Chapter 2

Fort Worth Texas

 

Emily thanked Mr. Granger for the ride home, she waved goodbye to him as he drove away heading toward his brother’s farm. Emily had met Mr. Granger at a small restaurant near the train station in Fort Worth, Texas where she had stopped for a cup of coffee before calling her father to pick her up. Mr. Granger had offered her a ride home as he was passing by her family farm on his way to his brother’s place not far from where she lived.

She had listened intently to the story he told her on the drive from Fort Worth about his youngest brother Ray, who was a fighter pilot in the USAAF. Ray Granger had joined the All-Volunteer Group (AVG) to fight with the Chinese Airforce against the Japanese aggressors before the USA went to war with Japan. His AVG group, known as the ‘Flying Tigers’, flew the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter plane; each aircraft had a face of the tiger shark painted on the nose. The USAAF had to discharge the volunteer pilots headed for China because the USA was not at war in late summer of 1941, but the pilots could rejoin the USAAF if they chose to, at any time. As Emily walked along the long winding laneway to her family home, she pictured the tiger shark face on the nose of the Curtiss P-40 fighter plane in her mind.

The first combat mission of Ray Granger’s squadron took place twelve days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Emily remembered the report on the radio about the American ‘Flying Tigers’ fighting the Japanese in China. Even thought they were Americans under a special agreement from President Roosevelt and they were flying under the Chinese insignia, all of the American people were proud to hear of the victories of the ‘Flying Tigers’ against the Japanese. It gave the home front hope for the eventual victory over the Japanese. The volunteer fighter pilots also received a much higher rate of pay; about three times as much as pilots in the USAAF for flying in the Chinese Airforce, plus a bonus for every enemy plane that they shot down.

 

Curtis P-40 Flying Tigers

 

Ray had returned to the USAAF to fly fighter planes in the Pacific under the American flag. Emily expected that she would probably fly a Curtiss P-40 when she became a ferry pilot for the USA.

As she drew nearer to the porch of the farmhouse, she caught a whiff of something cooking, she was certain it was the aroma of her mama’s homemade biscuits.

Emily followed the mouthwatering scent of the biscuits to the large warm country kitchen. A look of surprise flashed across her mother’s face when she turned to see her daughter standing at the door in her ATA uniform. Emily put her bag on the floor as they hugged saying how much they had missed one another.

Alma Reid, Emily’s mother stood back taking in Emily’s appearance. Then she said, “You are as thin as a broom stick. What did you eat when you were in England?” Although mama admired with pride how grown-up and professional Emily looked in her ATA uniform. Her daddy would be proud of her.

“I thought you were going to call your daddy to pick you up when you got to Fort Worth. How did you get home?”

“I ran into Mr. Granger, who was coming this way to visit his brother, so he offered me a ride home. I heard on the train that the US had implemented gas rations, I thought it would save daddy the trip to Fort Worth,” answered Emily.

Alma Reid was short, not more than five feet tall, with a full figure; her dark brown hair showed streaks of gray. Her sad brown eyes no longer twinkled when she smiled as they once did, since the death of her oldest son, Jeremy.

Emily could tell that she had not gotten over the tragic loss. Emily was still trying to come to grips with it herself. Seeing the expression on her mama’s face brought the grievous feelings back once again.

Emily’s mind drifted away in thoughts of her brother; Jeremy wanted to join the navy to see the world as many young men his age did, much to his parent’s dismay. Emily remembered thinking that her brother Jeremy was lucky when she learned that his ship was sailing to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. She remembered thinking what a beautiful place Hawaii was to visit. Emily had no idea that it was the last time that she would ever see her brother.

In December 1941, the United States of America declared war on Japan after the horrific sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that killed thousands of American civilians and military personnel including Jeremy, Emily’s older brother. Jeremy died aboard the Battleship Arizona when the Japanese dropped their lethal bombs on the US fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese had not declared war on the USA; the bombing was entirely unexpected. Innocent Americans had no warning of the attack; they were completely unprepared. After the USA declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy then declared war on the USA because they were allies of Japan. America was at war!

