Americans would be fighting on two fronts—in Europe and the Pacific Ocean—at the same time.

John knew where his duty lay. “I have to go,” he told Annie when they were alone together. Somberly, she nodded. For patriotic John Glenn, there could be only one decision when his nation was in peril.

John dropped out of college. In April 1942 he was accepted to the U.S. Navy preflight school. He had just one important thing to take care of before he left. He bought a sparkling little diamond ring and slipped it on Annie’s finger. They were engaged.

Glenn was not ready to head overseas yet, though. It took a lot of training—at least a year’s worth—to become a full-fledged military pilot. He needed athletic training to get in physical shape and academic training to be mentally prepared. He had to learn about engines, machine guns, aerodynamics, how to sight an enemy plane, and how to navigate by the stars.

Step by step Glenn learned to fly more powerful and sophisticated planes: Stearmans, open cockpit biplanes that could go 135 mph. Vultee Valiants, two-seaters that reached 180 mph. Big PBYs, or “flying boats,” that cruised at 120 mph and could land on water.

Instructors tried all sorts of tricks to get cadet pilots ready for combat conditions. They would roll the plane upside down so that the engine would cut out and the plane would glide along without power. John got used to hanging upside down, fastened only by his seat belts. Or instructors would make cadets fly under hoods that blocked the view through the plane window, so that they had to navigate by instruments alone. This nerve-wracking exercise was called “flying blind.”

Glenn met another young pilot, Tom Miller, who became his good friend. To Tom, John confided his greatest ambition—to be a fighter pilot. Fighters got to see all the real action.

Together the cadets vowed to do whatever it took to make the grade. The first step was to join the Marine Corps, a special branch of the Navy. Marines were known for their pride and loyalty and for never letting their buddies down. In the war in the Pacific, the Marines were taking back Japanese-held islands inch by inch. When ground troops landed on the islands, pilots helped protect them from the air. “Some of the Marines were coming back from the fighting there,” Glenn remembered later, “telling stories of combat and bravery that made me want to join them.”

What’s more, the Marine Air Corps had the most powerful fighter jets around.

So after graduating from pre-flight school in the top ten percent of their class, John and Tom joined the Marines. In the short fifteen days before reporting for duty, John rushed back to New Concord for a special day. On April 6, 1943, John watched Annie come down the aisle on her father’s arm, a radiant smile on her face. After twenty years of love and friendship, he and Annie were finally getting married.

When Glenn reported back to training camp, Annie came with him. It was at the air station in San Diego, California, that Glenn learned a hard lesson about life in the military. He and Tom wanted to join a fighter squadron that flew the newest, hottest planes: Corsairs. They begged the squadron’s leader to let them in.

Okay, Major Haines said. But only if they got permission from their present commander, Major Zoney.

But Glenn was in a rush. He ignored Haines’s advice and went straight to Zoney’s superior, the lieutenant colonel in charge of the whole group. By going over Zoney’s head, he had ignored the military chain of command. And, as he soon found out, he had made a major mistake.

Major Zoney was furious. “In this man’s Marine Corps, you need to learn where orders come from,” he barked at Glenn. “They come from your immediate superior. That’s me.”

Glenn felt awful. He was sure he had ruined his chances to become a fighter pilot. He practically got down on his knees to apologize to Zoney. Finally, he got his transfer.

On February 5, 1944, Glenn and his squadron, the VMO-1555, were sent overseas. Saying good-bye to Annie was tough.

John tried to make light of the separation. “I’m just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum,” he said.

“Don’t be long,” Annie replied, trying not to cry.

During the long ocean voyage to Hawaii, Glenn discovered that he was prone to seasickness. He spent much of the trip hanging over the rail, feeling nauseated. He was grateful when they finally reached Honolulu. Immediately he found a hula outfit to send back home to Annie.

The first mission of the VMO-1555 was to protect the submarine base on Midway Island from Japanese bombers. At dawn and dusk every day, Glenn was in the “ready room,” prepared for takeoff. When the alert siren blared, pilots raced out to the planes and jumped in the cockpits. Glenn’s group called itself the “Ready Teddys.” On the side of his Corsair was painted a running teddy bear in a flight suit.

Off duty, Glenn relaxed by playing volleyball and singing harmony with the guys. He also got a kick out of watching the local bird: the albatross, or gooney, as it was affectionately known. The gooney is one of nature’s most graceful and athletic flyers.

On land, though, the gooney looks awkward and silly. Glenn would sit and chuckle as he watched one of the majestic birds come in for a dignified landing—only to “tumble beak over webbed feet in a cloud of dust.”

Soon Glenn’s squadron was tapped for bombing raids over the Marshall Islands. The Americans were moving steadily across the Pacific, capturing one island at a time from the Japanese. But too many American lives were being lost in ground attacks. The U.S. opted for a bombing campaign instead.

In June 1944, the men and planes of VMO-1555 boarded an aircraft carrier, the USS Makin Island. A few days later, Glenn was in the cockpit of his Corsair on the deck of the carrier, a kind of floating runway. Glenn opened up the throttle, the catapult officer gave the signal, and the plane hurtled into the air. It was just like being shot out of a rubber band. Writing in his diary later, Glenn recorded that he was “out in space flying and not too sure how [he] got there.”

A month later, Glenn, Tom Miller, and two other buddies were on a bombing mission over the Japanese island of Maloelap. Glenn and Miller were the leaders of the formation, with a pilot from Pennsylvania named Monte Goodman off Glenn’s wing. Down they dived at 400 mph, trying to hit the target and get out before the Japanese could get them in their sights. But when the pilots regrouped at base after the run, Monte was missing. He had been shot down.

Shaken, Glenn went back over the ocean to look for his friend. But all he could find was an oil slick spreading over the dark water. Monte was the closest friend Glenn lost during the war. He never forgot that day.

The war in the Pacific was finally over in August 1945. By the end of the war, Glenn had flown fifty-nine missions and accumulated many honors: two Distinguished Flying Crosses and ten Air Medals. He went home to his proud family and thought about his next step. His father wanted him to take over his plumbing business. Annie’s father, who was a dentist, suggested he try dentistry. But Glenn had seen the world and tasted danger. He didn’t want to be land-bound—or New Concord–bound—again. He decided to stay in the Marines and keep on flying.

The vast blue skies were waiting.