The Vaulted Sky

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Moffa

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-5251-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-5253-5 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-5252-8 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 09/16/2009

The force of fire ascended first on high

And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky

Ovid: Metamorphoses

Dedicated to my family, those that are, and all those that were,

who made this story possible.

And, to the thousands of Americans who did not wait

Contents

CHAPTER I

Mount Union, New York

CHAPTER II

First Flight

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

Manhattan College

Riverdale, Bronx, NY

CHAPTER VII

Toronto, Canada

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

Halifax, Nova Scotia

CHAPTER X

Castle Killen, Northern Ireland

CHAPTER XI

Takoradi, The Gold Coast

CHAPTER XII

Egypt

CHAPTER XIII

Cairo, Egypt

CHAPTER XIV

Landing Ground Number 127

The Western Desert

CHAPTER XV

Cairo

CHAPTER XVI

The Western Desert

CHAPTER XVII

The Alamein Line

CHAPTER XVIII

The Qattara

CHAPTER XIX

El Hammam, Egypt

CHAPTER XX

El Alamein, Egypt

The Western Desert

Egypt

July 4, 1942

…… BREAK RIGHT, BREAK RIGHT! The warning still ringing in his ears was his own. He hoped he’d shouted it in time for his new wingman, Pilot Officer Johnnie Beard, who was going to be either a blooded veteran or a bloody dead man, very quickly.

Christ, he should have known better. Even if Sticky – Stickney Patterson, 505 Squadron’s Intelligence Officer – had the Hun fighters over the baking black ribbon of the coast road and rail line that was the direct route to Alexandria for the Afrika Korps, not here over the southern end of the Alamein Line, he, as element leader, should have known better. He should have been constantly turning them, scanning every quadrant of the blazing sky. Left. Right. Left. Down. Up. Especially Up. Up there, and Up sun, goddammit. That’s where they usually come from, the bloody bastards!

Hell, he caught himself, if his enemies could hear him, they’d think he was British. But Patrick Montalto was American, in a Canadian uniform, flying for the Royal Air Force. The British insignia though – those big red, white, blue and yellow roundels that inadvertently served as bulls-eyes for the diving Germans – adorned the already worn sand and brown desert camouflage on his Lend-Lease American plane, a Curtiss P-40E, dubbed Kittyhawk IA by the RAF.

If he and Beard were going to get out of this alive, he would have to use all the skill and strength he and the tough Curtiss could put together, or they would be just two more scorched blotches on the rocky sand below.

And Pilot Officer Montalto was good, a combination of talent, training and a year in the trade: still alive – and an ace at that with six confirmed kills.

He didn’t break like Beard, cruising behind and to his right: Patrick had told Johnnie to stick close and …do whatever I tell you to do, instantly, and his young wingman did just that. The green Canadian ripped his Kittyhawk into a snap roll, fast, so fast his head slammed against the big sliding canopy. It was fast enough, …almost.

Instead, Patrick threw his stick forward and right, at the same time stomping left rudder. That put him in a steep, sliding slip to starboard, the big red nose of the shark-mouthed P-40 still dead ahead. Only then, split seconds later, did he roll, pulling back on the stick as he did so to plummet inverted and nearly vertical towards the hard earth. It was enough to avoid colliding if Beard hadn’t snapped right and right away.

And enough to throw off the usually deadly accurate aim of the German flight leader, a rare event.

Scheisse! the Oberleutnant cursed as his high velocity 20mm cannon rounds and 7.9mm machine gun tracer sailed harmlessly into space, missing the inverted sky blue belly of the P-40 by inches.

Beard was neither as fast, nor as lucky. The German leader had put his number two and three wingmen on the trailing British fighter. That he had no number four was due to constant attacks on the Luftwaffe airfields, a severe shortage of fuel and parts now lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean thanks to the RAF and Royal Navy, and to the same fatigue and attrition wearing down his opponents. Except that the Desert Air Force had more men, and now, thanks to their American allies, more planes. Besides all that, the German ace quickly realized, this Englishman he was trying his damndest to kill was good. Very good.

Patrick rolled completely around, upright, pulled the stick back and turned sharply left, using the speed from his dive to zoom up – as much as the P-40 could zoom – trying to find Beard, get the two Messerchmitt 109s off of him, and at the same time figure out where the bastard that tried to nail him was…. It was a lot to do, and the wrenching maneuvers were whipping his head and body around with such force that sweat splattered against the Plexiglas.

There. Beard’s P-40 was heading east, just as he had been drilled: Get hit? Get east, over our own lines. Try to get down past the bloody mine fields. Come down there and you’ll likely buy it when you plow in. And Beard was going to plow in: His ship was streaming a thick trail of black and yellow tinged white smoke – oil and coolant, both vital to the liquid-cooled Allison engine that was soon – very soon – going to seize up, overheat, and probably ignite the volatile 100 octane avgas gushing onto the hot block from ruptured fuel lines. Actually, he might not even get that far.

Behind the smoking P-40, Patrick watched a buff brown Me-109F closing in a fast climb for the kill. That must be the number two. He thought he’d seen…yes, there was number three, way out, in a speed bleeding turn. That one was out of it for the moment. Kicking his rudder and throwing the stick right, he nosed down for a little more speed, then threw his ship into a sloppy half-roll left. What he wouldn’t have given for a Spitfire, even one of the IIAs he’d trained in over Northern Ireland. Still, if a slug in a climb, the P-40 could roll faster than just about anything else….

The German number two, intent on his victim, didn’t see him. At 250 yards, perfect convergence for his machine guns, Patrick pressed the trigger on his stick even before he rolled his ship level. The effect was devastating: That was another thing the P-40 had in spades. The six Browning .50 calibers spit out nearly three hundred API rounds – deadly armor-piercing incendiary – in little more than three seconds.

