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the Appendix, also.) He wanted experience in heavy aircraft. I remember him explaining that his goal after the war was to fly with the commercial airlines. My third roommate, Jack, claimed he didn’t care. He’d go wherever the Navy sent him.
    As for me, I just sat and listened. I wanted to be a carrier pilot. I knew my flight grades were not good enough for fighter training, but I felt I had a good chance to be assigned to advanced training in dive-bombers. I knew what I wanted to do after graduation. I wanted to fly off carriers. But then there was Jean to consider. I just didn’t know what to do.
    After taps, I lay on my bunk hearing only the sounds of my roommates settling into sleep. I could hear the tick of our alarm clock. Laying there in the dark, my mind felt like a ferris wheel going around and around. What should I do? I really wanted to be part of the excitement of going to war and to defend my country. That’s what I was being trained for. I wanted the excitement of flying against an enemy and to come home a hero, maybe even with some medals. But then there was Jean. Should I go ahead with our marriage and then leave her when I left for sea duty as a pilot aboard an aircraft carrier and the danger of combat? I could ask the Navy to keep me at Corpus as a flight instructor. We could get married and be together. Hell. That wouldn’t work, not with my flight grades. The Navy probably wouldn’t assign me as an instructor.
    Refueling after each flight was the responsibility of every cadet.
    My thoughts shifted to Jean. I wondered if she was planning our wedding yet. Probably not, since she hadn’t even announced our engagement. Should I suggest that we delay any marriage plans until after graduation when I would receive my orders? That wouldn’t work. I knew Jean would want a nice wedding, bridesmaids, reception and that would take time to plan.
    I lay there in the dark, twisting and turning. What should I do? I guessed the best thing to do was to write Jean suggesting that she announce our engagement and then offer her options depending on the kind of orders I received. If I were to be ordered to duty as a pilot aboard a carrier, should we delay our marriage until I returned? If I were assigned sea duty, but have some time in the States before I left, we could get married and have some time together. “Ah, to hell with it.” I concluded to myself, “Go to sleep, Norm. You’re going to start flying a new plane tomorrow. No more Yellow Perils. Your only goal will be to get those gold Navy wings. Get that done, and the rest of your life will work out.”

This Kind of Flying Can Kill You
I had flown three flights on December 5, 1941, but following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, my next flight wasn’t until December 16. The problem was that the base was on a high alert, and we weren’t flying. The newspapers and the radio were all warning that the Japanese might attack the West Coast. After all, with the exception of our carriers, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had been badly damaged at Pearl Harbor. The battleship
Arizona
had been sunk with over one thousand lives lost.
    I remember receiving a letter from Jean very soon after Pearl Harbor. She had been in Seattle with some girlfriends for a concert during that weekend. She wrote that she had been awakened on Sunday morning, December 7, hearing some kind of announcement from the street below the hotel. From her hotel room window, she saw a police car moving slowly down the street. The police were making announcements through bull horns telling all military personnel to return to their commands.
    Cadets pass in review during an indoctrination period at Corpus Christi, Texas.
    Her letter explained that it was only then, when she turned on the radio in the hotel room, that she had learned of the Japanese attack. She and her friends quickly packed and went down to the hotel’s lobby entrance. While trying to find a taxi, a police car stopped in front of the