Velva Jean Learns to Fly (23 page)

July 31, 1943

Dear Velva Jean,

I hope you don’t mind my writing, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m here in Ontario, California, at the Ontario Army Airfield. You’ll have to come to California sometime because I think you’d like it. The sun shines all the time, but it’s not hot as Hades like it is in Texas. It’s a desert, but there are also palm trees and mountains, even if they’re brown and scrubby and not the kind you like. I haven’t seen the ocean yet, but we’ll start maneuvers soon, and I plan to fly over it even if I have to steal a plane to do it.

In case you couldn’t guess, I sure did like meeting you and I hope it’s okay if I write you now and then. I’d love to hear from you in return because, as you know, the best time of the day is mail call. You’re about the loveliest thing I ever did see, Velva Jean, inside and out, and I want you to know that even if I never see you again, I’m happy to know you.

The main reason I’m writing, though, is because I was just in the rec room, where they were playing the radio. What do you think was on? “Keep on the Sunny Side.” So of course I thought of you.

Hope you’re keeping the dust out of your eyes and your feet off the ground.

Your friend,

Ty

August 3, 1943

Dear Ty,

Thank you for your letter. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye, but I want you to know that you can’t count on me to write you letters and be your friend. I’m not in any place to be romantic with anyone. I left my husband a long time ago, but he’s still my husband, and I don’t want to drag anyone into my life when I’m not free. I wish we’d gotten to dance more and that we could have gone on another picnic, but it’s better that we didn’t. I hope you see that.

Thank you again for the letter. But I don’t think you should send any more.

Your friend,

Velva Jean

August 6, 1943

Well now, dammit, Velva Jean. I don’t give a hang if you’re still married, as long as you’re not married in your heart. Now you’ll say I don’t know you all that well, and I guess I don’t, but it don’t take much to recognize that you’re a rare girl. Maybe you don’t see me in quite that same light, but sometime, someday, you’ll lose your heart to some stupid man and I think it might as well be me.

Your husband’s not the problem. The worst rival any man will have with you is your love for flying and driving and the fact that you just ain’t cut out for living a normal, boring life. In other words, don’t stick Velva Jean back up on that mountain. But you know what? I don’t want a housewife and I don’t want a girl who can’t fly. I want you.

I’ll tell you this—if I hear about you giving your heart to the first guy who comes along after me, I’m coming back to Avenger and giving you both what for. All I want is a chance.

I hope you know I wouldn’t give you hell if you hadn’t stole your way into my heart. And I know, I know you didn’t mean to. Another thing—don’t worry about hurting me. I’ve been hanging around for a long time on this earth (twenty-five years to be exact) and my heart is tough enough on the surface that it would take a pretty hard blow to break it. (Although I’ve got a feeling that a blow from you would pack a pretty punch.)

Take care, little one.

Your friend,

Ty

August 9, 1943

Dear Ty,

Mercy, how you talk. I’m so afraid of doing something that will lead you on that I’m scared to open my mouth or, in this case, my typewriter. At the same time, I want to lead you on. In spite of everything you say about how tough your heart is, I know it’s a good and sweet heart and it would kill me if I ever was to break it. But if I don’t write you and I tell you not to write me anymore, I just might break my own.

What to do?

Your cautious friend,

Velva Jean

August 13, 1942

Dear Velva Jean,

For God’s sake, woman, you’re sweet to be so worried, but listen to me good here. You asked me what to do, and I’m going to tell you: go ahead and lead me on. That’s right—break my heart if you can (and I’m sure you can), because you already gave me fair warning. If I choose to ignore it, it’s my own foolish fault.

Love,

Ty

August 16, 1943

Dear Ty,

You’re going to wear me down, aren’t you?

Love,

Velva Jean

August 19, 1943

Dear Velva Jean,

Yes.

Love,

Ty

TWENTY-SEVEN

O
n August 20 newspapers reported that First Sergeant Beachard Samuel Hart, twenty-five, a medic from North Carolina, led a marine platoon to capture a hilltop on New Georgia, in the central Solomon Islands, overlooking the Munda Point airstrip. Reporters said the New Georgia jungle was “the worst terrain of the Pacific campaign.” The marine invasion forces had to cling to hillsides while nine thousand Japanese soldiers hid below in dugouts.

It took the marines weeks to reach the airstrip, which was seven miles from the shoreline. On August 3, Beachard and his platoon found themselves in front of a hilltop overlooking the airstrip. While the Japanese fired machine guns and threw grenades at them, they pushed right on through to a point midway across the hilltop.

When his soldiers ran away and Beach was left by himself, he crouched behind a tree stump and continued fighting, even though he wasn’t carrying a rifle and was shot in the hand and also in the ear. He hurled thirty grenades at the Japanese dugouts, forcing the enemy to run. Twenty-eight Japanese soldiers were killed in the attack.