The Me-109 shuddered, shedding pieces into the slipstream as the stunned pilot wrenched around in his seat: ‘Where the hell was Gerhardt!’ The armor plate behind him stopped the rounds that would have ripped into him, but the incendiaries found the half-empty fuselage fuel tank. He was going to have to bail out! He pushed the heavy canopy open to the right, rolling left at the same time to heave himself…

…The fighter exploded before his curled body cleared the cockpit. Patrick, already rolling away from the doomed fighter, threw his P-40 right, barely avoiding the spreading ball of flame and debris. He watched with satisfaction as Beard’s ship angled east in a steep glide. Now the number three was turning right into him, almost in range. The leader had to be on his tail.

Shit, he was in a bind. And they were already low, there wasn’t much altitude to trade for speed, which is about all the RAF pilots could do against the high-flying 109s. He could turn, too, but as the saying goes, a bird in hand… ‘…And where the hell is Gaffer – the Aussie S. O. B – Flight Leader or not, he was still an S. O. B. And Kenley? – I don’t care if he just got out of the hospital after being shot down – he was my wing and should be up here protecting my ass. Where were they? No doubt still looking for that goddamn German tank column. Christ,’ he thought, ‘don’t they hear me?’

Maybe not. What seemed to him like several eternities since they’d been bounced had been barely over two minutes. He was thinking in a constant, rapid-fire stream. But, truth was, he hadn’t had time to say very much.

The third Me-109 was now at a slight deflection in his gunsight. The P-40 slowed as Patrick fired. The rounds were scattered at this range, but some of the heavy slugs ripped dead into the thin sheet metal wrapping the Daimler V12. The German pilot didn’t fire; he was now too occupied with his bucking ship and sputtering engine.

But the number one—Yellow 14 actually, Oberleutnant Hans Joachim Marseille, the Star of Africa was only occupied with one thing: Lining up on that P-40 just coming in range.

Patrick knew he was there. He slowed and turned, dropping flaps to keep control at still slower speed. The Me-109 wasn’t supposed to be able to keep in a turn with a P-40…

…But the blast and noise of the neatly placed cannon rounds now blowing holes in the cowling ahead of his windscreen told him otherwise. He turned left, tighter still. There was no place left to dive. The P-40 shuddered. One, two, three, four—the machine gun rounds were like gnats to his sturdy Curtiss, but these 20mm high explosive cannon shells were going to kill him and his ship.

Oil burst out of the ruptured lines and holed sheet metal, covering the windscreen. Oil pressure was sinking, temperature skyrocketing. The coolant lines must be hit too! Patrick slid the canopy back, sticking his head out the right side where there seemed to be less oil. He could lose it -- his head—that is, but, hell, he was probably going to die anyway, so why not fast?

But the German stopped firing. Patrick picked out a low rise coming up at him, shut off his fuel, checked his landing gear lever was still full up, and aimed as best he could to belly-in. The German was going to finish him for sure if the crash didn’t do the job.

Nose-up, slower, brace yourself. The impact was solid and hard, dirt and rock exploding around the pancaking ship, pelting his head and body, bouncing off his oil-smeared goggles. Patrick automatically put his right arm up to shield his head from that damn gunsight.

The bent and torn P-40 ground to a halt, his arm absorbing the blow with a severe bruise. He nonetheless used it to undo his seat harnesses, and before he fully realized it, Patrick was out, scrambling away from a sure fire and explosion; then on his belly, trying his best, without marked success, to imitate a mole, the roar of the approaching Me-109 filling his ears. This was it. He waited for the stitch of exploding metal, rock and dirt that he fully expected would be the last thing he heard on this earth. His insides would soon be outside, splattered out there in the sand, a feast for the lizards, vultures and jackals….

But when he finally had the nerve to lift his oil smeared face from the sand and look up, it was at the rocking wings of sleek Yellow 14 as it banked into a climbing right turn to the north, speeding away after a long black trail behind the other sinking Messerschmitt.

The motors he heard now, as he felt all around his body with his hands, half rocking on his knees, tottering between laughing and praying, were earthbound: a truck and command car bouncing over the dunes towards him, the crowd of occupants with a bristle of weapons. Clearly, these were not his friends.

Patrick stood and walked shakily over to his broken plane. No flames, no fuel vapors. He reached into the cockpit for his canteen, then into the baggage door behind for his kit, and the head wrap and burnoose given him by his Arab friend. Muhammad had assured him they would prove useful. They had and would. It was incredibly hot. He pulled off his helmet, and, watching the approaching soldiers, carefully undid his pistol belt, letting it fall to the ground as he stepped off the nearly severed wing. He wasn’t about to play Wyatt Earp with this gang.

Patrick figured his war was over. He began to think about just how he had gotten himself into this mess. It had, at least, been an interesting journey.

Mano alto! …Per piacere, Signor pilota! It was, Patrick assumed, one of the officers, standing in the open staff car, a small Fiat, made smaller still by the gaggle of men hanging in, on and out of it. The speaker wasn’t pointing a gun, though at least half a dozen others were trying to level rifles and submachine guns in his general direction as the car ground to a halt.

At least they weren’t Germans.

Still, it was a hell of a way to celebrate Independence Day.

CHAPTER I

Mount Union, New York

1924

The flying business seized Patrick Montalto’s attention not long after he first remembered being more or less consciously cognizant of life around him. He was about six, and he remembered—hazily—sitting on the shore of a small lake (although in his mind’s image it was, and remained, rather a long way across) and seeing a biplane come over the far left, or west, end of the lake, and dive steeply towards the water. He thought surely it would disappear in a plume of spray, but in what his memory recalled as an impossible maneuver, the airplane pulled up just in time, as if its wheels had bounced it off the dark, glassy surface.

