While at the Air Museum in Ontario, CA in October I had a chance to meet Jack Morgan. Jack is a member of the Confederate Air Force and is a veteran P47 pilot. An unassuming man with a ready smile, he agreed to an interview.

CSim: Jack, what got you interested in aviation?

The first time I saw an airplane - all wood and fabric, was at an army "Open House" at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. I was five and my mother had taken me there. As we walked through the displays as a part of a large crowd, I noticed a beautiful, graceful machine perched upon what appeared to be a stage. I was intriqued, and my little feet came to a halt while my mother's did not. In a minute or so, she came rushing back, grabbed me up and said, "My Goodness, I thought you were lost!"

Little did she know just how "lost" I was. From that day on I was lost to the dreams of flying.

Later, my family was assigned to an oil company pump station located 42 miles from the nearest town. We lived in a camp with about six other families in one of the wildest, most desolate areas in Texas. But it was just a few miles from one of the graveyards of early aviation, Guadelupe Pass, and planes would pass over our camp two or three times a week. And who was always outside with his eyes in the heavens at the first sound of an airplane engine?

Yeah...you know!

That continued contact kept my dreams fueled until the day when I was about 10 years of age, living in a small oil town further down the line from the other place. My dad had a friend, and oil man with a little "wildcat" money, and this friend had an airplane.

Aaah, the beauty of that machine lives in my memory to this day. I never knew the make of the thing, but it was the usual design of the day - bi-plane, tail-dragger with a radial engine that made a hell-of-a-lot of wonderous noise. Old Bill Eppenauer flew that plane all around west Texas and even carried bottles of nitroglycerin in the second cockpit.

Then one day, my dad came in and asked if me, my sister and my mother would like to go out to airport to see Bill's plane. Boy...does a cow have a tail? Then, when we got there, Bill asked if I wanted to go up. I almost floated over to the plane, but since my dad was just a bit apprehensive of flying, my mother, much to my chagrin, squeezed in beside me and we took off.

I won't even try to express my feelings as I saw our car and my dad grow smaller and smaller. The wind was blowing my hair, my mother was grinning at me and my wide-wide eyes, and if I had had a bad heart I would have died a blissful death right then and there.

From then on, it was not what I was going to do in life, it was just, "when was I gonna be old enough to do it."

CSim: You didn't start out the war as a pilot, what were you doing at first?

Well, on Monday, December 8th, 1941 I was `in a recruiting station trying to become an aviation cadet. Due to the lack of facilities to train us, I had to wait until the next April before going to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.

Where I promptly washed out. For medical reasons. Albumin. In my urine.

I was reasigned to a classification center and did manage to qualify for aerial gunnery training. But instead of being quickly assigned to a combat unit overseas, they held me over as an instructor.

So how did I get into piloting?

After about six months of instructing, I had one "student" who was a Major. Since he was to be the new CO of our squadron, he was taking the course to see what he would be commanding. One day he said, "Jack, I am the cadet procurement officer of the base, and since you love flying so much, why don't you apply?"

I told him the whole lurid story of how I couldn't fill the little bottle correctly and after some laughter, he thought a minute and came back with a suggestion. "Why don't you apply again, and when it comes to the time when you are filling the bottle, just ask the guy next to you for some of his?"

You know, that worked for the next three years...and I was lucky enough not to have found someone with VD!

CSim: Where did you take your training?

My primary training was in the PT-19 at Hatbox Field near Muskogee, Oklahoma. The PT-19 was a joy to fly and it taught me well, in spite of those screaming, cussing civilian instructors who seemed bent on making you never wanting to get in an airplane again. But in all fairness, I must admit that because of their "inhuman" ways, after that I was always able to take a lot of outside distraction and still keep my mind on what I was doing.

My basic training was taken at Coffyville, Kansas in the BT 13...a plane that does not hold a soft spot in my heart. It was a fine plane, I guess, but not too exciting to fly. At least not as exciting as that great, great old lady of the skies, the AT-6 advanced trainer.

