Since this is a bad rainy Sunday afternoon, it seems like a good time to tell you my story about how I was saved from transports and got into fighters. I had flown as co-pilot on an old Lockheed Hudson to Tyndal AFB and had to go to Dale Mabry Field in Talahassee (joint use civil and military) to catch an airline flight back to the West Coast. The ramp was covered with P-47's and so I wandered about looking longingly at each one when (then) Maj. Hanes came out to fly one. We struck up a conversation about how much I wanted to fly fighters but was stuck in the "Ferry" command. I had submitted one request after another for transfer but none got past my Squadron Adjutant. He said that anyone who really wanted to fly fighters should have the opportunity and if I would give him my name, serial number and present organization; he would "take care of it".

Three weeks later; I received orders from AF HQ. assigning me to 3rd Fighter Command in Tallahassee.Naturally my Adjutant had a few choice words for me but he had to sign my "base clearance"

You know the story of how a bunch of P-40 pilots wound up in the 1st Fighter and one September morning in 1943, I ran into (then) L/Col. Hanes; who was newly assigned to the 1st. Months later he was shot down over Yugoslavia and evaded for some time with a group that was friendly to the U.S. As you probably remember; if anyone was an evadee/escapee; they were not supposed to fly any more missions in that theater. That did not fit with Col Hanes' plan because he had promised the group that took care of him that he would come back and take out an ammo storage dump belonging to the group allied with the Germans. The day after he got back, he lead 12 P-38s from the 71st on a mission that "kept his promise".

As you might imagine, I am very proud of the Air Force System that selected this fine officer to be Maj/Gen. Horace A. Hanes.