Look, Patrick! his mother had said, a Jenny! He was momentarily confused, looking around for Ajenny – although even at this age he thought it a funny name for a little girl; but then he realized she was excitedly pointing at, and talking about, the airplane.

It was as if the noisy, winged creature had been stamped in his brain somewhere between his eyes; at least that was where he pictured the memory, his subconscious projecting the image from two feet to infinity in front of his face. Like many memories, the details, even the unrelated ones, remained very sharp: the nearly bare trees, for it was late autumn; the low afternoon sun from which the plane had appeared skimming over the small hill abutting the far shore; the sound of the engine as the craft clawed back into the sky. He understood later, when he was older and had seen more of them, that an airplane could not do precisely what he remembered on the lake that day, but the image remained the same, quite unaffected by elemental physics, the basic theory of flight, and even his own experience as a pilot.

He remembered, too, the airplane itself, although this a bit more accurately. It was, as his mother had exclaimed, a JN-4, a Curtiss Jenny, a quite ungainly collection of vibrating wires, fabric, and struts that was surplussed in large numbers after the First World War. It was the aircraft of choice of barnstormers and ersatz flying schools that popped up here and there in farm fields across the country, including what was still largely countryside in northern Westchester County.

While it might have surprised others, it would not at all have surprised Patrick that she could accurately identify the craft, if he had known enough to think about it at the time. His mother had been among the first, if temporary, great wave of American women to venture beyond the garment factories, seamstress shops and retail stores into the maw of the rapidly mobilized American war industries. Replacing men who were volunteering or being drafted into military service, she had found work in a factory producing some of the few rudimentary instruments that helped anxious young airmen guide their Jenny’s or DH-4s, the only other airplane produced in any number by the U.S. during the war, through the air from their equally rudimentary airfields.

His interest grew with the progress of aviation and aircraft, as these awkward looking kites were replaced by the sleek designs of the biplane’s golden age, particularly the classic Boeing and Curtiss fighters, the F-4B4, the P-6E, the P-12E. He could identify them all in an instant, including the mail planes and civilian types that were more frequently seen than their military brethren. The first books he was able to check out from the library, with his mother’s card, were picture books of the aircraft of the Great War. The Fokkers, Spads, Camels and Nieuports and the men who flew them: Richtofen, Luke, Rickenbacker, Ball. It was his mother, in fact, who seemed most to understand and encourage his interest, for she shared his fascination with flight and the machines and men of the air, although after the Jenny, she never could distinguish one airplane from another, as Patrick could. But that didn’t matter, for he always thought it was the freedom of flight that was attractive to her, not so much the means - the freedom to go where she never could go, to be what she never could be. Yes, she understood.

Near his parochial school was an auto garage, on whose roof was painted one of the large navigational signs that were provided as checkpoints on thousands of similar large roofs throughout the country: MT. UNION X-1. Airplanes would come over low and slow, the pilots checking where they were against where they thought they were on their maps (and occasionally finding that they were indeed where they thought they were!). It was the perfect location for Patrick. At lunch time in the schoolyard, at least on clear days, he would spend much of his time looking up, when he wasn’t pretending to be a Spad or a Fokker in some dogfight with his friends, his arms spread like wings and chattering the staccato beat of machine guns as he sent them plummeting to earth...to which they were all firmly affixed about four feet below. He became the acknowledged expert on airplanes, a position of some respect among the boys (while a subject of some amusement among the girls). Even a few of the nuns, discarding for the lunch recess some of their stern demeanor, would occasionally ask, What kind of airplane was that, Patrick? In a mock-serious tone, he would name it, and sometimes, especially if it was a military plane, provide more detail than they probably wanted to know about its specifications, performance and armament. It allowed him to put on the mask of maturity, as he saw it, of course sometimes requiring him to suspend a schoolyard dogfight, with his opponent left hanging mid-maneuver. He would not infrequently end his little discourse by stating matter-of-factly, I’m going to fly one of those some day!

It was something more easily said than done, for young men of his economic and social status did not realistically aspire to careers in aviation, except through the military, which in times of peace, poverty, lean budgets and isolationism was not the ready route it would later become. There was also an obvious dearth of many-voweled names in the ranks of American aviators. You would have to search long and hard in both military and civil ranks to find an Italian, a Pole, or a Jew. Flying was a very exclusive, very Anglo-Saxon club, with names like Mitchell, Lindbergh and Doolittle.

The fact was that boys of Patrick’s status did not aspire to careers at all; they looked—or perhaps during the Great Depression hoped was a better word—they hoped for a job when, and if, they finished school. Finished meant more often than not the eighth, ninth, or maybe the tenth grade. Graduation from high school was most often the exception, not the rule.

Work was a necessity, another source added to the common family income, which was meager in the Montalto’s case, even in better times. Still, there were some advantages, though perhaps unrecognized, to being on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. The depression was no less severe, but it seemed less Great; it was a rung or two down, but not the nearly uncontrolled slide down the rails that it surely seemed to those higher, and yet higher, on the ladder.

Patrick’s father was a carpenter and all-around fixer of things of wood and nails and screws. Self-employed for the most part, and working since fifteen, William, or Bill, Montalto used his hammers and saws, his drills and chisels, to produce what were primarily items of function that some might consider mundane. With his folding rule and a pencil stuck within easy reach behind the right ear, he measured and made sturdy shelves and cabinets, workbenches and butcher tables. He built a reputation for making things strong and fixing things right. The mom-and-pop merchants who populated the storefronts first gave him business building and expanding the shops that were their lives. Then, when the Depression put on hold, if it did not destroy altogether, plans for getting bigger and better, those who survived hired him as they could to hold together what they had. He fixed their doors and windows, and the usually steep, narrow steps that led to the cellars.

