Show GOD IS MY acael r 44 COPILOT CO rr PILOT copilot OT col robert alscott RELEASE FOREWORD the author col robert L scott jr served under my command from july 1 1942 to january 9 1943 as ai commander of my fighter force the only cc criticism m 0 of his actions as group commander ader teas ft that he consistently sched scheduled himself as a pilot on all possible missions he fie led all types sues oj of combat missions but specialize in the most dangerous such as long range flights to strafe from minimum altitude lap jap air bromes motor vehicles and shipping deep in enemy territory it Is was often necessary for me to forbid hi his S participation artill in combat c 0 n bat missions in order or ader to 80 enable hi him to discharge the many other duties of a group commander his story 0 is a record of persistence pers nee d determination ayio li and courage from early boyhood having determined early in life that he had to fly he overcame all I 1 obstacles 0 in the way to the attainment of his ambition this story alone should be an inspiration to every american boy having become a military pilot his h bw determined struggle to meet mee 8 the en e emy m y sd and hawf his glorious larlaus lor laus record first as a one 0 n e man an air 4 force or e and later as corn inlander 0 the american fighters its in I 1 china should be an inspiration to all americans americana of oil all ages colonel scotts group of a fighters always operated against greatly superior numbers of the enemy often the odds were five to one against them their planes and equipment were usually battered by hard usage and supplies were extremely exve mely limited both scott and his handful of pilots had one resource in unlimited quantities courage They also possessed essed initiative and a never jailing failing desire e to destroy the enemy they wore themselves out doing the work of ten sere times their number they demonstrated time and again that american pilots and plang plant are superior to the laps japs the th results r which they achieved prove indisputably that the enemy can be destroyed or driven from china it if adequate equipment and supplies are made a available the offensive spirit displayed by scott and his early pilots lives on in the men who replaced replace them they impatiently await the weapons needed to drive on into the heart of japan and to final victory C L major general A V U S commanding hah air force AUTHORS NOTE my decision for the title of this book aas was probably made back there in dunming one afternoon as the doctor dug those five rivet heads from deiy back they had been daiv eo en in when a jap explosive bullet hit the armor plate behind my teat sent to keep my mind off the pain the big cantonese intern of doctor mangels kept talking to me he seemed to find it hard to believe that I 1 flew bew the little fighter alone that I 1 dropped the bombs fired ared the six achane guns a changed the fuel planks anks navigated and landed the fighter finally with disbelief in his eyes he looked at me and said colonel you are up there all alone even talk over the radio when you shoot the guns As I 1 waited tor for him to go on with another question X heard th the old doctor say no eon youre not up there alone not with all the things you come through you have the great greatest est copilot in the world even if there is lust just room tor for one in that lighter fighter ship no youre not alone I 1 believe when this war is over that th a t we w e will be closer to god than at any it time me in the past I 1 believe tills this because I 1 have seen instances instance of real faith on all fronts take tor for instance just the other day clay a song came out coming in on a wing and a prayer that could have been concel conceived vedas as a title or as the theme of the song only by some real event A ship landed with an engine shot away the fd fuselage gutted by fire and the plane riddled with bullets one of the war correspondents hurried out to the wounded pilot and asked how in the world did you bring this ship in 7 the pilot shook his head smiled and replied 1 I dont know ask the man upstairs we who fly are going to get to know that great plying flying boss in the sky better and better my personal ambition Is that he permit me to go again into combat against the jap or the hun that lie be help me list t a little to shoot down a hun mcd red jap ships even a thousand ben er en I 1 hope he lets me come back to tell another story im going to name nam that one the sequel to this one GOD IS STUL STILL MY COPILOT CO PILOT B L U S CHAPTER I 1 even the angels in heaven must dave shrugged their wings after the few seconds of my first flight for back home in macon georgia in 1920 1 must have been even at age twelve the vandal typo type there I 1 climbed the steeple of the baptist church and from the belfry took twelve whitish pigeons carried them to a tent meeting of holy rollers id at t the tense mor moment of fanatic boyr ayar released them I 1 can re ember nearly splitting my sides