The American people were shocked and outraged at the Japanese assault on the USA. Every American prepared for war, overseas as well as on the home front. The Reid family would never forget that day, the day that the Japanese killed Jeremy at Pearl Harbor. Emily would do whatever was necessary to help win the war to avenge her brother’s death at the hands of the Japanese.

Jeremy was tall like daddy with the same strong build and the same aptitude for fixing anything mechanical such as the truck or tractor engines. Emily missed him so much; it felt strange that he was not on the farm somewhere, working with daddy, and her twin brothers, Eli and Ethan.

The rest of the family was also tall like her father, Jake Reid. Daddy had light brown hair that was showing a little gray on the sides, his eyes were a pale blue with a few lines at the corners from squinting in the bright sun. His complexion was dark as thought he had a permanent tan from being outdoors so much on the farm. Emily had dark brown hair, the same color as her mother with the same deep brown eyes, but she was tall and lean like her dad.

Emily’s reverie ended when she heard her mother say her name as she asked Emily about the rations in Britain. Emily explained to her mother about the scarce rations in England, how the German U-Boats bombed the merchant ships carrying supplies headed to England.

“Sometimes I was so busy delivering airplanes that I forgot to eat,” exclaimed Emily.

Emily told her what each person received as a weekly ration. Her mama could not believe the small amount of food the British people received for an entire week.

“Ethan and Eli could eat at one meal the rations that the British Government allotted to a family of four in England for one day,” said Emily.

Emily listened as her mother brought her up to date on the rationing in the USA.

“The War Price and Rationing Board listed certain food items including sugar and flour as well as coffee, and nonfood items such as gasoline were now rationed on the home front. There is also a shortage of rubber for tires. Daddy heard on the news broadcast that the Japanese took over the plantations in the Dutch East Indies where the USA imports ninety percent of our raw rubber. President Roosevelt called on everyone to collect old tires, rubber raincoats, old garden hoses, old rubber shoes, and bathing caps for recycling to make rubber.”

“Your dad kept the old carriage that belonged to grandpa, which he stored behind the barn for years. The boys cleaned it inside and out, oiled everything and repaired the wooden wheels. Daddy hitches up the horses and we drive it to church on Sundays.”

“If he had picked me up with the horse carriage, it would have taken us all day to get home,” laughed Emily.

“That’s not as funny as hitching horses up to an automobile,” said her mama.

“Some people actually do that?” asked Emily in disbelief. Mama nodded her head, “Yes they do,” she replied with a smile. They call them ‘Roosevelt Buggies’.”

Emily could not help but laugh as she conjured up an image in her mind of the horse drawn automobiles.

The War Price and Rationing Board also suggested that everyone plant a vegetable garden. Mama always planted her own vegetable garden beside the house every year even before the war began. She bought a copy of the wartime cookbook, titled ‘The Victory Cook Book’ from the church. It listed what she could use as substitutes for sugar such as honey or molasses. Mama now used margarine instead of butter, which was a big surprise to Emily, but everyone had to do what was necessary for the war effort on the home front. The board asked families to eat less meat; they encouraged everyone to eat more chicken and fish. Daddy sold a large amount of their beef cattle to the army, but they had plenty of chickens and Emily’s younger twin brothers Ethan and Eli went fishing most evenings after dinner down at the creek. They managed to catch enough fish for two or three meals a week.

Emily asked mama if Mabel, their housekeeper was working today, just as the back door creaked open and Mabel entered the kitchen carrying a basket of clean laundry from the clothesline out back. Mabel helped mama with the household chores, but mama preferred to do the cooking herself ever since Emily could remember. Daddy hired a few more women to help mama with the preparing of meals for the extra help during harvest time. Emily preferred to work outside on the farm with her daddy and her brothers instead of washing dishes after everyone finished their meal.

