We received a base pay each month and a flying pay for each month when we flew at least four hours. During the first two months we received no flying pay as we had no planes. Just before I left the States, I arranged to have $100 a mouth from my pay go to Lettei in California.
Finally our new planes arrived and this was the first time we were sure we were really getting P-51s. A lot of the other squadrons were getting P-47s and P-38s so we considered ourselves lucky to be getting the planes we wanted most. It was near the end of February and everyone was anxious to begin flying after two months. These were the best fighter planes in the war and thousands of them had been built. Until this time there had been no fighters with long enough range to escort the bombers deep into Germany and our effort was taking a real beating from the German fighters. On February third I flew the P-51 for the first time and it was a thrill. It had so much more power than anything we had flown before and was a pleasure to fly. In it you truly felt part of the plane. That was what they called a "Pilot's Plane". For several days we just took the planes up to get their feel. On clear days you could see France and Belgium across the Channel but in general we flew near the base. Some pilots wore crazy and one even slipped across the Channel and shot all his ammunition at a train. This aggressive type of pilot usually proved to be the best in combat, so he was only reprimanded and grounded for three days. Due to the English weather, we were probably al1 grounded anyway.
We had a softball diamond for use when we were not flying. You had to watch it all the time because some one would fly across the field just above the ground when they could. They were so low that you would be forced down into the dirt. All fighter pilots were a little crazy, but mostly the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Several times I went up to 33,000 feet which was the highest the plane would go before the controls got sluggish due to the thin air. When you started the plane you could not take too much time getting into the air the air. You needed to taxi out and take off as soon as possible as it was a liquid cooled engine and the liquid would overheat and boil out al1 over the plane. That would make your maintenance crew real unhappy as they would have to clean the sticky material off the whole plane. This happened to me just once as I was getting ready to take off and it was the only mission when my flight had to go without me. The P-51 landed at about 90 mph and took off at 100 to 110 mph.