laughing at what happened the darkies were rolling roiling on the sawdust a 1 floor r they were rolling their eyes and nd yelling gideon gideon hal bal delulah glory gl glory oryll 1 I 1 suppose the pigeons really did look uke like doves of at peace but I 1 had reckoned without the old preacher who iwho had me arrested tor for disturbing the noisy peace when I 1 got out of jail more embarrassed than anything else I 1 swore vengeance on the holy rollers and the old preacher early one morning while delivering papers I 1 took a razor blade and cut off fifty feet of canvas from the side wall of the converted circus t tent ent took it away and hid it in the woods I 1 had bad no use for the purloined c canvas and to excuse myself from a nagging conscience I 1 tried to torget forget it but every morning I 1 saw the lagged jagged hole that I 1 had made tor for vengeance later on I 1 decided to build a glider and for wing covering the canvas was ideal then with the cloth stretched over the ribs of the airfoils and varnished tor for tightening even with american insignia painted on the fuselage I 1 found myself ready to fly two of my friends helped me pull it to th the root f of a high colo colonial mal home in M macon ac on and with them steadying the ggs wings I 1 ran down the sloping roof and flew out into space now in those days I 1 knew nothing of main spars center sections or wing loading with a crack like the closing of the jail door the wing buckled in the center and I 1 crashed sixty seven feet to the ground the cherokee rose bush that sacred state flower of georgia into which I 1 tell fell probably saved my life but the thorns stayed with me for a 8 long time after my father had pulled me from the wreckage more scared than burt hurta I 1 was ordered to tear the glider apart I 1 did but saved the ill fated canvas for other plans later on it was used to cover the barrel stave ribs of a homemade home made canoe which was wa 3 intended to transport in me e down the ocmulgee river to the sea some twelve hundred miles away as the winding river ran I 1 had made about six hundred miles of the trip when the sailing canoe caught on a snag and the current rolled us to the muddy bottom tangled in the rope rigging odthe of the sail in the seconds that followed I 1 nearly drowned 1 I saw my whole misspent misspend mis spent life parade before my eyes finally the rope broke and I 1 swam ashore but I 1 had already decided to leave the sacred canvas seasoning forever at the bottom of the ocmulgee river once again my mind turned to flying I 1 confined my aircraft construction st to scale models and finally made a flying one which won the first boy scout aviation merit badge in that part of the country I 1 remember when general mitchell billy Mit cheU led a flight of fast looking MB Ts as through the home town I 1 crawled into one of the baggage compartments in hopes that I 1 would be flown on to florida in this dawn to dusk flight but the mechanics found me and I 1 missed making the pursuit ship any tan tail heavier than it normally was it was far back when I 1 was four or five that I 1 had seen my first airplane A pilot by the name of ely spun in and was killed and my horrified mother dragged me from the scene it most certainly should have been an ill omen tor for my flying future however I 1 know that it whetted my appetite to fly I 1 liked hiked anything that flew few and freed one from the earth but most of all I 1 prayed that destiny would make me a pilot of the fast little littie single seat ers a fighter pilot in 1921 1 I read of an auction sale of wartime war time jennys in americus georgia gathering the largest fortune that I 1 could collect I 1 drove my cut down model T racing ford to buy uy myself a real plane As the abc tio pioneers io hammer hit the block for the he first time that morning I 1 opened with my maximum bid seventy aye ive dol dollars laral the auction auctioneer eer did look my way but the look was merely a frown rown far in the back of the hangar bangar a heavy voice called six hundred dollars and to this fat man the jennys went one by one I 1 must have bid over a hundred times imes before the morning had bad gone the sale had bad topped stopped for lunch and had bad been resumed that afternoon I 1 kept bidding and as I 1 said seventy five dollars for about my hundredth time I 1 heard heavy breathing over my right shoulder I 1 turned to look at the man who had been overbidding over bidding me and the deep voice said now listen isten son im going to let you have this one for your seventy five dollars get it and get the hell out of here because im buying all the rest for an airline anyway I 1 had a real plane all crated up I 1 hauled it home on a truck hid fild it in another boys garage so my parents find out about it and be gan trying to assemble the parts for days and weeks I 1 worked but get the knack of it finally I 1 received a letter from a streetcar street car conductor who said he be had bad been a pilot in the war he of to help