We received Government Issue whiskey, mission whiskey that was parceled out after completing a flight. We saved all of ours for this last mission, then stood back to back, and drank a full canteen cup of this rotgut rye-Old Overholt, I think it was. Then we filled up a second cup. We drank his sixty-one missions' worth, then started on my allotment that included two full tours. Chuck collapsed first. I vaguely remember hitting him over the head with my canteen cup to make him stand up and keep going. "Andy," he said to me, "look at it this way. We could have had our asses shot off today. Isn't that so?" I said it was, and in war anything was possible, but neither of us really believed that. "We'll just have to make do," I said. Seventeen for me and twelve for him. That wasn't too shabby, friend.
The two of us woke up the next morning lying in an open ditch in the pouring rain. Chuck was wearing a parka that he had promised to give Bochkay. He had, I noticed, thrown up all over it.
We flew home together. In fact, he didn't go home to West Virginia, but went out to California to pick up Glennis and get married. He stayed overnight at my place. It was his twenty-second birthday that day, and my mom baked him a birthday cake. I drove him down to the train depot the next morning and said good-by. Both of us were kind of in a daze. We couldn't believe that our days at Leiston were really over, and that a whole new life was about to start. We had left behind a helluva lot in England- friends we'd never see again, wonderful fun times, terrible ordeals, the lot. But we had also left behind our youth. The next time we saw each other, we were both married men.
THE RIGHT PLACE
Chuck never did propose, but that didn't keep me from wondering what my life would be like as an Air Corps wife. He wrote regularly from England, enclosing most of his pay. "Here," he wrote, "bank this for us." His letters were short, but nobody could say more in a few words than Chuck. He wished the war would be over soon, but he would not have minded dogfighting forever. Flying came with the marriage license, and I had no problem with that. Being a military pilot's wife seemed exciting, especially with a husband like Chuck, who loved action, whether it was flying or hunting or fishing. So, I was primed to say "Yes!7' if and when he ever proposed. He arrived at my door in California straight from the war in Europe and told me to pack my bags.
"I'm taking you back home to meet my folks."
"What for?" I asked.
"What do you think?" he replied.
Now, that sounded promising. So, we boarded a train to West Virginia and played like honeymooners on the sleeping car for three whole days-darned racy for that era, wartime or not. I turned around my high-school ring while slinking past the train conductor. I was very nervous, a young girl on the big adventure of her life, but Chuck looked great in his officer's uniform with a chest full of combat ribbons and decorations. Alone on the train, we talked about the future. The Air Corps was definitely his calling. Although only a high-school graduate, he was already a captain and a pilot. I had no qualms about marrying him; what scared me was going off alone and being a stranger in a strange land. I pictured West Virginia as a foreign country where I couldn't understand the spoken language. Chuck laughed about it. "Oh, hell, hon, we all just speak the king's English, same as you do. If you understand me, you can understand anybody, I reckon."
Chuck's reception back home caught both of us by surprise. He was Lincoln Countv's personal war hero, its only double ace, and Hamlin greeted him as if he were General Eisenhower. We rode in a homecoming parade right down Main Street, and they packed the high-school gym to stage a civic celebration. The local papers had reported all his exploits, which is how I found out about most of them. "Did you really do all those things?" I asked him. "Hell, no," he laughed. But, of course, he had.
The people of Hamlin gave us all kinds of presents, including a starter set of sterling silver. They weren't rich and their generosity was wonderful. Everv time we turned around there was another reception or church supper. My face ached from smiling, and although everyone was very nice, the local girls really eyed me, wondering what was so special about me that Chuck couldn't find the same, or better, in his own backyard.
We stayed at his parents' house, in separate rooms. The Yeagers were a prideful family, strong and independent-minded. His parents were friendly, but reserved; Chuck's older brother Roy was away in the Navy, but both his kid brother Hal, Jr., and his teen-age sister, Pansy Lee, clearly hero-worshiped Chuck. I was the shy, uncertain outsider trying to make a good impression. I think his family was kind of dazed by Chuck's war exploits; at that point, I doubt whether any bride he chose could have measured up in their eyes. I was so proud of him I could bust, but I thought he was darned lucky, too. And in the middle of this hectic week, we learned that we couldn't get married unless I received my parents' permission, because at age twenty, I still wasn't legal. My parents wired their blessings, and on the eve of the wedding, I went with Chuck to Huntington to buy our rings and my wedding dress, a nice pale green dressy suit. His mom and sister helped me pick it out.
The night before the wedding, he finally proposed, in his own way. "I don't have much, so I can't promise you much except maybe a little cabin up in some holler." Being young and in love, that seemed enough for us both.
We were married at home in the family parlor, the room they kept the doors shut on all the time. A local lady sang "Always," and the family preacher married us. J.D. Smith, a local attorney whom Chuck very much admired, gave me away. He was very old and very ill, but his presence at our wedding meant a lot to Chuck. Everyone in town seemed to have sent flowers and the parlor was crammed with them. It was a crisp, sunny winter day, February 26, 1945.
We spent our wedding night in a hotel in Huntington, then boarded the train back to California- this time with our marriage certificate in our suitcase-to honeymoon at an Air Corps recreation and rest center at Del Mar. We went up to our room, put on our bathing suits, and bounced out onto the beach. The first couple we saw on the sand was Bud Anderson and his new bride, Eleanor. He was Chuck's closest friend from the war and had beaten us to the altar by three days. Chuck was amazed and delighted. He didn't know that Bud was getting married so soon. But before leaving Europe, he had claimed California as his residency to try to get stationed together with Bud.
We had a glorious two weeks together at Del Mar, at the end of which I went back alone to Oroville to pack my things and start my new life as an Air Corps wife, while Eleanor and the guys drove off to Texas, where they were going to serve together at Perrin Field.
By the time I caught up with them, the honeymoon was definitely over. Housing was nonexistent, and we, like the Andersons, were forced to rent a bedroom in a private home, with kitchen privileges. I didn't know anything about cooking, and the first time I invited the Andersons over for dinner, I served fried chicken. I fried and fried, but I still couldn't get a fork into it. They had sold me an old stewing hen that should've been boiled for a day, and Chuck and Bud bravely chewed until their jaws ached smiling and complimenting me. Finally I said, "This is awful. I know you guys are starved. Let's go out and get a decent meal. They practically jumped from the table, and we wound up in a very fancy restaurant. They were both in uniform, and those two crazy coots start acting as if they were shell-shocked, twitching and shaking so that the silverware rattled and everybody stared at us. Eleanor and I almost died, but a rich Texan picked up the bill.