If the work was for the landlords, he was paid in cash for fixing a storefront that had perhaps met with an errant car that jumped the curb, or for repairing some woodwork or cabinetry in one of the many apartments, like his own, that were layered above the shops. If the work was for his landlord, and if cash was short (and it was, even for landlords), he might be paid in free rent.

Often, when the merchants asked Bill to fix or build something that the landlords would not do, or would never get around to doing, they paid him in kind, as well as in what money they could afford. The grocer paid in canned goods and other foodstuffs, the butcher in meat, the Italian bakery in bread, cookies and pastry. His circle of mostly Italian friends in the trades, the plumbers, bricklayers, the electricians and painters, scoured the county and the nearby Bronx in apparently unorganized but nonetheless effective efforts to find work. And there was always a relative, a cousin or aunt or uncle, who knew to call Bill to get something built or fixed, or who knew someone to tell to call Bill. It managed to pay the bills, and sometimes a little more, especially as the Thirties marched inexorably towards the conflagration of the Forties.

As the country inched slowly and painfully out of the Depression, Bill Montalto found a relatively secure job with a major grocery chain (they weren’t yet called supermarkets), doing the same things he had done, and occasionally still did for his neighbors, friends and relatives. The pay was not more than adequate, but it was regular, it had security and benefits, and he still brought home a good steak, and maybe some treats when he did a special job for a store manager.

Guillermo, for that was the given name on Bill’s birth certificate, had done all right, considering the times and circumstances in which many apparently more fortunate people found themselves. He kept a roof over their heads and food on the family table, and a little more. Not bad for a tenth grade alumnus.

He hadn’t quite done it alone, mind you. Mrs. Montalto—Bernadette, or Bernie for short—had contributed more than her share as wife, mother to Pat and his younger sister, Angelina, and periodically and not infrequently as another source of income. Not only had she worked in the factory during the First War, but she also sometimes did bookkeeping and correspondence for several local merchants. A third-generation daughter of German and Irish immigrants, she had graduated high school and started training as a practical nurse. As it often does, marriage and family had altered her course, but she had skills from the business courses in high school (which, for a girl, really meant secretarial and bookkeeping), the will to work when work could be found, and a typewriter. In many ways she was ahead of her time and most of her friends; quite the modern woman.

Typical of many immigrants and sons and daughters of immigrants who had a clear vision of living the American Dream, even if they were only bit players, the Montalto’s wanted better for their children. Bill especially wanted his son to go to college, the first child in any branch of the family to do so. Angelina could go too, as far as he and Bernie were concerned, but first things first: Bill’s first-born son would get a college degree, whatever it took, and whatever sacrifices had to be made.

This quite intense, single-minded goal was one of the reasons that Bill was not quite so thrilled with Patrick’s equally intense interest in flying as was his wife. It seemed harmless enough at first; it might even someday lead to a career in an aviation industry that he could see had a promising future. But for now, Bill did not want Pat’s head in the clouds. He wanted his son’s feet on the ground and his head in the books; the clouds could wait until the head had a degree.

Of course, if it weren’t for Emil, Bill would probably never have had to worry about airplanes being more than a young boy’s passing fancy, a hobby as his son grew older. Patrick’s fascination for flying would have succumbed to reality, or at least been postponed by the exigencies of life in the lower classes, and the growing demands of school and working to continue his schooling. Emil was Patrick’s good fortune, and his dad’s exasperation.

Emil Garza was a family friend. A jovial man of Italian and Portuguese descent, in age he was between Bill and his older brother Pat. He had grown up with the Montalto’s, but had become fast and the best of friends with the younger William. It wasn’t because they were alike; in fact, like many close friends, they were quite different. Where Bill was more serious and intent, even in play, Emil (whose whole name was probably Emilio, but he never said, and neither Bill or anyone else ever asked) was more curious and adventuresome. About some things, such as school, he was, or seemed, less structured and organized, which accounted for his being a classmate of Bill’s, rather than a year ahead of him. For other things, and particularly for things mechanical, he was possessed of intuitive talents. If it beeped, buzzed, whirred, chugged or ran, he could figure out how, and what to do when it didn’t.

Emil had started out on small things, like electric motors, and had graduated to the complexities of the internal combustion engine, first on motorbikes, and then on automobiles as they edged out horses for right-of-way on bustling, crowded streets. Those who were wealthy enough to own an automobile usually couldn’t fix them when it was needed, which was frequently. Emil could.

When the U.S. entered World War I, he enlisted and was volunteered for the fledgling flying service, where his skill as a mechanic was a perfect fit. The system for assigning training in the Army of 1917 really wasn’t all that organized or deliberate. Millions who would yet serve in later times, in later wars, would easily recognize it. On the day he stood in line—a favorite military ritual—waiting to shuffle before one of several long rows of desks occupied by rumpled sergeants amid reams of forms, one of the harried, bestriped clerks had before him a letter indicating postings for aircraft fitters and engine mechanics. The posting and the person, Emil, were in the same place at the same time; that he actually possessed mechanical skill and demonstrated experience was a fortuitous fluke.

When Emil was part way through his crash course in the liquid-cooled Liberty engine that powered the American-built Jenny’s and DH-4’s, he expressed an interest in actually flying the machines, not just fixing them. As luck would have it, the U.S. Army was desperately trying to train American pilots to fly American planes to support American troops flowing in increasing torrents to Europe. Black Jack Pershing, the Commander of American forces on the Western Front, did not like his troops playing second fiddle and strongly resisted their being used simply as reinforcements for the bruised and battered armies of his senior allies, the British and French. He wanted his American troops to fight as an American Army, intact and complete as possible, with everything from rifles to artillery to, yes, airplanes.

