The Autobiography of Stuart Hilborn

Chapter 2

"The War Years"

The induction process into military service is a real cultural shock. It takes time to adjust to it. I still remember [he seemingly endless series of medical shots. Once, I was in a long line of inductees receiving shots, two in each arm at the same time. The needles were sterilized and then re-used, time after time. By the time I arrived at the end of the line for my shots, the needles had already been used several hundred times and had actually become dull. The pain of entry was worse than the after effects of the shots. Several inductees fainted.

I was fortunate in being assigned to an air base only 70 miles from home. We were allowed to keep a car at the base but only in the parking lot in front of the main gate. This was very convenient for the few occasions that 3-day passes were issued. The entrance to the base was rather narrow, being hemmed in by a concrete pillar, on each side. One day the base commander decided the pillars should be removed. So he ordered one of the engineering battalions to do the job. The engineers decided the easiest way was to use explosives, which they were familiar with. It worked perfectly, completely destroying the pillars. However, all the broken concrete was blown like shrapnel into the cars parked in the adjacent lot. Over 100 cars were badly damaged including mine. The Air Force agreed to pay, but it took over a year before payment was received.

Some time later our unit was transferred to Oregon. One morning I received an order to report to company headquarters. No reason was given. Upon arriving there I found four others who had received the same order. None of us had any idea why. After waiting about 45 minutes, in typical Army fashion, an officer approached and told us to board a waiting truck. Someone finally asked where we were going. The officer replied, "Oh, don't you know? We are taking you to the state capitol building in Salem. You are all going to receive American citizenship." The procedure for service men was vastly simplified over the normal method, which could take years. Fifteen minutes after arriving at the capitol, I was an American citizen. Needless to say, I was delighted. I am very grateful that some unknown officer discovered my non-citizen status and took steps to correct it.

We only stayed in Oregon about a year and the entire unit was ordered out. Where to? Right back to the original base in California from where we came. Upon arrival, our squadron was disbanded and most of us were sent to a general pool to await reassignment.Quite a while before this I had applied for cadet flying school to become a pilot. This required passing a difficult written test and also a personal interview. The minimum passi ng grade in the test was 180. My score was 320. Even though it was the highest score ever attained at that air base, nothing was I happening. I checked with the personnel officer and he said there were so many applications that a lot of people never would be called. He suggested I apply for aerial gunnery school. They were moving a lot faster. So, I did.

Time passed slowly in the general pool and we soon discovered that we were just an available source of labor for any work detail needed on the base. One morning after roll call, about 50 of us were lined up to go out on a work detail. We waited and waited for the trucks to arrive to transport us to the work site. By this time many of us were seasoned veterans at escaping these work details. While waiting for the trucks to arrive, one by one we would slip around the corner of the building and disappear. By the time transportation did come, one third of the original group was gone. And, since we were all just part of an enormous pool, no one had recorded any names. Later, we learned that the reason the trucks were ~late, was that in spite of 3111 the planning for this work project, no one had thought to call the motor pool and arrange for the trucks to be there. So much for "military efficiency." We also learned not to hang around the barracks during the day as that was the first place they went to pick up unexpected work details. Even walking around the base could get you caught if someone thought you were goofing off. I finally solved that problem when I discovered I could walk anywaiting for the trucks to arrive, one by one we would slip around the corner of the building and disappear. By the time transportation did come, one third of the original group was gone. And, since we were all just part of an enormous pool, no one had recorded any names. Later, we learned that the reason the trucks were ~late, was that in spite of 3111 the planning for this work project, no one had thought to call the motor pool and arrange for the trucks to be there. So much for "military efficiency." We also learned not to hang around the barracks during the day as that was the first place they went to pick up unexpected work details. Even walking around the base could get you caught if someone thought you were goofing off. I finally solved that problem when I discovered I could walk anyplace on the base that I wanted at any time of day if I just carried a piece of paper in my hand. The paper could be blank and usually was, but it looked like I was on official business.