me put the jenny to gether and teach me to fly and navigate a if I 1 would give him use of the plane tor for barnstorming oyer the state on weekends week ends the partnership began he taugh me some fundamentals like faster and faster until the ship was wai almost ready to take off of I 1 went to t chandler field in atlanta and took several lessons with the instructors instructor there in eagles and jennys until one day I 1 trusted myself to take tak off from the racetrack ot of my home town fairgrounds I 1 still dont see se how I 1 got by with the flight because I 1 knew nothing about coordination of controls or the techi tech of flying though no ono om seemed to fo know much about them la ill those days but the ship was a pretty safe old crate the wing skids saved me from digging a wingtip ll IV on the forthcoming ground loops and I 1 got away with murder AU all of this ended very suddenly the streetcar street car conductor instructor instruct oi ot of mine came back to land one on night and hooked the jennys right wing on the guy wire of a smokestack that was the last of him and the last of my jenny because they both burned As ai the years went on I 1 moved up in the boy scouts until at seventeen in 1925 1 I was one of the highest in the country and had more merit meril badges than any other scout in the th south with all of them however my schooling had suffered for to te me flying and athletics came before books and such I 1 sometimes think the only way I 1 ever completed high school was for my patient mothes and father to promise to let me m work my way to europe on tr freight eight ers era in the summer only when I 1 could pass studies like spanish and english I 1 dont think though that thal my parents knew I 1 had resolved to go to west point for alter after talking to men in the air corps I 1 had discovered that if a boy went to the th training center at brooks field near san antonio as a flying cadet his future was rather indefinite toe the government would train you t to 3 fly by give you the best course in th the 4 world then they would order you to active duty as a reserve offices tor for about a year after that due to economy programs it might au all be over wanting to fly by tor for the rest of my life I 1 had charted my course I 1 resolved to go to the military academy and become a regular army officer first then to be ordered to the air corps training center as a student officer after completing the flying course I 1 would have a lifetime in front of me as a pilot in the regular army the greatest fight I 1 had was to 9 get et into the military academy for appointments were scarce in the south I 1 wrote all the senators and congressmen in georgia but found they had promised their quotas long before AU all such refusals merely merel y ma made de me more determined to win the opportunity I 1 wrote not only M my y own state political leaders bue but t those of other states finally the congressman of my georgia district at the earnest plea of home town friends who knew of my boy scout record gave me second alternate this proved of little value the principal won out by merely presenting his high school credits and passing the physical examination the next year I 1 was given a first alternate from a senator but again ga in the principal won hope of entering the abade academy y 5 seemed to wane for I 1 was app approaching roarn h maximum age limit for applicants the same year I 1 tried a competitive examination with the national guard but failed the algebra subject this failure AJ at least proved to me that though my studies in high school may have been passed I 1 had learned very little my stock in myself was at a low ebb there in 1928 1926 when the high school principal did me the greatest favor in the world by his remark well you really expect to go to west point did you and the smile that accompanied the slur ma made de me swear that by all that was high and holy I 1 would get there the things that followed were chronologically peculiar for any boy ill bet im one of the few in this world who was graduated from high schoot chool attended two coUe colleges and then returned to high school to really get the foundation I 1 had bad missed I 1 know I 1 had at last learned that teat what one of the old professors said laid was right vot not for school but for life we learn returning to my old eld high school I 1 chose my own courses and subjected myself to several periods of mathematics history and english every day the professors who remembered me as seldom opening a book glanced at one another as though they thought they had a psychopathic cho case on their hands but I 1 acquired some of the knowledge I 1 had missed and the next summer june 1927 1 went to fort mcpherson and enlisted in the regular army as a private there I 1 became private scott serial number in company IF F of the and 2nd infantry three months later after a preliminary examination I 1 began training in the fourth corps area westpoint west point prep school TO dm we nit |