The General, while no visionary of air power, remembered that his several Curtiss machines had been useful in the frustrating expedition against Pancho Villa and his Mexican revolutionaries in 1916. Pestered by aerophiles of the likes of Colonel Billy Mitchell, and not oblivious to their growing presence and impact on the battlefield, Pershing was also annoyed that most Americans were flying British and French planes (which would not change throughout the war), attached to British and French units (a situation which would change in the last months of fighting). General Pershing wanted American pilots, and Emil wanted to be one.

Emil never got overseas. He showed enough aptitude and flying skill to be trained as an instructor, in which capacity he did his part to satisfy Black Jack, and defeat the Kaiser. He enjoyed flying, and his duties provided him the opportunity to meet, teach, fly with, and sometimes learn from other young men, including several who had tested their skills over the Trenches with the British or the French, and lived to return and provide the benefit of their experience to the fledglings in Emil’s charge.

With the Armistice in November 1918, Emil, like hundreds of thousands of others, took his discharge papers back to the civilian world, for while he liked flying, the structure and routine of the military was less palatable. He returned to engines, to the world of oil, grease, pushrods, valves and cylinders. He moved to fast cars, on to fast boats, and during the Roaring, but dry, Twenties, he had done quite well, providing service not only to the your typical Model A owner, but also to some of those who kept the Twenties both Roaring and wet. He flew very infrequently, but he kept contact with a few of his aviator friends from the Army, and occasionally he would run into one who was barnstorming or offering airplane rides, or flying the mails.

One of these friends was Howland Schmidt, or as he was known to his friends, Howlin’ Smith. Like not a few people with overly Teutonic names, he had Americanized his last name soon after the U.S. entered World War I. Howlin had been the best his crew chief in the Army Air Service, a Georgia boy, could manage with his Yankee first name, and the nickname stuck. In fact, by the time Howlin’ left the Air Corps in 1918, he had affected enough of a southern drawl to make his given Howland sound quite incongruous. Howlin’ had been one of the earliest American fliers to see combat over France, having pioneered the route to Canadian service that Patrick Montalto was to follow a generation later.

Emil and Howlin’ Smith met when Howlin’ had been sent back to the States from Europe in late 1917, making the rounds of U.S. flying schools to pass on the benefit of his combat experience both to the instructors and to the students who were being hurriedly trained to follow him back to the Front. The young men who completed the rudimentary flight training could look forward to a life expectancy of less than three weeks once they entered combat, despite the improving efforts of their instructors and men like Howlin’.

Howlin’ was a Connecticut Yankee, and after the war he had spent some time barnstorming around New England and the Northeast, and getting involved in establishing some of the earliest air transport in the region. He flew the mails, like many other veterans, lived to tell about it, and even managed to save a little money. By the late Twenties he was operating out of a small farm field in Armonk, New York. The Curtiss Jenny that flew into young Patrick’s imagination that late autumn day was piloted by none other than Emil’s friend, Howlin Smith. Well, actually it was being flown from the front seat by one of his students, which explained the near disastrous stall into the lake that Patrick had witnessed. Fortunately, Howlin, in the back seat, had lost none of his fighter pilot reflexes, and had managed to drop the nose, slam the throttle forward, level the wings, regain flying speed and pull up sharply before he and his charge ended up taking a possibly eternal bath. Otherwise, Patrick might never have taken his first airplane ride.

The Montalto family spent many Sundays in the warm months at the lake, near the Connecticut line, about an hour and a half drive from their home. It had several names, depending on which map you were looking at, but they mostly called it Lake Kitchawan. The suitably Indian name given it by the Grammatan tribe that once inhabited the area seemed to fit perfectly what to a young city boy was for all intents and purposes a wilderness. The route to the lake, up Route 22 through White Plains, past Armonk then east towards Connecticut, became a familiar weekend ritual, especially after Bill Montalto got his used Chevrolet. Before that, when the family first obtained the land, the trips were not so frequent; they depended on Uncle Pat’s four-door Oldsmobile and Uncle Pat, who was not always available.

The small plot was at first primarily used as a weekend escape from the heat of the city. A private picnic spot in the hills overlooking the southeast shore of the pond, it was a small hike down to the beach on the lake, which could only be seen when the trees had dropped their foliage. For the first several years, the only structures were a sturdy picnic table and a fine outhouse, joined later by a storage shed in the style of a miniature house. The quality of the buildings was perhaps disproportionate to their designed use, but that was typical of anything built by Bill Montalto.

This was not a summer resort for the wealthy. The other properties scattered in the trees along dirt roads in the hills were mostly cottages of three or, at most, four rooms, meant for seasonal, warm-weather occupation. An eat-in kitchen, living room, and one or two sleeping rooms were typical; many had screened sleeping porches in addition to, or instead of one of the bedrooms. But in the thirties, as the Depression deepened, some who could began to convert their summer cottages to full-time residences with stoves, fireplaces and heaters and running water. The outhouse remained a fixture.

The Montalto’s intended their property to be more than a long way to go for a picnic and a swim. Ultimately, the plan, if not fully formed or on any formal schedule, was to build first a cottage as the core, then expand it to a house, and move from the city. Money was, as usual, in very short supply. There was, however, desire and skill in abundance. When Bill decided to first build the cottage for summer use, around 1933, he could apply not only his own skills as a carpenter, he could and did draft his friends, who among them could supply strong backs, vehicles for hauling materials, and all the necessary crafts and trades.

It was slow going, but Sunday, and occasionally full weekend trips in the summer and early fall allowed steady, if not spectacular progress. On one of these weekend trips, Emil Garza came along with Bill and young Patrick to help run some pipe down from a spring up the hill at the rear of the property. The pipe would first feed a simple pump and spigot, and then feed water into what would be the kitchen. As was his usual practice, Bill stopped at the dairy farm on the paved county road, just before the turn onto the dirt road down towards the lake. They liked to pick up fresh milk and eggs, perhaps some cheese, and, when in season, just picked fruit, which they would keep on ice for the weekend.