When asked how he found the courage to do it, Beach replied, “Have you ever prayed?” When told he might be a candidate for the Medal of Honor, he said, “I’d rather they didn’t. I did what anyone should have done, even if not everyone would have.”

I clipped the story out of the newspaper and folded it into my hatbox along with other stories printed about my brother, Beachard S. Hart, who never did believe in wars between men or fighting or killing but who believed in peace and forgiveness and who was happiest when he was on his own, wandering the woods and the mountains.

We started night flying the week of August 23, and while the other girls were finishing mess or taking turns in the showers I reported to the flight line early and sat down on one of the low wooden benches that were lined up by the runway. It was dusk, and the sky was turning all shades of pink and gold and orange. I watched the lights of the airplanes circling the field: white, red, white, red.

And then I got out my notepaper and wrote a letter to Ty. We were writing every week, back and forth, and I was trying to be reasonable and not like him too much.

I wrote to him about learning cross-country flying, instrument flying, and how to fly in formation. I wrote to him about learning to fly the beam, which was what they called it when you hit just the right spot on the radio signals that were beamed out from airports. If you were exactly on the beam, there was a hum that went out, but if you were to the right of the beam you heard what they called an
A
sound, which was like a dot-dash, and if you were to the left of the beam you heard an
N
sound, which was a dash-dot. The two sounds blending together made the solid hum of the beam. It was like a perfect note in music.

I wrote to him about Puck—about how he said, “When you’re sitting in that cockpit, I want you to picture the flying you’re doing in that particular airplane. It’s just you and that one plane. You’ve got to know just what that plane can do for you.” I wrote to him about how, on August 5, the WFTD had merged with Nancy Harkness Love’s WAFS, and we were now officially the WASP, which stood for Women Airforce Service Pilots.

And before I could write about anything else—like how I missed him and how I thought about him and how I got sad sometimes because he wasn’t there, even though I was glad he wasn’t there because I would want to spend time with him and not be working and studying like I was supposed to—Paula and Mudge and Sally and the other girls came out of the bays one by one. They sat down beside me, and Sally put her head on my shoulder and went right to sleep.

That night we were flying the Cessna C-78, which was a twin-engine wood-and-fabric advanced trainer that had a range of 750 miles. The best thing about this was that we got to fly with each other, three to a plane—two WASP trainees and an instructor. One of us girls would fly out and the other one would fly back. We drew straws to see who would go first.

I folded up my letter and put it in my pocket. We sat there waiting our turn—Mudge and me were flying together, going up with Lieutenant Whitley, who Mudge had her eye on. Shirley Bingham walked up to tell us that
Life
magazine was coming to Avenger Field to do a story on the WASP and take photographs of us.

Mudge said, “How do you know?”

Shirley said, “I work in the office. Jackie Cochran told me.”

Mudge started fixing her hair, just like a photographer was there right now.

Shirley said, “She gave them a list of the most photogenic girls and you two”—she looked at Mudge and me—“are on it.”

I thought about the most famous magazine in the world coming here, to Avenger Field, and taking pictures of us and how funny it was that somewhere—wherever
Life
magazine’s office was—someone had a list with my name on it. I thought maybe I would tell Ty about it in my letter.

“It’s a lovely night for flying.”

We looked up and there was Jacqueline Cochran standing next to us, so close we could touch her, looking at the sky, watching the planes already in flight, her hands shoved in her trouser pockets. It was surprising to see her because she didn’t spend a lot of time on base. We heard she was spending more and more of her time in Washington, D.C., trying to get the status of the WASP changed from civilian to military.

Her lipstick was faded, like she’d just had a cup of coffee, but she looked as handsome as ever. Shirley Bingham had told us that Miss Cochran also ran her own cosmetics firm and had created something called Wonda-matic mascara.

We sat blinking at this woman, the most famous female pilot in the world, and finally Paula, who was the bravest of us all, said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Jackie Cochran walked over to the wooden bench where we were sitting and sat down right beside me. She said, “You’re Velva Jean Hart.”

I said, “Yes, ma’am.” The other girls gawked at me.

She said, “You sent me a number of letters.”

I said, “Yes, ma’am.” I thought about the last one I’d written her, all about how I knew she was an orphan who didn’t go to school and who had to choose her name out of a telephone book and how her and me were alike because we came from the same place. I suddenly wished it was my turn to go up in the Bobcat because I thought these might not be things a person would want to hear about herself, especially from a stranger, even if they were true.

She crossed her legs and smoothed her pants and pulled a cigarette case out of her pocket. It was beautiful—made of gold, with rubies and diamonds and emeralds on the face—and it shone in the light. She opened it and pulled out a cigarette. She offered me one, and I shook my head. Everything she did seemed elegant.

