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From Somewhere in French North Africa: In The Air
�"...Writing about us and this particular day, Ernie Pyle, who had a room upstairs at the Hotel Transatlantique, said, 'Although our fighters in North Africa have accounted for many more German planes than we have lost, still our fighter losses are high. I have been chumming with a roomful of five fighter pilots for the past week... [Tonight]...two of those five (are) gone.'
� The following is an excerpt from Ernie Pyle's book: This is Your War, World Publishing Co.,1943. ___________________________  � � The boys were full of laughter when they told me about it as they sat on their cots in the dimly lighted room. I couldn't help having a funny feeling about them. They were all so young, so genuine, so enthusiastic. And they were so casual about everything - not casual in a hard way, knowing why, but they talked about their flights and killing and being killed exactly as they would discuss girls or some school lesson.� � Lieutenant Jack Ilfrey was a fine person and more or less typical of all the boys who flew our deadly fighters. He was from Houston, Texas and his father was a cashier of the First National Bank there. The family home was 3122 Robinhood Street. Jack was only twenty-two. He had two younger sisters. He had gone to Texas A&M for two years, and then to the University of Houston, working at the same time for the Hughes Tool Company. He would soon be in the Army for two years. � � It was hard to conceive of his ever having killed anybody, for he looked even younger than his twenty-two years. His face was good-humored, his darkish hair was childishly uncontrollable and popped up in a little curlicue at the front of his head. He talked fast, but his voice was soft and he had a very slight hestitation in his speech that somehow seemed to make him a gentle and harmless person. There was not the least trace of the smart aleck or wise guy about him. He was wholly thoughtful and sincere. Yet he mowed 'em down. � � In Africa, Ilfrey had been through the mill. He got two Focke-Wulf Fw-190s one day, two Messerschmitt Me-109s another day. His fifith victory was over a twin-motored Me-110, which carried three men. And he had another kill that had not been confirmed. He hadn't all smooth sailing by any means. In fact,he was very lucky to be alive at all. He got cuaght in a trap one day and camehome with many bullet holes in his plane. His armor plate stopped at least a dozen that would have killed him.
� � Jack's closet shave, however,wasn't from being shot at. It happened one day when he saw a German fighter duck into a cloud. Jack figured the German would pop out, and pop out he did - right into him almost. They both kicked right rudder violently, and they missed by practically inches. Neither man fired a shot, they were too busy about getting out of each other's way. Jack said he was weak for an hour afterward. � � There was nothing "heroic" about Lieutenant Ilfrey. He was afraid to run when that was the only thing to do. He told me about getting caught all alone one day at a low altitude. Two Germans got on his tail. � � "I just had two choices," he said. "Either stay and fight, and almost surely get shot down, or pour everything I had to try and get away. Luckily the engine stood up." Ilfrey, like all other men, had little in the way of entertainment or personal pleasure. I walked into his room late one afternoon, after he had come back from a mission, and found him sitting there at a table, all alone, killing flies with a folded newspaper. Our pilots really led lonely lives. There was nothing on earth for them to do but talk to each other. In two weeks aguy was talked out and after that it was just the same old conversation day after day. � � The boys hung around the field part of the day, when they were not flying; then they would go to their rooms and lie on their bunks. They had read themselves and talked themselves out. There were no movies, no dances, no parties, no women -- nothing. They just lay on their bunks. � � "We've gotten so damned lazy we hardly bother to go to the toilet," one of them said. "We're no damn good for anything on earth anymore except flying."
� � And yet people say being an ace was romantic. |
� Ernie Pyle (shown at left in a Chesterfield cigarette ad,) was a quiet little fellow who wandered into our room one night, just to hear us talk about the day's activities. I don't believe some of the boy knew who he was, but I had long read his column in the Houston Press and my mother had sent me clippings of the articles he had written while in England. He wrote several articles of life in Briska, paid great tribute to the bombers and to the ground crews and troops, and I was surprised to find (several months after he had visited us) he had written a fine tribute to the fighter pilots which included mention of me."
