Page 25 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

My growing interest in aviation was further increased as I frequently saw bright yellow
double-winged Stearman airplanes overhead. They would circle over our
neighborhood when they practiced landing and taking off at the nearby airbase.

During the war years, the skies over our neighborhood gradually changed. Soon there
were no more Stearman trainers. Instead, we heard the buzz and saw the short, stubby
F4F Grumman Wildcats, a plane with narrow wheels the protruded from the fuselage.
In school, we were encouraged to be patriotic. War stamps were sold to paste in a
booklet that contained enough spaces to total $18.75, enough to exchange for a $25
War Bond. We also collected newspapers so that after several months we had a stack of
papers as high as I could barely reach, about six feet. A paper company, R.V. Sutphin,
paid us over fifteen dollars for them, enough to purchase a lot of war stamps. Soon I
had enough stamps to cash them in for a $25 war bond.

As the war effort increased and aviation advanced, we saw the small Wildcats replaced
by larger torpedo bombers. The Grumman TBF or TBM Avengers flew in formations
as they returned from target practice over the Atlantic. They would peel off to the left
from the group to circle the field for landing. Unfortunately, one day the pilot of the
second plane in the formation mistakenly thought the first one had already peeled off.
Tragically, he peeled and rammed into the first plane. Both pilots were killed when
their doomed planes nose-dived into the swamp less than one-half mile from my house.
My brother, Richard, heard and saw the disaster as he was with the School Boy patrol
guarding the crosswalk at nearby Venetia Elementary School.

When we headed down Timuquana Road towards the river and Timuquana Country
Club to the fence of the Navy base, we sometimes spotted a plane trailing a long rope
attached to a white silk target that was used to train fighter pilots. When they
approached the airfield, they would release the tow rope so the target could drop
between the runway and the fence. We often gathered there to see how close to the
fence the target would land. One day the wind blew the target onto our side of the
fence. We thought we had obtained a souvenir, but as we carried it through the woods
to Roosevelt Blvd, a car stopped and a Navy officer got out and took it from us.

Living on Blount Avenue in Timuquana Manor provided me with a world of adventure.
One-half mile down Timuquana Road was McGirts Creek (now called Ortega River).

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