By being assigned to an AT-6 training facility it indicated that I, we, were being prepped for fighters. What a thrill. What a load off our minds. And what a nice city to have "Open Post" in on Saturday nights, Victoria, Texas.

As I indicated before, we loved the AT-6. It was a joy to fly, but if you mistreated it, it could reach up and bite-cha. And, oooh, how it loved to loop...on the ground as well as in the air. It was a good airchine to train in before going to the hot stuff and I think we all look back on her with misty eyes.

I sailed through the learning of flying without too much trouble and finally came the last days before graduation. The authorities asked us to list our first three choices for fighters. Not that we would get what we asked for, but so they could figure out which ones we would NOT get! I listed choice one as the beautiful P-51, choice two as the P-38, and I didn't even list the P-47 as a choice. I wanted nothing to do with that ugly old monstrosity.

They sent me to a place more remote than that place of my childhood...Wendover Field, Utah...126 miles from habitation! To learn to fly - you guessed it - the P-47 Thunderbucket.

By the time I had about a hundred hours in the 'Bolt, I was taking a grudging respect and admiration for it and by the time I was ready for overseas duty I kinda liked having that 2,000 horsepower, R-2800 engine out in front of me.

CSim: What was life like in the combat squadron?

Well, it was pretty spartan, but we lived right on one of the finest beaches in Italy. Of course it was in war-damaged houses with no window glass no heaters other than the ones we built ourselves and fueled with 100-octane gas. No sleeping bags, just three GI blankets and our fur-lined flying suits. Once it became spring, we spent our spare time on the beach and forgot the living conditions..

Our operations was in a huge old combination farmhouse/barn, with the greasy fingernails operations downstairs in the barn and our operations offices upstairs. We had a 4,600' strip that was half paved and half pierced-steel planking. There were three P-47 squadrons there, the 64th (mine), the 65th and the 66th. We had a lot of comraderie between them, but a good bit of competition, as well.

CSim: Many of these squadrons had some eccentric characters. Where there any who stood out?

There were a lot of characters in the unit, but the one that stands out in my memory was one of the quietest, most unassuming and likeable man I think I have ever known. He did not drink, smoke, cuss or chew. I first noticed him when I sat down to eat my first meal after arriving to the 64th.

While all the rest of us were "diggin' in," he was saying grace. While I - and most of the rest of them - were hoisting a few at the bar, he was either in the back of what we laughingly called the officers club, or in his room reading or studying. He was also the first of his class to become element leader, then flight leader, because he was so reliable and so calm in just about any circumstance. And he could fly!

I'm happy to say Kitowski (we called him "Kit," of course) survived the war and is living on a lake in a high dollar home near Austin, Texas. He was just as successful in civilian life as in the military.

CSim: Tell us about your first combat experience.

I really don't remember too many particulars. It was frightening, of course, but as I learned later, this was a rather generic mission. Go up, dive bomb a bridge, get shot at a few times (that was pretty exhilerating, seeing all those tracers going past you like angry bees), straf the area and go out looking for targets of opportunity...of which we found none.

I do remember that I got my first taste of 88mm fire. They would come up to approximately your altitude and explode, leaving two round puffs of black smoke...sorta like a figure 8. And if they got fairly close you could even hear them. It was more of a "whomp" than an explosive bang. Just about like that a large exploding fireworks makes when it explodes and makes all the little stars. Except the 88mm showered out shrapnel. We dove and turned and never got hit that day.

One lesson I learned was that a wing man kept his eyes in the air! I called out something suspicious on the ground, and I got called a few names by the flight leader. Our job was to stay on the wing of our number one or two man in the flight, and to weave back and forth so we could see behind and above us. I soon found that a silk scarf is a necessity to keep one's neck from being chaffed from all the head twisting.

My first one wasn't boring, but it wasn't terribly frightening, either.

My most memorable mission: It came just before the war was over and the Germans were in rout. The were filling the roads with rolling stock, trying to get to the relative safety of the Italian Alps to the north. The only problem was a thing called the Po River which bisected the Po valley for it entire length. But that was a problem, because we had long ago bombed all the bridges so they were piling up on the river, hoping to get across on pontoon bridges at night.