As they loaded their food into the rumble seat of the car, where Patrick would keep it company, a red biplane soared overhead, its uncowled radial engine rumbling its distinct cadence. Emil, shading his eyes with his hand, looked up and followed it briefly. Looks like a Waco, he said, I bet it’s one of my friend Howlin’s planes from Armonk.

Can I get a ride?, Patrick nearly jumped out of his seat and asked excitedly, almost before Emil had finished his sentence, Can I? Can we stop Tomorrow? Will you ask him?. The questions tumbled out of his mouth in rapid succession, too fast for Emil to consult with Patrick’s father, or to carefully consider his answer.

Sure, Emil said, Why not!

CHAPTER II

First Flight

Patrick got his ride the next day. Although Bill was not especially excited about it, he could see that his son was, and he didn’t think it would do any harm. Besides, it was late in the season, and they wouldn’t be coming up to the lake many more times this year; maybe Patrick would lose some of his fascination over the winter, and the memory would be no more than a ride on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island. And, Emil correctly figured he could talk his friend Howlin into taking Pat up for free. Almost free, that is.

Emil and Bill agreed to pay for half the avgas Howlin used, about five gallons.

For Patrick, this would easily rank as the most exciting day of his young life. He could not, of course, remember being born, but he was sure that must have been exciting, too. He did remember the image of the plane over the lake half a lifetime ago. But here he was being strapped into the front seat, putting on a leather helmet and flying goggles, tentatively fingering the stick, and watching his feet, which seemed detached and a long way off, dangle just above the two massive rudder pedals of a bright red 1928 Waco.

He was suddenly, hazily, aware of Howlin’s face pressed close to his left ear, firmly giving him instructions in short, direct sentences with a faint drawl that didn’t sound like a New Yorker. He recalled almost nothing of their arrival at the little airstrip, the greetings between old friends, Emil’s introducing Bill and him, and the discussion among the three about the airplane ride for the would-be aviator. He had been looking in awe at the sleek red machine resting in the green grass, the smell of hot oil and gasoline still hanging in the air…

Listen to me, son!, Howlin was looking Patrick in the eye. Emil here says you want to fly someday, so we might as well start right now!

You know what this is? he said, rotating the control stick gently with the palm of his open left hand.

Yes, sir, the control stick, sir. Patrick replied, slipping his right hand around the stick, under Howlin’s glove. He continued without invitation: and those are the rudder pedals, just tapping the horizontal bars with the toes of his brown work boots, and that’s the airspeed indicator, and that’s the altimeter, and.... He would no doubt have gone on, pointing or touching every part of the airplane within reach or sight.

Howlin cracked a smile and interrupted, Whoa there, Ace! he laughed, and looked over his right shoulder at Emil and Bill, who were standing together by the left horizontal stabilizer.

Hey, Emil, Howlin said, I think this boy’s ready for his solo!

Patrick, suddenly embarrassed, stopped his litany of parts, as he heard laughter from the rear of the plane.

It’s all right, Patrick. Howlin said, looking the boy in the face again, and seeing his embarrassment. It’ll be a great help to know what you’re doing with me when we get up in the air. It’s good you know the ship.

Patrick regained his composure and brightened with the words. ‘It’s good you know the ship’, he silently repeated, and thought, ‘just like a veteran pilot’!

Now, Patrick, Howlin continued, What we’re going to do once we climb to a safe altitude is a few simple things. Straight and level, some gentle turns, a shallow dive, and maybe a chandelle—that’s a slow climbing 180-degree turn, Okay? Nothing difficult or fancy.

Okay. Pat responded. He thought it all sounded rather fantastic, simple or not.

I want you to just follow me through the maneuvers. So when I tap you on the left shoulder, place your right hand—I assume you’re a righty – on the control stick, and just let your toes touch the rudder pedals. Don’t push or pull one way or the other; follow me like you’re my partner on the dance floor.

Howlin paused a moment. "How old are you, son? I mean, have you danced with a wo … I mean, a girl, yet?

Patrick responded quickly, Thirteen, consciously trying to project confidence, And, yes, of course I’ve danced with a girl!.

He hadn’t danced often, mostly at birthday parties, and last at the Holy Name Society dance in the Church basement. He was quite shy, nervous, and not particularly graceful or adept, as he remembered it, but, yes, he had danced with a member of the opposite sex (besides his mother, at a family wedding), with, as the chaperoning priests and nuns ensured, space for more than a few souls between him and the awkward, yet warm and quite interesting body in his hands.

Good, said Howlin, Good! Well, remember, I’m the guy in this dance!", he laughed.

When I tap you on the right shoulder, hang very loosely on the controls, almost let go. Got It? , Howlin said, as he swung into the rear cockpit. Don’t worry about the instruments yet, just enjoy the feel of the plane, and look around. The world looks a little different from up there.

Patrick strapped on the leather flying helmet that was draped on the throttle, to his left.

Clear, he heard Howlin shout, behind him.

The Waco was equipped with a battery powered starter, like a car, and Howlin’s call was followed by the whine of magnetos, and the slow rotation of the propeller blades, or the upper half of them, which is all Patrick could see over the instrument panel and windshield in front of him. The open radial engine burst suddenly to life, the wooden blades quickly dissolved into a blur, and the struts, wires and fabric shivered rhythmically, the wings rocking slowly as they trundled slowly up the meadow that passed for a runway. Patrick had seen the windsock at the south end of the field as they had driven in, and was not surprised that Howlin had to taxi to the opposite end of the closely clipped, not quite flat meadow to take off into the gentle late summer breeze.