Emily grew very strong from bailing hay, when in fact she was supposed to be in the house helping her mother with the kitchen chores. If the tractor’s engine stopped running, Emily worked right alongside her dad and Jeremy, replacing filters and adjusting the choke, until the motor sparked to life again. Emily’s hands were always full of grease or dirt, so truthfully her mama preferred that she did not help to work around the kitchen, which suited Emily just fine.

Emily glanced toward the door at Mabel, who gave Emily a big smile as soon as she noticed her standing in the kitchen with her mama. As they greeted one another, Mabel told Emily how fine she looked in her uniform. Emily radiated a smile of gratitude at Mabel for the compliment. Mabel could not wait to tell Emily that Virgil, Mabel’s oldest son had joined the military. His base was at Tuskegee in Alabama. That was interesting, thought Emily, she was certain that there was an airfield at Tuskegee.

Emily said that she was pleased to hear that news about Virgil. She had known Virgil most of her life; he worked as a farmhand every summer when they were young. He was a hard worker and very clever; she had no doubt that Virgil would do well in the military. Emily had heard rumors that an all-Negro squadron of fighter pilots had begun training, but she was not sure at which air base. Emily was curious to know if Virgil was one of these pilots. Mabel quelled Emily’s inquisitiveness when she told her that Virgil had mentioned in his last letter that he might be learning to fly airplanes. I knew it, thought Emily to herself. No wonder Mabel was so proud of him. Emily could not help thinking about what type of aircraft Virgil would learn to fly. Mabel left the kitchen to put away the clean linens in the basket.

Emily’s attention returned to the smell the aroma of the biscuits baking in the oven along with the fried chicken sizzling in the cooker. Her stomach ached for some of her mama’s home cooking. She was unsure if it would still taste as good using the substitutes of the altered recipes from the wartime cookbook, but she would soon find out. Alma Reid pulled the biscuits from the oven and sat them on a rack on the wooden table to cool. They aroma was tantalizing, but Emily had to wait until they cooled.

After a snack of some homemade biscuits and fresh strawberry preserves, Emily left the house in search of her daddy and her brothers. She felt better knowing that the biscuits were still delicious, although mama baked them with margarine instead of butter.

Emily saddled up her horse called Sadie that she had not ridden since she left for England; she slid a rifle in the holder of the saddle and headed out to the north field where daddy and the boys were repairing fences. The rifle was mostly for protection against rattlesnakes or coyotes. Emily learned to fire a rifle, just like her brothers when she was ten years old.

As she approached the big old red barn, she climbed down from Sadie and removed her rifle from the holder. She walked toward the rickety old door and opened it carefully. There stood the first airplane that she had flown in with her daddy. White residue covered the flaked red paint; it looked as though daddy had recently sprayed the crops, but it still looked beautiful to Emily.

The old biplane, a Curtis two-seater aircraft that daddy bought and converted to a crop duster when Emily turned twelve years old was still in good flying condition. It brought back memories of when she was a young teenager sitting in the old airplane for hours pretending that she was a famous pilot like Amelia Earhart soaring through the sky with not a care in the world. She loved to fly with her dad in the biplane around the property, but he would not take her with him when he was dusting the fields, as he had a feeling it was not good for her lungs. He also showed her how to repair and maintain the engine of the biplane. Those were the days, when Emily realized that she wanted to learn to fly airplanes. Her mama always said that Emily should have been a boy. Emily said that she did not really want to be a boy, she just wanted to do the things that adults encouraged boys to do, but for some reason they discouraged the girls from doing them, such as flying airplanes.

 

Curtis biplane

 

Looking at the old biplane reminded Emily of when she finished high school; her parents decided that she should go to college, as she was the only girl in the family, and Daddy needed the boys to help run the farm. Her mama had visions of Emily teaching grade school, but Emily had different ideas. She gave her parents a hundred reasons why she should not attend college, but none of them made a difference, so Emily began three long years of college.