It provided a field day for us P-47 jocks and we lost count of the vehicles we destroyed. On one of these missions we had cornered a bunch of them in an orchard right next to a canal and were giving them holy hell. On one pass I heard a 40mm AA gun firing but could not locate it. I told my wingman about it and he said, "Aw, hell, Jack, you can't hear something like that over the sound of our planes."

But I knew I had, and on the next pass I heard it again and looked back. I could see the smoke trails behind the tracers and was fascinated as they caught up with me. There was a loud clanging noise and a definite jolt as two of them hit me on the underside of the wing.

I immediately wheeled the plane around to the south and started climbing in case I had to bail out. My wing man came up under me and reported I had some fire and smoke coming from the right wheel well area. Gad...the thing I feared most was fire, and I had to get as far away from where we had been shooting the Germans up or I knew I wouldn't make the ground alive if I had to bail out.

My wing man suggested I lower my gear so he could see what it looked like, so I lowered the gear handle and the gear came down with a jolt. That meant I had no hydraulic pressure and the gear had fallen by gravity. That meant, also, that I couldn't get them back up and if I had to make a landing anywhere but on a prepared runway I would have some unwanted problems. It was reassuring to hear the wingman report that the fire was blowing out, so I decided to stay with the plane.

We called the radar station nearby and asked for a steer to the nearest allied airfield, and were offered the facilities at a British Spitfire base near the eastern coast of Italy. It was probably 40 miles away and I kept climbing so as to have plenty of altitude for a bail out if necessary. Meanwhile I was assessing my problems and coming out with some sort of plan.

The facts were that my hydraulic lines had been cut, which meant that I had no flaps, the tire on my right gear was flat, and I was down to only residual hydraulic fluid for braking. So I had to land at about 125 mph instead of the 95 to 100 mph because I had no flaps. Then I had to land at that speed with a flat tire and minimum brakes.

But hell, that was better than what I thought I would have to do just a few minutes before!

In a little over 10 minutes I was in contact with the airfield controllers, told them my problem and asked for immediate landing. A beautifully accented British voice came back, saying something like, "Roger, old chap, would you mind holding off while we get some 'chickens' (fighters) off?" My response was something like an irate, "Hell, no...I wanta get this crate on the ground...I have a goddamed emergency. Their response was, "Roger, Yank, please make a fly-by of the tower so we can observe the damage."

In my anger, I flew the "Jug" right at their tower and slightly off center, then when I got close I lifted one wing so they could see at "close range," probably something like about 20 feet. Then I queried them and asked if that was close enough for observation. Their answer was a slightly quavering, "Indubitably, Yank."

The landing was hairy, but because of the characteristics of that beautiful old Jug, it was done without too much problem. I landed on the left wheel and held the right wing as long as I could, then used what little brakes were left on the left wheel. The plane slewed off to the right, but stopped just short of running off the runway...which irritated the British all to hell...their "chickens" STILL couldn't get off the ground because I was on the runway.

I will have to add that the British guys took it all in good grace, and their whisky was of good quality and in plentiful quantities.

As the Brits would say..."Good show, Yank!"

My most memorable mission, and I guess you can see why.

CSim: Many pilots went to war and never returned. What were the factors that contributed to your survival?

Well, first of all, tactics on our part. Then, when I finally got over there, the German air force was practically non-existant. We had awfully good leaders in my squadron and group, and, despite our losses, morale was high. But on an everyday basis, that airplane was a big contributing factor. I saw one come back and land with an 88mm hole in it's wing. I was with a guy that flew his T-Bolt home, over the Appinines, to land 50 minutes after getting holes shot in two cylinders of that Pratt-Whitney engine. It was still turning over when he taxied off the runway.

It was just really hard to shoot down.

Csim: You were pretty fond of the Jug? What did you like and dislike about it? If you had your choice, was there a plane you would trade it for?

