She was proved right on both counts. Still, he started with a handicap, for the college boys of his class had followed the barnstormers and air shows and a few had even built airplanes of their own. More, he was the oldest man in the school, twenty-four, and the only one of the three who were married who had had no flying experience. Until his first flight in a Ryan Trainer, he was willing to write himself off.

If the Ryan could forgive the abuses of a novice, he still flew it well. He knew it. Watching the others, he knew he was better than any of them, and soon they recognized it. He could fly better than anyone in the class, tighter, faster, closer to the design limits. His instructors granted that he was a natural pilot. He was as proud as a boy and he was willing to try anything.

He was sent on to Advanced Fighter Pilot Training at Lake Charles, Louisiana. In the spring of 1943 he arrived in England with the bulk of the Eighth Air Force, and like most, absolutely fresh. The Fourth Group, the Wolfpack, had already seen action in British Spitfires, but with the Eighth Air Force becoming fully operational, they were switched with the rest to Republic Thunderbolts, and a lot of what they had gained in combat experience they lost in having to learn the new airplanes. Heavy and faster but less maneuverable, the Thunderbolts looked like flying milk bottles. They weighed seven tons, as much as a crosstown bus. They had the most powerful engines in fighter aircraft at that time, Pratt and Whitney supercharged Double Wasp engines, eighteen cylinders, two thousand horsepower, capable of pulling the Thunderbolts at speeds in excess of four hundred and thirty miles per hour.

He wrote to Karen, “To some of the men I am the leader because I am the oldest and presumably the most experienced. Not all of them have to shave every day. They want me to play the role of Raoul Lufberry for them and I do like it. Most of the boys can sense how close I am to you and although they will probably never meet you, they would like to marry women like you. What I mean is, the man I am is a reflection of what you have done for me.

“This last thought is one of many like it that I’ve had recently. Absence makes the heart grow bolder, if you will indulge that. I have the desire to do a lot of loving through the mails. I just want you to know that I love you and that you are here with me.”