ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
An introduction to the Hanchett family and its origins in America. While growing up in Evanston, a Chicago suburb, Bill Hanchett had an interest in history. His childhood visit to the Chicago Historical Society to see the famous Charles Gunther collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, which included a mock-up of the room where Lincoln died, made a strong impression on him. The effects of the Great Depression on his wealthy family and the genesis of Bill’s Army Air Forces correspondence are described.
Chapter 1: Before the War 1939-1942
The editor describes Bill’s high school years, graduation in 1940, his misadventure to Cuba after graduation, and various odd jobs he performed. Beginning in the fall of 1941, Bill attended Black Mountain College, a unique liberal arts college, where his serious study of history was nurtured, and where he almost met First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in January 1942.
Chapter 2: Miami Beach—Army Air Forces Basic Training
Bill’s correspondence begins in this chapter. New recruit Hanchett goes through Army Air Forces basic training, drilling on a golf course while living in a converted luxury beach front hotel.
Chapter 3: College Training Detachment 46—Tennessee Polytechnic Institute
Bill participates in an experimental Army Air Forces College Training Detachment (CTD), a nationwide program in which aviation cadets attended college courses while waiting to enter flight training. While there, he is introduced to flying and with two other aviation students, chases down a runaway horse-drawn wagon in town.
Chapter 4: Preflight and Primary Flying School
Bill describes the strict regimen and hazing during preflight training. Later, when he first arrives at Primary Flying School, he is impressed by the country club like atmosphere with new bungalows, tennis courts and great food. Bill attributes this to the Army’s concern that new aviation cadets get relaxation time because learning to fly is difficult. Less than a week later he realizes his naivete as he learns to fly with a tough instructor – in a biplane not that different from those flown by early combat pilots in the First World War.
Chapter 5: Basic Flying School—Bainbridge Army Air Field
While learning to fly a BT-13 training plane and reading classic literature, Bill is undecided on the type of airplane he wants to fly after he earns pilot’s wings. While on a training flight, he “dogfights” with three P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes and decides, “…tomorrow I am going to put in my request for single engine Advanced [Flying School]. As you know I have, up to now, wanted to fly a medium bomber, but now I know I’d go crazy flying straight and level and so I want a fighter plane that I can dance around the sky…”
Illustrations
Chapter 6: Advanced Flying School and Wings
Bill hopes to be flying “hot ships,” the best fighters in the Army Air Forces. While flying an advanced AT-6 Texan trainer he gives his instructor a good laugh, gets a nickname “Flaps,” and proudly receives his hard-earned officer’s commission and pilot’s wings.
Chapter 7: Instructor-Pilot School—Randolph Army Air Field and Return to Bainbridge
Disappointed not to be flying “hot ships,” Bill graduates from one of the toughest programs in the Army Air Forces - the Central Instructors School at the “West Point of the Air,” Randolph Field, San Antonio and then returns to his old Basic Flying School in Georgia as an instructor-pilot. While there he observes German prisoners of war working on a peanut farm and makes a nostalgic return trip to Black Mountain College .
Chapter 8: B-24 Pilot Training and the 1944 Presidential Election
It is well documented that the B-24 was a difficult airplane to fly. Bill would agree as he describes the feeling of holding 36,000 pounds of a four-engine bomber in his left hand. Learning to fly the B-24 in the midst of the 1944 presidential election, Bill supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and engages in a lively ongoing correspondence with his father who supported Republican Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
Chapter 9: Flying in the Fourth Air Force
In 1945, Lt. Hanchett calls himself “the original first sergeant” as he trains his bomber crew in Nevada’s high desert for what seemed to be an inevitable combat assignment in the Pacific. Bill’s training flights include an unscheduled overnight trip to see relatives and “bombing” his future hometown of San Diego, California. Flying, which initially appealed to his sense of adventure, became tedious as the war came to an end.
Epilogue
Bill’s postwar life and academic career as a professor of history and an authority on Abraham Lincoln are described. Bill closes an open loop when he finally does meet Eleanor Roosevelt in January 1959.
Notes
Bibliography