Now I was in a real predicament; I couldn't see out of the cockpit except straight up, and that is no help in landing. Hoping that I wouldn't have a midair with someone also sitting on the cockpit floor, I settled down and tried to figure a way out of this fix. After ruling out having another pilot guide me to a landing, making an upside-down approach and rolling out just before touchdown (I gave that minimal consideration), and bailing out, assuming that I could from that position (Colonel Muldoon would never understand why I had abandoned a perfectly healthy airplane), I decided on the following. Using my feet, I was able to move the rudder pedals to the full aft position, that is, as close to me as possible. Then I braced my feet on the pedals and pushed forward hard on the stick. When my body rose to the right height, I pushed back and braced my back against the armor plate. I managed to stay in this position until I had landed and taxied off the runway. By that time my legs were quivering so badly under the strain that I shut off the engine, opened the canopy, sat on the floor, and waited for Doc Graves and his team to help me out of the cockpit. After I explained to him what had happened, he said he would put catches on the hooks to keep the grommets from slipping off inadvertently, but I told him they might also make it impossible to bail out. It was back to the drawing board for Dr. Graves and his team and back to the squadron for me. I never heard of the seat again, so perhaps the idea was abandoned.
When I got back to operations looking somewhat the worse for wear, I was asked, "What happened to you, Lope?" I said I had just become the first person to land a P-51 while standing up.
Not long afterward, I was told to report to the base commander's office at nine the next morning in Class A uniform for an award ceremony.
Two other squadron pilots, Maj. John Hudson and Capt. Bill Greene, received the same orders. John said we were to be awarded medals that we had won during the war but had not received. The next morning the base commander, Col. John F. Whiteley, pinned medals on seven officers after a formal reading of the citations by the base adjutant. I received the Silver Star and the Soldier's Medal. The Silver Star was awarded for repeatedly attacking a group of Japanese Oscar fighters that were providing top cover for a flight of Val dive bombers, even though I was out of ammunition and had been ordered to return to base. My attacks had kept the Oscars busy, allowing others in the squadron to shoot down three of the dive bombers. I received the Soldier's Medal for my part in rescuing crew members from a burning B-25 that had crashed on our airfield in China.
I couldn't help but contrast the formal ceremony at Eglin with the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal in China. I had received copies of the orders for the medals, but not the medals, and hadn't given it much thought. Just before I left China for the States, I stepped into the 23rd Fighter Group operations office in Luliang to say good-bye to some friends, and one of the ops officers asked me if I had received my medals yet. When I said no, he reached into a drawer, brought out a DFC and an Air Medal, both in boxes, and threw them across the room to me. I caught them, put them in my musette bag, and left. In retrospect, it was rather an appropriate presentation, since they were both flying medals.
A few days after the awards ceremony, Colonel Muldoon told me that I might be taking a P-80 to Alaska that winter and that I would be leaving in two days, on July 22, for Alaska in a B-25 with Lt. Col. Bob Bowden, the commanding officer of the medium and light bomber test squadron, to familiarize myself with the route. Sure enough, on the afternoon of the twenty-second, we took off for Ladd Field, near Fairbanks, Alaska. We made the trip in easy stages, spending the first night at Memphis and the second at Tinker Field in Oklahoma City, where Colonel Bowden had to check on the progress of some modifications to the fuel tanks of an Eglin C-54 transport (Douglas DC-4).
I had been checked out in the B-25 a few months earlier, so Colonel Bowden let me have the left seat on the leg from Memphis to Oklahoma City. I made a good landing, but it turned out to be my last of the trip. He didn't say anything, but I don't think he thought much of my steep, power-off landing approach. From then on he just climbed into the left seat as a matter of course, although he split the flying time evenly. Later, when I had more experience in the B-25, I found that his technique of a flatter approach with a little power was best suited for the B-25. Occasionally, even a fighter pilot can learn something, but I never admitted it to Colonel Bowden.
Our next stop was Offutt Field, south of Omaha, where we spent the day examining a crashed Fairchild C-82 Flying Boxcar that was assigned to the cold-weather test detachment at Ladd Field and discussing the crash with the pilot. He said that he had encountered a severe downdraft as he approached the end of the runway, causing him to hit the ground so hard that both of the tail booms broke and the fuselage was badly crushed despite the application of full power. It might have been the same wind-shear phenomenon that has caused a number of serious crashes in more recent years.
The next day we flew to Great Falls, Montana, via Denver, Colorado, and Hill Field, near Ogden, Utah. I had never been in this part of the country before, and the vast open spaces and the variation in scenery were a revelation. There seemed to be no end to the wheat fields in the Great Plains. Although the country was flat, it was gradually rising toward the Rocky Mountains, and by Denver the elevation was one mile above sea level. As we approached Denver, in the then crystal-clear air, the majestic peaks of the Rockies came into view, including Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs. Little did I realize that some twelve years later I would see it every day as one of the original faculty members of the new Air Force Academy.
From Denver to Ogden we had to fly at 15,000 feet to top the mountains that rise above 14,000 feet in that area. As we neared Great Falls, our last stop in the United States. the tall smokestack of a copper-smelting plant was visible from about one hundred miles. We spent a couple of days at the air base in Great Falls while the radio was being repaired. It had been operating erratically for several days, and we wanted it fixed before we left the country. We chose not to go into town, because we were expecting the repairs to be completed momentarily. The technicians couldn't locate the problem, so they replaced the set.
From Great Falls we flew to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, with a refueling stop at the Royal Canadian Air Force field at Fort Nelson, in the northeast corner of British Columbia. We crossed most of the province of Alberta on the way to Fort Nelson, roughly paralleling the Canadian Rockies as we headed northwest. The country was rough and hilly but not mountainous. The airfield at Whitehorse is on a plateau that looks down on the town. Because there were no quarters on the airfield, we stayed in town at the only hotel. Whitehorse was much like the Yukon gold-rush towns I had seen in Call of the Wild and other frigid classics. The sidewalks were made of wood planking, and there were many huskies roaming the streets. The hotel was small, and the rooms were of unfinished wood and sparsely furnished. There was one bathroom on our floor and, I assume, one on the next floor as well. I was intrigued by the local movie house, which was located in a private home. The hotel clerk suggested that we go see the movie after we had finished dinner. He tried to point out the location, but we didn't see anything that remotely resembled a theater. He patiently explained that it was in a house just down the street. We went to the house, knocked on the door, paid the admission, and sat in chairs set in rows in the living room. There were only about ten other patrons, and I believe the owner was waiting for us because he started the film almost immediately. It reminded me of the film arrangements in China. The film was sixteen millimeter, and there was a rather long pause every time a reel had to be changed. During the lull, the patrons questioned us about our trip and were quite interested to hear that we had come all the way from Florida. We enjoyed the film and the pleasant company, and when we left the theater, I was surprised to find it was still bright daylight even though it was nearly ten o'clock.