Then one day something changed at the college, she started liking school when President Roosevelt implemented the Civilian Pilot Training program (CPT) into the colleges across USA in 1939. Emily wrote to her parents asking permission to take the flight-training course so she could obtain her pilots license. Her mother was not happy when her father gave her permission and sent her the money for lessons.

There was only one opening out of ten at each college for a female student, so Emily applied for it. Luckily, not too many young women at college had an interest in flying airplanes, they were mostly interested in finding a prospective husband, so Emily began the pilots training course. She was a quick learner. Emily received her pilot’s license and accumulated fifty hours of flying time in her logbook. She never complained about having to go to college again.

The first thing she did when she returned home to the farm from college for Christmas break was to ask her daddy if she could fly the old Biplane. The weather was clear and suitable for flying, so her father agreed to let her fly it. He was proud of her accomplishments, but her mother was not happy about her daughter flying airplanes. Emily was able to accumulate many hours of flight time in her logbook as she flew around the farm on a regular basis.

Emily finished college in June 1941; the war was already raging in Europe as the British RAF pilots fought off the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. All of America felt that the US would enter the war soon. A group of American military pilots, known as Eagle Squadron, had already volunteered to go the England to fight the German Luftwaffe alongside the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the defense of Britain. The USAAF granted these pilots special permission to resign their commission temporarily in order to fly with the RAF under British command.

The Reid family gathered around the radio to listen to the news every night in the large front room of their home. Everyone wanted to keep up with what was happening in the war on the other side of the Atlantic. It did not sound favorable for Britain and the Allies.

The USA sent aircraft to Britain on a lend/lease program via Canada. The Americans could not deliver the planes out of the USA directly to Britain because they were not officially at war with Germany. American Pilots flew the aircraft to the US/ Canadian border; they left the aircraft parked at the border for the Canadian military, who pushed them into Canada. All of the American pilots joked that those damn Canadians stole another American fighter plane. The Canadians then shipped the desperately needed aircraft to Britain for the RAF squadrons to fight off the German Luftwaffe, who were relentlessly bombing England. This was a clever way of getting around the rules of war.

In February 1942, Emily read an advertisement in a magazine placed by Jackie Cochran to recruit female pilots to sail to England to join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Britain needed more female pilots to ferry military aircraft from factories to RAF airfields. Emily could not believe it. Of course, she wanted to join the ATA. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. She dreamed of finding a job that involved flying aircraft. This was it! She would use her skills as a pilot to help win the war against the German Nazis, who were the Allies of the Japanese.

Her mother was against it of course, which was no surprise to Emily, but her father agreed that she should join, with some reservation, but he had confidence in Emily’s ability to fly airplanes. He was proud of his daughter. She was a true Texan, who believed in the freedom of the United States of America. She was a strong, intelligent girl, maybe a little iron-willed, but no one was perfect. He had no doubt that she would make the state of Texas proud as well as the United States of America and her family.

Emily was twenty years of age, old enough to make her own decisions, but she asked her parents’ permission out of respect for them. She had already made up her mind to go to the interview with Jackie Cochran.

Emily’s mind quickly shifted back to the present when she heard a rustling sound coming from a dark corner of the big old barn that daddy used as a hanger for the biplane. Thankfully, she never went anywhere without her rifle, it was a part of her when she was on the farm. She stood perfectly still, as she slowly raised her rifle to shoulder height, careful not to make any sudden moves. She had her finger on the trigger ready to squeeze it at the right moment. She heard it rattle before she saw it. She had an eerie feeling that it could sense her presence. She had to be careful not to hit the biplane, so she patiently waited until she had a clear shot. She could see it was slowly slithering closer toward her. She gently squeezed the trigger hitting the rattlesnake right between its cold beady eyes. Its body continued to writhe after Emily had blown its head off. She hated the ugly creepy vermin.

