Tom Parks

Learning the Art of War: Episode 3: Basic Flight

Author

Tom Parks

A Ground School Instructor…

In August of 1942, as my father began his Primary Flight training at Carlstrom Field in Florida, J.D. Salinger, the future author of “Catcher in the Rye“, was arriving at the Army Air Force Basic Flight School at Bainbridge, Georgia. He would be stationed there for the next nine months.

The twenty-three-year-old writer had been drafted earlier that year and subsequently assigned to the Bainbridge Army Airfield as a ground school instructor.

In the biography, J.D.Salinger: A Life, author Kenneth Slawenski writes that Salinger, although “not mechanically inclined“, somehow found himself teaching young pilots the inner workings of aircraft engines.

In October of 1942, two months after Salinger became an instructor, Cadet Parks and the class of 43-B arrived at Bainbridge for their Basic Flight Training…

That’s right… There is a distinct possibility my father learned about aircraft engines from J.D. Salinger.

War is a strange business.

Learning the Art of War: Episode 2: Primary Flight

Author

Tom Parks

The above picture was taken at Carlstrom Field sometime in late August or early September of 1942

In the photograph, aviation cadets, Rodney L. Due (left) from Chicago, Richard B. Bixler (right) from Annville, Pennsylvania and their instructor (center) leave the flight line after putting in some time in the dual cockpit PT-17 Stearman in the background.

On the back of the photograph, my father titled the scene, “That’s enough for today.“

Early 1942: Enlisting in the Cause

Author

Tom Parks

The Japanese attack on Pearl harbor took place on Sunday, December 7th, 1941. By the following Wednesday, America was formally at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy.

As the United States entered the conflict, it had 1.8 million citizens in uniform. Over the next twelve months, that number would more than double as another two million men and women enlisted or were drafted. By the end of the war, over 12 million Americans would be serving in America’s armed forces. 8.7 million of them went overseas.

My mother and father were two of the 8.7 million Americans who served on foreign shores during World War II. But, in January of 1942, they were still civilians and 5 full years away from the chance meeting my existence would depend on.

Veterans’ Day: November 11, 2016

Tom Parks

During World War II, both of my parents and all three of my uncles served overseas in the United States Armed Forces. Only four of them came home.

Above, from left to right…

Learning the Art of War: Episode 1: Pre-Flight

Author

Tom Parks

During the first two weeks of April 1942, the war news was pretty bleak.

In Europe, Adolf Hitler was planning a summer offensive against Russia’s oil fields in the Caucasus and a move to seize Stalingrad.

In the Pacific, Japan was gaining control of the Philippines and, on the 9th of April, over 60,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war began a forced relocation that is now known as The Bataan Death March.

At sea, the Japanese Navy sank the Royal Navy cruisers, HMS Cornwall and Dorsetshire, the aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, and the Royal Australian Navy destroyer, HMAS Vampire.

A Girl from Maine Goes to War

Author

Tom Parks

On June 6th, 1944, allied forces crossed the English Channel, stormed the beaches of Normandy, and began pushing the Germans back towards Berlin. The long-planned and eagerly anticipated D-Day invasion was the beginning of the end of the Nazi nightmare that had gripped Europe since September of 1939.

However, at that moment, no one knew exactly when the war would be over. No one knew it was going take 11 more months of worldwide death, destruction, and heartache before Germany finally surrendered and another two months after that before Japan capitulated.

Pearl Harbor & Going to War

Author

Tom Parks

My father graduated from Jamestown High School in Jamestown, North Dakota on June 1, 1939. He was 17 years old.

That day, newspapers all over the country featured at least a couple of stories mentioning Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While the articles contain an undercurrent of concern, there was nothing specific in any of them that would indicate war in Europe was just 91 days away.

A Murder in Queens

Author

Tom Parks

The above photograph was taken in early August of 1933. The woman on the left is my father’s mother, Virginia. She is posing with her friend Marian Cunningham. They are in Colorado.

That year, America was fully and firmly in the grip of the Great Depression. Jobs and, by extension, money were very hard to come by. Virginia’s husband was working in New Jersey and their only child, my father, was living with Virginia’s parents in Atlanta. Virginia was in Colorado simply because that’s where her job was. This situation was not uncommon in America in 1933.

While researching the company my grandmother worked for in Colorado, I stumbled across newspaper accounts of a sensational crime in New York City that Virginia and her husband and her parents would have undoubtedly been following that August. It was in all the papers.

Finding a Box of Old Letters

Author

Tom Parks

Just before Christmas of 2009, my parents, then in their late eighties, decided they needed to move. My father, in particular, felt they were no longer capable of living completely on their own.

Buying a Television in 1949

Author

Tom Parks

One of the items I found among my father’s papers was the 1949 receipt for my parents’ first television set.

Author: Tom Parks

Learning the Art of War: Episode 3: Basic Flight

A Ground School Instructor…

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Learning the Art of War: Episode 2: Primary Flight

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Early 1942: Enlisting in the Cause

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Veterans’ Day: November 11, 2016

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Learning the Art of War: Episode 1: Pre-Flight

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A Girl from Maine Goes to War

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Pearl Harbor & Going to War

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A Murder in Queens

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Finding a Box of Old Letters

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Buying a Television in 1949

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A Ground School Instructor…

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