Suddenly the plane shot upward, roaring away from the airfield. We all smashed back against our seats. Maybe the wheels won’t come down, someone said in a small voice. Snuffy Nixon, the navigator, stuck his head in the cabin and broke the silence. Don’t worry, folks. I just got mixed up in my figuring and picked the wrong country. Not France ! we cried. No, said Snuffy, it’s not France. But it’s not England, either. He grinned over at me. This is Kay’s home. We almost landed in southern Ireland !
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Oct
29
2009
Apr
04
2009
Inevitably, I had heard of the impending North African invasion. Talk in the back seat of my staff car was more Top Secret than anything on paper. In general, I knew about as much about Torch Operation as most senior commanders in the early autumn of 1942. One month before the birthday party I had taken Gen Eisenhower out to Telegraph Cottage in a hurry. For once he seemed preoccupied. He obviously didn’t want to talk; I had long made it a habit not to ask questions, ever. As we sped through Kensington he mumbled something about ‘big doings for a colonel’. The rest of the ride was in heavy silence. But Generals, three-star Generals don’t usually get excited over colonels. I knew something big was up. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, the General said as he got out at the cottage.
Mickey will look after you.
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Mar
06
2009
Within a fortnight I was driving a new general, Carl (Tooey) Spaatz. The now-famous and retired Tooey Spaatz was, in early 1942, a grimly silent major general. As chief of the new Eighth Air Force, he had a gigantic job. And he spent every waking moment pondering over problems involved in the daring principle of daylight bombing. A rather unspectacular, balding man who would hardly stand out in a crowd, he called to mind that pensive statue : The Thinker. He concentrated so intensively that I often thought he was asleep. Naturally, he had no time for the ordinary little details of everyday life. He was, in fact, coldly impatient with them. That’s how I came to drive for General Spaatz. His temper had finally boiled over because his sergeant was late again in arriving at a conference. The Yank chauffeur was naturally bewildered like many other Americans by the maze of tangled little streets which history had forced upon London. When the General heard of my MTC experience, he requested that I be loaned out to his headquarters immediately.
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