She had killed her share of them as she was growing up on the farm. The population of snakes in Texas was more than they needed. They spooked the horses and cattle and inflicted a deadly bite if they got close enough to you. Emily always made sure they did not get close to her after she watched the pain her older brother Jeremy suffered, when bitten by one of them. He had his rifle with him, but did not get a chance to use it. Jeremy had taken a shortcut through a field of deep grass to the barn to fetch more nails for daddy to use on the fence they were repairing; he stepped on a rattlesnake slithering through the tall grass looking for prey. It inflicted a vicious bite just above Jeremy’s ankle. Jeremy did not get a chance to fire a shot; it was too late, the snake had already slithered away. Jeremy fired his rifle three times in quick succession; it was a signal they used if anyone was in trouble. The rifle shots brought daddy running to Jeremy’s aid. Daddy administered the antivenin and drove him to the hospital. Jeremy survived thanks to daddy who always carried the antivenin with him at all times. Jeremy could have died without it on the way to the hospital.

Emily was an excellent shot, almost as good as her daddy, who taught her how to shoot a rifle as well as a handgun. He also taught her how to use it safely and treat it with respect. Emily won the rifle and handgun shooting competitions for her age group every year at the county fair during her school years. She was the only girl, who ever won the competition four consecutive years. Daddy was proud of her, but mama preferred that Emily enter other contests such as sewing or cooking, neither of which appealed to Emily.

She climbed back into the saddle pointing Sadie in the direction of the north field to meet up with her daddy and her twin brothers. From a distance, Emily could see them working on the fence as she approached, her younger brothers were almost the same height as their father now.

All three turned to look in the direction of Emily as she trotted toward them on Sadie. Emily came to a stop and jumped down from her horse. She ran toward her daddy giving him a huge hug.

“How did you get here from Fort Worth?” he asked Emily.

“I met Mr. Granger in town, he asked if I needed a ride home as he was driving past here on his way to his brother’s farm,” smiled Emily giving the same explanation that she gave to mama.

“That was mighty neighborly of him,” replied her father.

Eli and Ethan patted her on top of the head after they each gave her a big hug. It was their way of saying that we are taller than you are little sister, even though she was older. Eli and Ethan were identical twins who favored their dad in looks, with the same light brown hair, pale blue eyes and tall lean build.

“Welcome back Em,” said her Dad with a smile. Her daddy always called her Em ever since she was little girl.

Eli and Ethan started calling her Emmy when they were toddlers learning to talk.

“What was that rifle shot I heard a few minutes ago?” asked her dad.

“Oh, that was just a big old ugly rattlesnake in the barn, one less we have to worry about,” replied Emily.

Jake Reid did not have to ask his daughter what she was doing in the barn; he knew she stopped to have a look at the old biplane that she always loved so much as a young girl.

“Did you get to shoot any German’s in England, Emmy?” asked Eli. They still referred to her as Emmy.

“They wouldn’t give us any guns. We just delivered the airplanes without the armaments installed; the RAF pilots did all the shooting.” replied Emily.

“That’s too bad, you probably would have gotten rid of a few Germans for them,” added Ethan. The brothers talked non-stop for the next half-hour asking endless questions as they finished working on the fence for the day. Emily had pitched in to help do the repairs as she answered their questions. They were excited to see their sister back home again and they wanted to hear Emily’s first-hand account about the war. Emily smiled at Daddy as the twins made it sound as though Emily fought the Luftwaffe singlehanded in air battles over England. They were young with great imaginations, but she could tell that they were proud of her.

Jake Reid and his sons loaded the tools in the back of the old pickup truck and then Jake slid into the driver’s seat as the boys climbed in beside him. Emily rode Sadie back to the horse barn as they all headed back to the house for a wholesome home cooked meal. The twins continued to question Emily about what it was like in England fighting the German Luftwaffe for the rest of the evening. Emily finally retired to her room for a good night’s rest.