Finally we were assigned to a new squadron and shipped up to Washington. I don't think I was there more than 2 or 3 weeks when orders came through that I had been accepted for aerial gunnery school at Las Vegas, Nevada. I completed gunnery school training and was assigned to be an instructor there at the school. As an instructor, life was much easier and free time more plentiful. On my first visit to nearby Las Vegas, I was in the men's room at the Biltmore hotel when I happened to glance at the man next to me. You can't imagine my surprise at realizing the man at the adjacent urinal was Howard Hughes. I don't recall exactly what he said, but it was something like, "How are you doing soldier?"

My days at Las Vegas Gunnery School were the most pleasant and the most productive. I felt I was really making a contribution to the war by training thousand's of aerial gunners. I recall only one negative incident. We got a new medical officer who decided that, since Las Vegas was desert country, all the troops should be taking salt tablets daily. So, one day as we left the mess hall after lunch, there was a sergeant standing at the door and he handed each of us two salt tablets. We had to put them in our mouths and swallow them before he would let us out of the hall. The salt didn't bother' some people but it did others. I didn't get 100 feet before I threw up my lunch. The next day I protested to the sergeant before I ate. He was completely unmoved. There is no argument on earth, no matter how logical, that will persuade a sergeant to alter any procedure he has been told to follow. I didn't eat lunch that day, or the next, or the next. After about a week the salt tablet order was rescinded with no explanation, as was the irritating way the army always did things.

Things were running smoothly at the school when one day I was called into the office of our department head, He said that Hal Roach Motion Picture Studios had been hired by the Air Force to make a training film for aerial gunnery. The film was to be shot at our school and Hal Roach had asked for one of our instructors to play a part in it. He said, "you are the one." I asked "Why me?" He replied, "Two reasons: one, you are from California and two, you look more like a movie star than anyone else here." I never did figure out if this was a compliment or one of his little jokes. Anyway, I made the film and I guess Hal Roach was satisfied, because six months later they made another one and asked for me again.

Soon the war ended in Europe and there was no further need for B17 aerial gunners. Our school switched to training gunners for the B-29 which was being used in the Pacific theater. However, this didn't last very long, for the war in the Pacific was nearing its end. One day a sergeant came into our barracks and read off a list of names, including mine. He said,"you are all being shipped overseas." We were ordered to report to the medical building to have all our wisdom teeth extracted. I happened to have four perfect wisdom teeth with absolutely nothing wrong with them and no possibility of any serious trouble. As mUdl all protest fell on deaf ears. Orders were orders and nothing was going to change them. The Army simply didn't want to be bothered with wisdom teeth troubles when we were overseas. To me this logic would have made more sense if they had removed everyone's appendix. So, off to the dental clinic we went.

Upon arriving there, we found the place was jammed. I guess they were shipping out a lot of people. We took our places at the end of the line and waited and waited as usual. After about three hours we still were back a ways in the line. Suddenly our sergeant appeared and he was really upset. He demanded to know where we had been.We told him we had been in the line all this time. He said, "your train leaves in less than an hour and you aren't even packed yet, and by God you are going to be on that train." One of our group asked, "what about our teeth?" He said to forget it and go get packed. We did, and to this day, thanks to Army inefficiency. I still have my four beautiful, sound wisdom teeth.

They sent us to our port of embarkation near San Francisco for processing prior to shipping out. There was a lot of grumbling, for the war had now ended in the Pacific and it didn't seem logical to keep sending more troops. Also, many of us had accumulated almost enough service points to reach the current number that triggered automatic discharge. This number was being lowered every so often and we were sure that it would include many of us in the next change. But, if we were out at sea when it happened, who knew how long it would be before it would be acted on.

Departure day finally arrived. We were loaded on a brand new troop ship called the Sea Adder. This was its maiden voyage. We pulled out of the dock area and headed for the open sea. Then, just as we sailed under the San Francisco Bridge, something happened. The ship was turning around and heading back in. We couldn't believe our eyes. It went all the way back to the dock and shut the engines down. No one knew why. Even the usual rumor mongers had no explanation to offer. And, as usual, the Army said nothing.

