You can see why our training was so extensive as the fighter pilot was his own, pilot, gunner, bombardier, and navigator. He had to be trained in all areas. on our second mission, which was the first one for Ullo, he failed to return. Even though no one actually saw what happened, we figured he had gone down. Remember that he was the one who had gone to Texas to advanced gunnery school and came back to California to teach us all he had learned He went down on his first mission and probably never got to fire his guns. His bad luck spelled the end of our piano lessons in London. His story is interesting and you will Learn of it 1ater, After we got together again.
We had another pilot, James Barlow from Klamath Falls, Oregon, who during training was always on the radio singing on the radio "here I sit, fat, dumb and happy". He was shot down on one of our early missions and we heard him call on his radio "So long guys here goes fat, dumb, and happy bailing out. We were beginning to lose pilots now and were getting replacements from the States. I'm glad I never had to Join a group like that, not knowing anyone. We had been together so long by then that we knew each other and were good friends. We did not dwell much on the friends we had begun losing. Each of us had accepted the probability that it could happen to us any day, so had conditioned ourselves to the situation. Some of the missions made us nervous but I wouldn't say that we were inordinately bothered by fear. We were so occupied and it was a thrilling experience to actually be a part of combat over enemy territory. However we did look forward to the days that the weather was bad and no missions were flown. We would sit around the "Ready Room" playing cards and discussing past missions. I should mention that my Flight Leader T.J. Tilson or Bruce had given me the nickname of "Buck" Benson when we were in training in California and that is what I was called from then on. I don't remember anyone ever calling me Bunny.
One of our missions was a dive bombing run on some factories in France. We flew in formation to the target and peeled off one at a time diving down at a large building and releasing our bombs. I saw some of them go right into a large door at one end of the building. We were down to about 500 feet and when we pulled up I saw the plane in front of me blow up and I flew right through the pieces. I don't remember the pilots name, but recall seeing something yellow go by me and thinking it was the yellow "Mae West" life vast we all wore. Anti-aircraft fire must have hit his tanks. I was flying with Bruce and when we got back to the field he found several bullet holes in his plane. Several times when we flew together he got bullet holes, but I never did get hit. When going on a mission we would start our planes and taxi out onto the runway. You taxied by zigzagging because the nose of the plane was up while on the ground and you couldn't see directly in front of you. We took off by twos with the second plane at the side and slightly behind the other. The second plane watched the lead plane only and kept the same distance from him. You didn't look at the instruments on the runway, just the other plane. Sounds hard now, but it was easy once you got used to it. We would then climb by twos until reaching a specific altitude, circle until everyone was in formation, then we would head for Europe. Sometimes when it was cloudy you were forced to climb on instruments only until getting above the clouds, anywhere up to 30,000 feet. The sun would be shining there and the clouds as white as new snow. It gave one the feeling that you were just above the earth and could step out and walk on top of the clouds. The other planes would pop up out of the clouds. It was quite a sight.