When I finished my missions, I was called into the Sqdn CO's office and was asked if I wanted to fly another tour. "No thanks". Well, how about flying fighters as weather recon? "I'm no fighter pilot. "We can take care of that. How about flying a fighter over the targets and reporting target conditions about smoke screens, etc, before the bomber stream?" "No sir, since I've finished my missions I just wanta go home." And that was the end of that. So I was chicken.

Flew the last mission of my 35, on 7 October 1944 to Rhuland, Von Braun's rocket lab. Got back to New York and had my first ice cream, courtesy of the Red Cross. The bombardier and I got on a train for Texas, but during a layover in St. Louis we were enticed by some beauty operators to go to a night club in East St. Louis to have a little fun. They promised to get us back before the train left. They didn't do that and the train left without us along with all our gear. We hopped another train to San Antonio and found our stuff had gone all the way to Laredo. We finally got it all back and the bomb aimer went home to Waco, and I went home to Corpus Christi, arriving on Thanksgiving Day '44. Mother was beside herself since she had not heard from me for so long and even had the Red Cross after me.

After a while at home, I got orders to go to The Pacific to fly B-29s. Didn't like that scenario very much, so I called my General buddy from the Munich mission who by that time was in Washington at AAF Hdq. I told him the situation, that before the war I had been an aircraft mechanic for the Navy at Corpus and thought I could be of better service to the Army Air Force if I were to be allowed to attend the Aircraft Engineering Officer's school at Chanute AAF base in Illinois. That must have done some good because it wasn't long before I got orders rescinding the previous orders and directing me to Chanute.

While at home, I bought a used 1940 Packard convertible and drove it up to Chanute. Was assigned to a BOQ with a Mexican Air Force Officer because I was the only guy who could speak a little Tex Mex. We drew all kinds of technical diagrams all over the BOQ walls, went to Chicago lots of times, and with his Latin good looks, little mustache and my convertible, had no trouble meeting nice girls. Rodolfo Gaona Fabela, wonder what ever happened to him.

After graduation from Chanute, was assigned to various bases TDY as an instructor, Lincoln, Neb, Omaha, Neb, other places, Madison, Wis., etc and finally McDill AAF base as wing Maintenance Officer. I loved McDill, got to do a lot of sailing etc. Only one problem developed, when I signed in, I had to accept responsibility for certain properties. One of which was a B-17. It was nowhere to be found. Finally found out that it had been used in fire fighting practice and had been burned many times. Found a burned piece of spar, surveyed it and got out of that, but later got letters from the War Department wanting more details.

Once a transit P-51 came into McDill and was broke. We fixed it and since it was Sunday, we couldn't find the pilot. It needed a test flight, so I read the tech order and decided I would do it myself. I fired it up. Went to the active and got clearance to take off. Applied power and my head hit the headrest. Tried to keep it straight and was airborne before I knew it. Gingerly flew awhile, set it down, and got the hell outa there.

Lost a lot of good friends during world war II. One was Ernest Parham, neighbor and best buddy from high school. Ernie joined the AAF shortly before I did, flew P-40s out of Foster Field, Victoria, Texas, then to England with a fighter group. Shortly after I got over there, I went to his base to try to visit him. When I got there, they told me he had been shot down over Bremen the day before. He had been trying to bust a flak tower in his P-47 and they got him first. After the war, we buried him in San Antonio at Fort Sam. Another good buddy was with the infantry at Anzio and didn't make it either. Another was a Paper Boy with me in our kid days. He was the first casualty from Corpus Christi, having been killed at Pearl December 7, 1941.