Howlin had run up the engine, checked the oil gauge, tachometer and fuel indicator on the taxi up the field. Patrick both saw and felt the curious flapping of the controls just before Howlin wheeled the plane around, facing down the strip; the stick held loosely in his hand rotating left, then right, forward, then back, the rudder pedals flapping sharply back and forth. All this saved precious fuel over preflight checking at a standstill, even if it was not the procedure recommended by the Civil Aeronautics Board. It allowed Howlin to give full throttle as the Waco came out of the turn, and accelerate rapidly down the field. The tail wheel rose slightly, and it seemed to Patrick that the plane leaped into the air, anxious to be free of the hard earth and green grass....

Flying was just as Patrick imagined it would be. Then again, it wasn’t. There was first the speed, or the apparent lack of it; for when the plane broke free and steadily climbed under Howlin’s sure hand, the passing landscape shifted into slow motion. Then there was the noise. Through the leather flying helmet, Patrick could hear the continuous roar of the uncowled, unmuffled radial only a few feet in front of him, compounded by the roar of the wind through the braces and wires that were as much a signature of the biplane as the two wings. Of course, it didn’t help that the helmet, really a leather cap with ear flaps, was a bit loose, and ballooned slightly on his head with air, providing only minimal protection against the rush and roar.

He loved it!

He also loved the rumble he could feel in his hands, his feet, indeed, his whole body. He was only lightly touching the stick, and his feet barely toeing the rudders during the climbout, but he felt the airplane as if it were an extension of his body, rather than simply a hard seat in a machine into which he was strapped. That was quite as he imagined flying would, or should, be, and he was aware that he was experiencing what he had imagined on innumerable fantasy flights, as well as actually feeling the real sensations of flight, sensations which were markedly heightened in an open cockpit biplane like the Waco.

When Howlin tapped Patrick on his left shoulder, after reaching a comfortable cruise altitude, about 2500 feet indicated on the altimeter (or about 2000 feet above the low hills and fields below), he gripped the stick more firmly in his right hand, and rested his feet on the lower part of the rudder pedals. He followed Howlin’s movements consciously, while looking from side to side over the low point in the leather -trimmed cockpit. Except for the whirling tips of the propeller, Patrick could not see a thing to the front, over the instrument panel through the small windscreen. Nonetheless, he could see the earth below as Howlin did a series of slow, shallow turns, and he could see the relationship of the wings to the horizon as they smoothly dipped and rose in response to sure movements of the control stick.

Howlin tapped Patrick’s shoulder again, and pointed as he banked the Waco into a gentle right turn. Patrick saw a small lake set in wooded hills, a small beach and dock, and then recognized the large white building that marched down the slope near the beach as the Kitchawan general store and boathouse. Howlin continued the turn, and Patrick saw the small cottage emerge from the trees as the hill rose toward the plane. The bank steepened noticeably, and Patrick was able to study his father’s (and numerous friends’) handiwork in detail. The cottage was small, neat, accompanied by a storage shed to one side, and the outhouse to the rear, both the same color and finish as the larger building. There was a woodpile, a worn drive, and a water pump to the front. There was something else, too.

...Patrick was feeling quite ill; in fact, if they continued circling, he was quite sure he would throw up, and he began to look for the rubber bag that Howlin had pointed out before they took off. Howlin was doing turns-about-a-point, in this case the point being the Montalto’s summer cottage. One of the earliest maneuvers learned by student pilots, it requires coordination of stick and rudder, and constant attention to maintaining altitude, keeping the airspeed steady and the wing tip (the lower wing on the biplane) fixed on a point, about the which aircraft rotates. The pilot is quite occupied, and is rarely affected; for the passenger, Patrick, it was quite another story, one about to have a messy ending.

Fortunately for Patrick, Howlin was not unacquainted with the effects of the maneuver, and he leveled the aircraft and began a slow climb as he headed back towards the airstrip in Armonk. Patrick breathed deeply and released his grip on the bag, which he had finally found hanging from a small hook on the left side of the seat. As he settled again into the stable feel of level flight, he convinced himself that he would not need it.

Before descending toward the grass field, Patrick followed Howlin through a chandelle to gain altitude. As they flew over the field down (or with the) wind, Howlin slipped the plane to the left, pushing the stick in the direction of turn while stepping on the right rudder. After a few moments, Patrick felt the rudder come back to the left and the stick go forward. The result was a slide down a left bank, the nose at first pointed ahead with a rapid loss in altitude...slipping as he would later come to know it. The diving turn then brought the Waco barreling down the grass strip well below the treetops, and Patrick waved excitedly as they passed Bill and Emil standing by the Chevrolet coupe. He kept waving until they passed out of sight as Howlin climbed and turned downwind again.

Patrick held loosely onto the stick, once Howlin tapped him on the right shoulder, but still followed him in the final turn and approach. He released his grip completely as they lined up for touchdown, feeling Howlin dance on the rudder pedals and jockey the throttle to set the plane down straight and soft, with only a slight bounce as the tail wheel hit the grass. He removed the flying cap as they taxied, and waved at his father and Emil with both hands, whipping the cap back and forth like a trophy. He had only had his first ride, but to Patrick it was the beginning of the rest of his life.

After Howlin swung the Waco around into its parking spot, killed the engine, and helped him climb out of his seat without putting a foot trough the fabric, Patrick walked to the rear of the plane, leaned on the stabilizer, and, somewhat to his surprise, promptly threw up.

Bill rushed over with the concern fitting a father. Are you all right, Patrick?

Don’t worry. It happens!, Said Emil.

Good Boy!, said Howlin with a laugh.

Can I go again, sometime? Can I?, Patrick managed, just beginning to recover his composure, and his stomach.

Jesus!, intoned his father, glancing in bewildered amazement at Emil and Howlin, and back to his son. Jesus!

