The target for the aerial gunnery missions was a piece of heavy wire mesh six feet by thirty feet with a metal pipe and a lead weight on the front end to make it fly in a vertical position. It was attached to a tow plane, an A-26 or a P-47, by a long cable. Since four planes would be firing at the same target, the tips of the 400 rounds of ammunition in each plane would be dipped in a different color paint (red, yellow, blue, or green). The paint had a soft wax base that would mark the bullet hole as it passed through the target. Following each mission the target was laid flat on the ramp and scored by the pilots and the instructor. Occasionally there were arguments over whether the paint trace was blue or green, but generally the scoring was simple. Each hole was daubed with black paint after scoring so that the target could be reused.
On firing and gun camera missions the tow ship climbed to about 5,000 feet and flew parallel to the coast a few miles offshore and then reversed course periodically to stay within the range boundaries. The flight of four fighters would fly in echelon 1,000 feet or so above and abreast of the tow plane and about half a mile closer to shore. One by one they would peel off toward the target, then reverse the turn into a curve of pursuit and start firing when within range, inside 250 yards. The pilot had to cease firing at about 30 degrees off the target so the bullets would not endanger the tow plane. Also, he had to break off early enough to avoid colliding with the target, because hitting it could severely damage a fighter. The fighters then pulled up toward the shore and got into position for another pass. It was easy to tell if a pilot had fired from too narrow an angle, because his bullet holes would be elongated. If that happened more than once, the instructor and the tow pilot, especially the tow pilot, would chew him out. As in ground gunnery, the first few missions were with gun camera alone, so gross errors in technique could be eliminated before actual firing began. Gun cameras were used, however, along with the guns on all firing missions to evaluate technique.
The air-to-air firing went smoothly — all of the pilots were experienced, and there were no safety violations. It was a joy to take off in a formation of fighters, climb into the bright blue Texas sky, rendezvous with the tow ship at about 5,000 feet over the even bluer Gulf of Mexico, and then peel off individually to set up our firing passes. Watching the other P-47s make their passes was almost as enjoyable as making my own firing pass. They curved down toward the target and emitted a long trail of smoke as they fired. When they pulled up from the pass in a tight turn, the wing tips generated graceful white streamers in the moist Gulf air.
After landing, the pilots gathered on the ramp waiting impatiently for the return of the target. As soon as the jeep brought in the dropped target we eagerly pored over it, looking for our colors in the bullet holes. Then we scored the target officially, with two pilots calling off the hits by color. They had to be in agreement on the color before the third pilot could enter them on the score sheet. My scores were quite good, usually well above 50 percent.
Since this was an instructor's school, we were drilled on how to spot errors of technique both on the films and in the air and were taught how to correct the errors. The ground school stressed the teaching of the theory behind all of the weapons delivery methods we were learning.
Although the flying in the course was a fighter pilot's dream, it and the ground school were very demanding. Our days began at seven-thirty in the morning and frequently ended at seven-thirty in the evening. If weather interrupted the flight schedule during the week, we made it up on Saturday.
Except for the base theater, there was little or no recreation available in Victoria. There were few young women who were willing to waste their time with officers who would be there for only a month. Athletic equipment was available in abundance, so we played softball and basketball for hours in the evenings and on weekends. We had a simulated world series between the Jug (P-47) pilots and the Mustang (P-51) pilots. The real World Series was going on at the time, and on one weekend we were glued to the radio, with the same enthusiasm that glues today's sports fans to the television, while the Chicago Cubs battled the Detroit Tigers. It was an exciting series, all the more so because it was the first most of us had heard since 1941. The Tigers won in seven games. We also became great fans of the local high school football team and attended all its home games. I doubt that they ever had a louder or more loyal cheering section.
An interesting break in the school routine came when Admiral Nimitz, a native of Texas who commanded the forces in the Pacific in World War II, returned to the United States and was honored with a major parade in Dallas. All of the fighters at Victoria as well as aircraft from several other Texas bases were assigned to participate in an aerial parade. We flew to Carswell Field at Fort Worth early on the morning of the parade and were briefed on the formation we would fly, time over target, and radio procedures. The parade flight went well, but since there were about two hundred airplanes, it was difficult to maintain good formation in all the turbulence they generated. It also was more difficult for those farther back in the formation, both because of the extra turbulence and because small corrections in power at the front of the formation were magnified in the rear. Fortunately, I was in a flight of four near the front.
As we crossed over the heart of Dallas with its hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators, I thought how fortunate we were as Americans never to have experienced the horror and devastation caused by aerial bombing that so many cities in Europe and Asia had endured.
When we landed back at Carswell to refuel for the flight home, one of the P-51s, piloted by a character named Majalowski, landed too fast and too long, ran off the end of the runway, and then ground looped intentionally to avoid hitting the fence. He raised a great cloud of dust but didn't damage the airplane.
The control tower operator radioed, "P-fifty-one that just landed, are you having trouble?"
As he taxied back to the runway Majalowski replied, "No, I always land this way."
Once we were back at Victoria, the remaining ten days of the course seemed to pass rapidly. We spent about half the time in bombing and the other half in rocketry. About the only thing new we learned was the wing line method of determining dive angle on bombing and rocketry passes.
This system had been developed by the school, and it worked quite well despite, or perhaps because of, its simplicity.
The system consisted of a series of parallel lines painted on the wings, all starting at the leading edge and extending back about two feet. The lines were labeled 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 degrees, with the line farthest from the cockpit labeled 20 and the closest one 60. Regardless of altitude, if the pilot flew so that the target on the ground passed under the 20-degree line and he rolled into a dive as the target disappeared under the wing, he would be in a 20-degree dive, the same being true for the other angles. Since the amount of lead used in bombing varied with the angle of the dive, it was helpful to be as precise as possible. Without the wing lines the pilot had to estimate the angle of dive from whatever clues were available, which was far less accurate.
Suddenly the course was over, the last bomb dropped, the last rocket fired, and we said our good-byes to the instructors and new friends and dispersed to our respective bases. Schools like this ensured that in time a pilot would have friends at most of the fighter bases, which is one of the good features of a military career.
The next morning Tom and I climbed into our airplanes and headed back to Eglin. We had been gone just over a month and had logged some fifty hours each in the P-47N, which had turned out to be a very stable gun platform.