Some of the math problems were very difficult. If you took off from an aircraft carrier at a certain compass heading and flew at another heading to the target, what compass heading would you take to return to the carrier if it had also changed to a different heading? You had to also take into consideration your air speed and the wind direction. Bomber pilots had a navigator to tell them where to go and a bombardier to drop the bombs. A fighter pilot had to learn all of these things as he was up there all alone. We worked like this for three months and it was tough.
I found out that Red Hayes from Bristol Valley was a sergeant mechanic there at Maxwell Field. He used to go to all the Saturday night square dances and was a good friend of mine. He was married to a southern girl and lived off base in a nice brick house. Sometimes on Sunday I would go out to their house for a southern fried chicken dinner with pecan pie. One time another service man and I went to church there. I don't know what denomination it was but the minister would rant and rave and wave his arms for about three minutes then they would take up a collection. After about ten collections we were out of money so got up and left.
Even though we were being trained to be pilots, we still didn't know whether we would be fighter, bomber, transports glider or even a "wash out" (the term for not qualifying). At any time during training you could be sent to something else if they decided you wouldn't make it as a pilot. In most cases you would be sent to navigator or bombardier school. After graduating from Maxwell, I was sent to Primary training at Orangeburg, South Carolina. Every time we made a few friends we would be sent to different places and have to start an once again. At Orangeburg we were a small group and this is where we saw our first airplanes. They were P17's, a biplane. Things began to get a little easier for us here and the food got much better. The only discipline we got here was the GIGS we got for anything wrong that we did, like getting in late at night or not being in the right place on time. For each GIG we had to carry a rifle and march around the square in the center of the base for one hour, usually at night as you were too busy during the day. I had to do this several times myself.