I couldn’t help myself. I said, “How pretty.” More than anything, I wanted to hold it and run my hands over the stones. I thought about the emerald my daddy had given me years ago, back when he used to come around before he left us for good, and the gems he tried to mine for a while.

She handed it to me and said, “Do you see the pattern on this case?” She reached over and tilted it in my hands so I could see it in the lights of the control tower and the planes overhead, and the moon high above. I could see that the jewels made some sort of pattern, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

I said, “It looks like a route, like a course that’s been plotted.” Paula, Mudge, and Sally were leaning around me, trying to look over my shoulder. Shirley Bingham and some of the other girls waiting nearby were doing the same.

She said, “It’s the route of the Bendix Trophy Race.” The Bendix Trophy Race was a transcontinental, point-to-point air race that was supposed to interest engineers in building faster, more reliable planes. The pilots that entered the race flew from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio. Miss Cochran had won it in 1938, and by doing so opened the race up to women. “My husband gave it to me as a memento.”

I said, “It’s beautiful.” I wanted to own it. I felt jealous of the case and jealous of Miss Cochran for having something so pretty that meant so much to her. I wanted something like that myself and a husband who was so excited about me being a pilot that he would take the time to think it up.

I handed the case back to her because I was afraid if I didn’t I might put it in my pocket. She said, “My husband’s confined to a wheelchair.” This was something we’d heard about her husband, Floyd Odlum, a rich lawyer who had sponsored her in one of her earliest races. He stayed at home in New York while she traveled the world and flew.

She held the case, turning it this way and that in the light. She said, “We write to each other every day.”

I tried to picture this man in his wheelchair, writing his wife letters while she called herself “Miss” Cochran and broke the sound barrier and won air races and created a program for women pilots, the first of its kind. I thought he must be about the best man in the world to give her a beautiful cigarette case like that, to help her remember a race she’d won.

Jackie Cochran said, “In real life, I’m Mrs. Floyd Odlum, but up in the air and on the flight line I’m Jacqueline Cochran. I like being both.”

I thought, He gets to fly through you and he helps keep you on the ground, but not in a rooted way like a tree.

She lit her cigarette and inhaled. Her fingernails were painted a dark, shiny red. Her hair was curled, resting just above her shoulders. She inhaled again and stood, slipping the cigarette case back into her pocket. “Safe flights, ladies.” Then she walked away toward the control tower.

“Well,” said Mudge.

“Well,” said Paula. “What do you think that was about?” Before I could think about it or answer her, it was my turn to go up, and Mudge and I walked to our plane.

The runways were lit by flares, and as I took off with my quadrant—the four of us rising into the sky one by one—all I could see were the flares on the ground, which looked more like flames. They seemed closer than they were and for a minute they were blinding and I couldn’t see anything but the burning red-orange of the fire and the blur of taillights. For one awful moment I thought I was out of formation and that I’d lost everyone.

I remembered something Puck had said about using your artificial horizon if you lost track of where you were. I thought I never would get used to something called an artificial horizon, and then I wondered if that might make a good song or at least the name of one. Something about learning to fly without looking at the sky, just trusting your judgment and letting it guide you even though you didn’t know where on earth it was taking you.

I’d plotted my course that afternoon, drawing a line on a chart, listing the checkpoints—Roscoe, Loraine, Westbrook, Big Spring, Stanton, Midland—and the miles between each one. The weather said we’d have a tailwind heading out.

I was flying the takeoff and Mudge would do the landing. This suited me fine because I liked takeoffs better. I loved the thrill of pouring the coal into it, as we called it, and holding the throttle and pointing the plane up into the sky.

Night gathered around us like a blanket. The sun was gone and there wasn’t a moon. We were at three thousand feet and the cockpit was dark. Only the instrument panel was lit, the dials looking like little points of starlight.

I said to Mudge, “How long does a divorce take?”

She didn’t ask me why I wanted to know. She said, “A year. Sometimes longer.” Our voices sounded strange, like they were hovering above us.

I thought about being Mrs. Harley Bright for another year. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t be Mrs. Harley Bright for five more minutes.

Mudge said, “But not if you go to Mexico.”

I thought about what flying meant to me, how it was so much bigger than anything. Being up in the sky with the ground below, spread out this way and that way, made a person realize how some things in this world are big and some things are small. I loved flying because it taught me to stand on my own and be on my own when I was most scared of doing both. In an AT-6 or Cessna or Stearman or AT-17 Bobcat, I was beyond the keep, which was something we always said to each other. “Beyond the keep” meant that no one had a hold on you, no one could keep you, because you couldn’t be pinned down. Flying made me feel free, like I could go anywhere.