We sat dockside most of the day in complete bewilderment. Finally in the afternoon, one of our officers gathered us all together and told us an almost unbelievable story of what happened. The ship's crew was a civilian crew and as I mentioned earlier, this was the first trip for the ship. For the usual war-time security rules the crew wasn't told where our destination was until we were at sea. The crew had, of course, already looked the new ship over. When they were told our destination was Saipan, they said "No way." They claimed Saipan was hot and humid and the ship simply didn't have,enough port holes for ventilation to ensure their comfort in that climate. The Army ordered them to proceed. They told the Army to go jump in the lake, and they went on strike. All the threats from the Army failed to budge them. the Army had no authority over them, they claimed. The crew won. We were unloaded on Angel Island in San Fransisco Bay and the ship was taken to a local shipyard to have more port holes cut in. We were to be quartered at the POW camp on Angel Island until the ship could be altered and return to pick us ul? It took several days for the work to be done. The day before the ship was scheduled to return for us, the new discharge number was published. It covered half of our group, including me. Legally, the army had to start the discharge process. We could not be shipped out now.

The discharge process began by us being shipped to Greenville, Mississippi Air Base. I didn't care where we went as long a discharge awaited me. Besides, a nice warm southern state sounded pretty good. After a long train ride on a troop train with octagonal wheels, we arrived at Greenville in January 1946 in a blinding snow storm. I never knew it snowed there.

The discharge process at Greenville was long and slow. The Air Force, like all of the services, hated to see us sit around with nothing to do. They were determined to put us to work at something. Anything. They finally found it. The air base had hundreds of old B24 bombers that were being held there in storage until they could be flown a few miles away across the river to be scrapped. The problem was they were not in flying condition. The base commander decided we were going to get them in the air. In our entire group there was not one aircraft mechanic. Most of the men were originally with the movie studios in Los Angeles. People like artists, model makers, film editors and so on. Hardly any had any mechanical experience and no one but me had any engine experience or even the simplest knowledge of engines. The whole thing was a hair-brained idea that might cost some pilot his life.

There were a couple of air frame mechanics working at the base and all of the tech manuals were there. Soon, the project got underway in weather so cold we had to stop work every 15 minutes and go into a small tent heated by an auxiliary heater. It didn't take long to discover that the only thing wrong with most of the airplanes was that every engine had from 1 to 10 spark plugs broken off at the thread, leaving the threaded piece in the engine. How this could ever happen I just couldn't guess. A good aircraft engine man should never break off a spark plug. Before a new plug could be installed, the old threaded piece had to be removed. The old piece was wedged in tight and could not simply be screwed out. There were no tools such as an E-Z out to remove the piece. They were in so tight that probably and E-Z out would not have done the job anyway.

I worked out a procedure using a piece of hacksaw blade to cut a slot through the old piece to relieve the pressure on the threads. Then, using a small sharp cold chisel and a hammer, the piece could be slowly unscrewed enough to grasp the top threads with a pair of pliers and quickly unscrew the part. Of course this procedure dumped a small amount of saw cuttings into the cylinders. However, I was confident that most of it would blow on out the exhaust as soon as the engine was started up. Remember, the airplane only had to fly 30 miles to the scrar-) site. The procedure worked fine, and no planes were lost.

It was during my stay in Mississippi that I finally had time to sit down and make the first drawing for the fuel injector that I had only in my mind. I can't really say what first gave me the idea. Certainly nothing I saw in the service even remotely resembled it. It was that first drawing that I took home with me, after being discharged in March 1946, that I used to build my" first fuel injector.

Shortly before my final discharge, everyone scheduled to be discharged on that particular day was ordered to be at a certain building at 8:00 A.M. for a physical examination. I arrived at the building and found about 150 men there. An officer ordered everyone to strip completely naked, even our socks came off. The building we were in was a steel Quanset hut with no heat, and it's a mighty cold day outside. The medical officers had not arrived yet so we waited and we shivered and we waited. After close to an hour, two medical officers arrived to conduct the physical examination. What did they do? They checked our teeth.

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