Now you ask a difficult question... That's about like asking what do you like and dislike about your wife. There may be a few things you might want to change, alright, but there still wasn't anything out there you would trade her - or it - for. I would have appreciated some more speed at low levels, faster climb capabilities, and maybe better low altitude maneuverability, but there wasn't a P-51, P-38, Spitfire, or ME-109 that I would trade the P-47 for.

The '51 was a great plane...maneuverable, fast, long legged - and vulnerable. Get a hole in the radiator, the glycol lines, or the coolant jacket around the engine, and you had less than two minutes before the engine quit. And the P-47 could hold it's own at high altitude with it and just about any other plane of the time.

The P-38 was not even in the same league with the 51 or 47. It was great in the South Pacific but it had too many engine problems was not very maneuverable and since it did not have an engine out in front of the pilot it was terribly cold.

The ME 109 was a good airplane, but it had supercharger problems and was vulnerable to 50 cal. machine guns. The FW-190 was the only plane I just may have wanted to trade for the Jug, but I don't know enough about it to really judge.

I met one German officer right after the war, a ground officer, and all I remember about him was that he was sorry Roosevelt died, and he was happy the war was over, and now the Americans could join the Germans and go after the Russians!

CSim: What did you do after the war?

Well I got out for a while and then got recalled for the Korean thing. I did not have to go to Korea because things were winding down there at the time. I was checked out in the T-33 and F-80, but ended up in base operations where all I flew was some of the "pussy-cat" stuff, like C-47s, C-45s, B-25s, L-20s, and, occasionally, the T-33.

From there I went to England and flew an airplane that most people - even military people - have never heard of. And that was the B-45 Tornado. It was a 4-engined jet and was the first of its kind in the world. There were only 3 wings of them world-wide. It was a good old airplane, but was obsolete when it rolled off the line. It had a straight wing on it and was slow as molasses but could outturn even jet fighters at high altitude because of that wing.

I did a year in Spain as a safety officer and then returned to the states to fly the KC135. I really can't say enough about that plane. For what it was designed, it was far, far ahead of its time. They say that they are retrofitting and up dating them and expect them to be in the inventory until 2020! That's 65 years! I flew it for 9 years and have great respect for the gallant old gal.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I flew the C-119 back in my base operations days and for that I was chosen to go to Vietnam in the AC-119 Gunship. They put 4 mini-guns, capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute per gun. It had a night sight connected to a pilot's sight through a computer and I have gone up at night, fired over 20,000 rounds of ammo and never saw what I was shooting at!

It was a strange operation, and a different story I may tell you about in detail at another time.

My favorite (after WWII), as you have already guessed, was the KC-135 and the T-33...for vastly different reasons. The T-33 was such a joy to fly, and though it was extremely nimble, it was very easy to fly and had no nasty "gotcha's" to it. The 135 was just a comfortable, reliable, and easy to fly ole lady that you couldn't help falling in love with. The T-33 was the lady you wanted to "fool around with" and the 135 was the lady you wanted to marry.

CSim: Can you give some tips to "would be aces?"

Well, lessee...Keep your eyes open, stupid! If the enemy is off your right or left rear quarter, always turn into him - if he is off to your right, turn right, and V/V. Try to learn the enemies shortcomings and your own.

Then, study the enemy strengths and your own. From this you should be able to come up with a strategy. Try never get into a situation where he can pit his strengths against your weaknesses. Conversely, try to pit your strengths against his weaknesses. (We used to study this and try to get it so engrained in our minds so as to know them without having to stop to think.)

At least once a session fly the plane in the non-combat mode and practice turns, steep turns, rolls, loops, and immelmans, so you will learn to have smoother, and more positive control in the dog-fights. This will give you a better "feel" with the controls. Be cognizant of your air speeds...they are important!

To your readers I would say that without G-forces you are never going to simulate combat with any brand name simulator, but I will say that I did get sweaty palms and was all wrapped up in my combat sessions with the Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. It's about as close you can get to being there, without being there!

The controls were somewhat too responsive to be realistic for those old, unboosted controls of that era, but they did say they were gonna boost the resistance somehow or another before they put them on the market. Can't wait until they come out!