Blood and Honor (Honor Bound 2)

[TWO]

Aboard Argentine Army Air Service Light Aircraft Type 42 #6

Above Plaza San Martin

Capital Federal

Buenos Aires, Argentina

OB 15 19 April 1943

After a brief period of considerable-and visible-uneasiness and uncertainty, General of Division Arturo Rawson, President of the Governing Council of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina, quickly became not only a believer in the amazing capabilities of light aircraft, but quickly applied those capabilities toward the execution of Outline Blue.

General Rawson had of course previously flown in Type 42 Aircraft (a high-wing monoplane powered by a 75-horsepower Continental A-75-8 engine and known commercially as the Piper J-4 Cub); but on those flights the pilots were Argentine Army Air Service officers with a deep interest in doing nothing that would make a general officer feel uncomfortable or give him any cause whatever to suspect that they were anything but sober, careful airmen devoted to all aspects of aviation safety.

Today, he was being flown by a pilot who had soloed, illegally, in a Piper Cub at thirteen years of age, after six hours of illegal, if careful, flight instruc-tion by his uncle. Later, Marine Aviation Cadet Frade, C.H., had three times come very close indeed to being dropped from the program at the United States Navy Aviation Training Base, Pensacola, Florida. Cadet Frade's problems with the program had nothing to do with his ability, or inability, to fly the Stearman "Yellow Peril" basic training aircraft, or with the academic portion of the train-ing syllabus, but with his difficulty in learning to fly "The Navy Way" at the Navy's pace, while paying strict attention to the Navy's deep concern for flight safety.

For example, some improvised variations from normal procedures during his first solo cross-country flight in the Stearman brought him for the first time before a board of stern-faced Naval Aviators who were considering his possible expulsion from the program.

The flight plan called for him to fly from Saufley Field to an auxiliary field just across the 'Florida-Alabama border, shoot a touch-and-go, and then return to Saufley Field.

He did that. But he was also observed en route by a flight instructor who re-ported that Cadet Frade not only engaged in twenty minutes of unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers in the Stearman, but followed this outrageous deviation from his authorized flight plan by returning to Saufley Field via the Gulf Coast beaches, along which he flew at no more than 200 feet above the surf, while waving at female civilian sunbathers on the beach.

After his third appearance before the Elimination Board, Cadet Frade real-ized that any further infractions against the Navy's Flight Regulations, particu-larly those involving unsafe flight maneuvers, would almost certainly keep him from receiving his wings of gold and second lieutenant's commission.

No more infractions of any kind were laid against him during the rest of his Primary Flight Instruction, nor during Advanced Flight Training, nor-after he was rated a Naval Aviator and commissioned second lieutenant, USMCR- while undergoing the prescribed courses of instruction which saw him rated as an F4F "Wildcat" pilot.

Things changed slightly when he was assigned to VMF-221 at Ewa, Terri-tory of Hawaii. The Marine Air Group Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, greeted him there with a speech. Its most pertinent point devel-oped the notion that now that Second Lieutenant Frade had learned to fly a Wildcat safely, it was his duty, before entering combat, to learn how far he per-sonally "could push the Wildcat's envelope."

"The Envelope" was defined as the limits (in terms of speed, various maneuvers, stress, and so forth) to which the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics had de-termined the Wildcat could be safely subjected.

Second Lieutenant Frade accepted this order with enthusiasm. By the time he landed his Wildcat on Guadalcanal on the just-captured airfield-not even yet named "Henderson" after a Marine aviator who had died in the Battle of Midway-he had proved to himself that the Wildcat's actual envelope permit-ted, among other things, close-to-the-ground maneuvering at speeds far beyond those given in the official BUAIR envelope.

The day after First Lieutenant Frade became an ace by downing five enemy aircraft in his Wildcat, he was summoned before Lieutenant Colonel Dawkins, the Marine Air Group Commander. Colonel Dawkins told him he had seen his flight records, which included civilian flying experience, and reported that Cletus H. Frade had passed the Civil Aviation Administration's Flight Examination in a Piper Cub; and had received his private pilot's license in the second week of his fourteenth year; and had subsequently acquired 930 hours of time in the Piper Aircraft Company's Model J-4.

Colonel Dawkins then explained that there had been unexpected losses of Marine aviators, mostly Flying Sergeants, who had been flying the First Marine Division's Piper Cubs, aircraft that were used for artillery spotting, liaison, and aerial ambulance purposes. Dawkins then asked him if he would be willing to fly a Piper Cub until replacement pilots could be brought to Guadalcanal from the States.

On one hand, stepping down from a Wildcat to a Cub was obviously be-neath the dignity of a Marine fighter pilot; but on the other, lieutenant Frade had been in the Corps long enough to understand that when a lieutenant is asked to do something by a lieutenant colonel, the expected response is "Aye, aye, Sir."

Before strapping General Rawson into the backseat of the Argentine

Army Air Service Light Aircraft Type 42 #6, Major Frade's last significant flight ex-perience in a Piper Cub had been to locate, and then drop messages and essen-tial supplies, to the First Raider Battalion operating in mountainous jungle terrain some fifty miles behind Japanese lines.

General Rawson, of course, knew nothing of any of this. All he knew was that the Cub he was flying in now was being flown in a different manner-a frighteningly different manner-than he was accustomed to.

For one thing-because Clete had decided the best way to find the Argen-tine Navy's School of Naval Engineering was to find and then fly down Avenida del Libertador-their altitude between Campo de Mayo and the place where the Navy was holding up the progress of the First Infantry Regiment never ex-ceeded 300 feet and was often considerably less. Frade often flew the Cub around-rather than over-brick smokestacks and other high structures in his flight path.

For another, when they approached the School of Naval Engineering, with-out really thinking about it, Clete began to move the Cub in a manner that would make the Cub a more difficult target for anyone inclined to shoot at it.

For another, General Rawson's orders to Clete had been to land on the soc-cer fields adjacent to the School of Naval Engineering, "if possible." In his mind, he would evaluate the situation, the location of the opposing elements, and then authorize Frade to determine, as Step Two, whether he could safely land the airplane on the field.

Clete took one look at the soccer field, decided it was obviously possible to land there-all the Navy weaponry, mostly light machine-gun positions, were emplaced to oppose the First Infantry's movement down Avenida del Libertador-and did so.

By the time he taxied back to a takeoff position, three officers of the First Infantry-one of them had actually unsheathed his sword-galloped onto the soccer field to investigate the astonishing landing of an airplane.

General Rawson climbed out of the Cub, discussed the situation with the officers, and issued his orders. After leaving a few men in place facing the Navy, the regiment would bypass the School of Engineering and resume its march down Avenida del Libertador.

When they had moved far enough down Libertador so that simultaneous movement of the First Cavalry and the Second Infantry would bring both columns to the Casa Rosada at the same time, the First Cavalry and the Second Infantry would be ordered to resume their march.