Patrick did go flying again, although at first only occasionally. He was just fifteen that next summer of 1934, still too young to really learn to fly, and the means, the money, was simply not to be had. Still, on the weekend trips to the lake, when his labor could be spared, he would get a ride to the Armonk airport and spend time around the pilots and planes; the few of each, that is, that could afford to fly. Howlin took a liking to Patrick, and readily found odd jobs for him, paying very little but a 6 oz. Coke from the vending machine newly installed at the hangar-cum-office, and the promise of a ride for his accumulated labors.

Patrick felt he had the better of the deal; he loved being around the airport, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and in the bargain he began to learn about basic aircraft structure, mechanics and operation. When Howlin did take him up, usually in the Waco, he not only felt what they were doing, he understood it. Howlin knew he had a natural flyer in Patrick. He would make him a pilot.

At sixteen, Patrick had to find steady, paying work for the summer. Every source of income in the Montalto family was sorely needed. On the weekends in the spring, and again in the early fall, he was able to do some caddying, which he had started the previous summer at nearby Siwanoy, where the young caddy master, Joe, was a friend of the family. He always found a few slots for boys from the side of tracks that didn’t belong to Country Clubs, mostly Catholic Irish, or Italians like himself. Patrick did reasonably well, in part because he made friends easily among the other caddies from his side of town, who would suggest him for a twosome, and would likewise pair him with some of the better, and more frequent, golfers.

Patrick, however, had other plans, for caddying on the weekends would keep him from the lake, and that would keep him from the airport. On the first season trip to the nearly complete cottage at Kitchawan, Bill was persuaded to stop at Armonk. While his father and Uncle Pat availed themselves of the bathroom after the drive up, Patrick was able to broach his plan to Howlin: If Howlin could use the help, and pay something reasonable, could he work, and live for the summer at the airport?

Well, Howlin replied, I could use some help, and I could pay ‘something reasonable’, in addition, perhaps, to a few flying lessons I suppose you wouldn’t object to?

Patrick’s smile gave him his answer to that question.

But they’ll have to be spaced out to allow you to pay for them, and still earn some money. The only problem is someplace to stay., Howlin mused. He continued, There is the small back room in the hangar, behind the office, where I have a cot, a sink, a locker, and stuff. But that’s hardly suitable for a teenager to live all summer. While he considered the problem, Bill and Pat came around the corner, into the shade of the hangar.

Patrick, he said quietly to the boy, I get the distinct impression that your dad is not particularly enthralled with your flying, and this, I think, will thrill him even less. Why don’t you mention what it is you want to do first?

Patrick did.

Jesus, his father said, more in the way of a plaintive prayer, than as an exclamation in vain, at least the way he looked at it.

There followed a tense discussion, which mellowed as his son unfolded the plan with surprising logic, supported only occasionally by Howlin. The work was fine, but living at an airport, all summer, away from home?

Never mind what I think, Bill said, His mother will go off the deep end with that idea.

It was his Uncle Pat that delivered the solution.

Look, Bill, he said, I’ve got a thought. You know that old ‘Indian’ I have?.

I could get it running, he continued, referring to the Indian motorcycle he had at Emil’s. That is, Emil could get it running. Now, the lake is what, six or seven miles from here, using the town roads, right?

Though reluctantly, Pat had Bill’s interest. He certainly had Patrick’s attention, for the boy had recently gotten his driver’s license, and he could see himself on that cycle, tearing across those roads, waving at the girls up for the summer...

Uncle Pat went on, Patrick could live at the cottage for the summer. It’s almost finished, and it’s an easy ride from here.

Pat’s father found himself listening, despite his misgivings. He had to remember all this, so he could break it to Bernie. Better still, he thought, he would bring his brother Pat with him when he did it.

Patrick could live comfortably there. It has water, an icebox, the Coleman stove, electricity, and the country store is nearby. Besides, Pat turned to his nephew, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, then to his brother, he could keep an eye on the place during the week, and Bernie, Angie and you would all see him on the weekends!" he concluded, quite satisfied with his creativity.

Patrick was quite satisfied, too. Tentatively, the arrangements were agreed to. Bill figured it was as good an opportunity as any for Patrick to earn some money, and being in the country for the summer seemed like a good idea. He was pretty sure that Bernadette would see the benefits, mostly. Riding that motorcycle, though, would not go over too well.

You’re going to be right there with me, Bill said, looking at his older brother, when I try to explain this to Bernie.

Actually, Bernadette thought it was a good idea, provided Patrick would have at least one day on the weekend free to spend with the family; and besides, if she was not working for one of the local merchants, she and Angelina would spend a week or more at the cottage. Spending the summer out of the city was probably a good thing, too. And the occasional flying? Although she had all the concerns one would expect of a mother about her son hurtling through the air in a crate of wire and fabric, it appealed to her, more than she let on to her husband.

The motorcycle was a problem, but she extracted a commitment from Patrick to ride it carefully, to work, and not to race wildly about the countryside.

And, some other things., she said to Patrick, with Bill and Uncle Pat as witnesses, No girls in the house, and no booze...that includes beer. Also, call once a week, whether you need to or not. You can use the phone at the store, she continued, referring to the small country store at the lake, or the one at the airport, if that’s okay with Mr. Smith.

Mom, Said Patrick, I’m sixteen, I can’t drink yet, and I don’t know too many girls up there!

Yet, replied Bernadette, "And I know you can’t...that you aren’t supposed to drink, and you won’t have much free money anyway, but there are older boys at the lake who can drink, and there are enough girls who know you, or who will know you, … ‘the little Italian flyer with the motorcycle’,

I know that we can trust you Pat, she said, speaking with finality for Bill, and Uncle Pat, for that matter. The two of them had remained remarkably silent after presenting the proposal to her. But, then, she was the German, at least in part, among them, and often made the rules. Bernadette proceeded to set out some other basic requirements, about keeping the cottage, and