Thursday, August 21, 2008
Published Sunday, May 25, 2008 in Local
Wyrick took his flying dreams into WWII
By Alex McRae
The Times-Herald
When he was just 6 years old, Ed Wyrick saw his future flying over a Missouri wheat field. Wyrick was living on his grandparents' farm in Blackburn, Mo. The crop had just been harvested and looked like a good landing spot for the biplane circling overhead.
The pilot landed in the field and explained that he couldn't reach his destination that day and didn't want to fly at night.
The pilot got a meal and a bed for the night and the next day offered to repay the hospitality by taking his hosts for a ride. Wyrick was hooked with one trip.
"After that I don't think I ever thought about anything else," Wyrick says. "I just wanted to fly."
Wyrick graduated from Joplin High School in 1938 and went to Joplin Junior College to get an education and play football and basketball. He also joined the Missouri National Guard.
One of his professors knew he loved aviation and suggested Wyrick check out the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which President Franklin Roosevelt had established to train potential military pilots for a war that seemed inevitable.
Wyrick entered the program and was one of just 10 from a class of 30 to advance to secondary flight training at Springfield, Mo. Then a problem popped up when Wyrick failed an isochromatic color vision exam, the test most frequently used by the military to evaluate color vision.
"I had no idea this would ever be a problem," he says. "I was healthy as a horse and wanted to fly. I couldn't believe something like this was holding me back."
Wyrick learned that in Chanute, Kan., a different kind of color vision test was being given that asked candidates to sort different strands of yarn by color. Wyrick went to Chanute, passed the test and was admitted to secondary flight school.
He finished in the fall of 1940 and applied for the Navy's flight program only to be turned down because of the color vision problem.
Wyrick knew he would encounter the same problem with the Army Air Corps and didn't even apply. In the summer of 1941 he heard about a program that was recruiting Americans to fly for Britain's Royal Air Force, which was busy defending England against devastating German bomb raids.
Wyrick was admitted to the program in the summer of 1941, managed to get a discharge from the National Guard and went to Tulsa, Okla., for training.
Since America was not at war, U.S. citizens were not allowed to fly combat missions for other nations and were threatened with loss of citizenship if they did so. For that reason, American RAF trainees were "officially" told they would not see combat. But everyone knew better.
"As soon as we reported they told us we'd be flying in combat and anybody who didn't want that was free to leave," Wyrick says. "I was thrilled. I wanted combat flying. That's why I joined."
After the training was in full swing RAF officials came to America to personally interview the pilot candidates. Wyrick was asked why he had joined. He said because he wanted to fly. Then he was asked what he would think if King George asked him to dig a ditch.
"I told them no way," Wyrick says. "I signed up to fly and that was it."
He was dropped from the program. An attempt to join the Army Air Corps failed and Wyrick went to work for a lumber company. He was there when Pearl Harbor was attacked. When America went to war, Wyrick was convinced he'd never have a chance to serve his country in the sky.
"I knew I needed to find a way to get back to flying," he says. "I just didn't know how."
Then a former college professor called to tell Wyrick about the Cross Country Flight Instructor program, which hired civilian pilots to train new Army Air Corps candidates. Wyrick earned his instructor's license and hitchhiked to Arledge Field in Stamford, Texas, to apply for a job.
Wyrick was hired on the spot. But he and the other civilian instructors soon encountered problems. They were teaching military pilots, but weren't officially part of the military. They had no rank, no uniforms and no draft deferments. The civilian instructors were also looked down on by people who saw young men out of uniform and wondered why they weren't in the military.
When the draft began to thin their ranks, the civilian instructors were inducted into the Air Corps enlisted reserve and finally received uniforms, although with no rank. In 1942, the name of the program was changed to the War Training Service.
The instruction schedule was brutal. There was no room for error or time for second chances. Trainees had to get everything right the first time or wash out, as over 40 percent did.
"Our job was to thin the group so the Air Corps didn't have to later," Wyrick says. "We had to be tough but that was the job."
Instructors sometimes looked for ways to beat the daily grind. One day Wyrick and a fellow instructor decided to do some formation flying with students aboard. This was prohibited and Wyrick was called on the carpet to explain. He admitted his guilt and prepared for the worst. His penalty was a $25 fine that was used to throw a party.
"They weren't really mad, but we broke the rules and it had to be dealt with," he says. "I think it worked out for everybody."
Although classes were constant, Wyrick didn't drop his social life altogether. Especially when it came to family.
In September 1943, Wyrick left Texas one Saturday to serve as best man at his brother Bud's wedding back in Missouri. He borrowed a plane for the trip but had trouble finding a place to refuel and barely made it to the ceremony.
The wedding was swell, but Wyrick wasn't focused on the bride or groom. He was more interested in the maid of honor, Lois Thurman.
"The first time I saw her, she was coming down the aisle," Wyrick says." I couldn't take my eyes off her."
Wyrick flew back to Texas the next day but didn't forget the girl. When he came home to Joplin for his birthday in October, he called Lois for a date. She accepted. Neither had any idea the weekend would change their lives forever.
Ed and Lois chatted during the Friday evening birthday party and Ed asked if she wanted to go with him, his parents and siblings to Springfield the next day to meet Ed's brother Bud at the train station. The group planned to stay over Saturday night, have a picnic in the park Sunday and come home.
Lois said yes. After a long Saturday on the road, Ed and Lois decided to spend the next day together. Lois stayed in a hotel room with Ed's mother and sister. On Sunday morning Lois had been up, dressed and ready for two hours when Ed knocked at 7 a.m.
Ed and Lois spent the day by themselves. On the trip back to Joplin, the car was crowded. Lois had a cramp in her arm and put it around her best friend's shoulder, saying "It's not because I love you. My arm is cramping." Minutes later Ed slid his arm around Lois. She almost fell through the floor when he said, "It's not because my arm is cramping."
The next evening they headed out on their fourth date in four days. After dinner, Ed said. "How would you like to come with me to Stamford, Texas?"
It didn't take Lois long to figure what he meant. "In that day and age you didn't ask that kind of question," she says. "I finally figured out what he was talking about and said 'Is this a proposal?' He said 'Yes, and I'll give you 15 minutes to make up your mind.'"
It was all the time Lois needed. She accepted the proposal and the two were married in January 1944. Lois was teaching and couldn't leave her job until the school session ended. In April she joined Ed in Texas.
The newlywed accommodations weren't great but nobody complained.
"I was so happy I'd have lived anywhere," Lois says. "Just being together was all we cared about."
By then, Air Corps operations were winding down and the Stamford base was scheduled for closure. But business was picking up 50 miles down the road in Sweetwater, Texas, where the Air Corps was beefing up its WASP program. WASP, the Women's Auxiliary Service Program was composed of female pilots who served in the ferry command, flying heavy aircraft, including bombers, from factories to bases across the country.
The Air Corps was requiring the women to earn instrument ratings and needed qualified instructors.
Wyrick was hired and he and Lois moved to Sweetwater. But in November 1944 the Sweetwater base was scheduled to close. Wyrick knew the end of his flight career might be closing as well.
From 1942 to 1944 civilian instructors like Wyrick trained 435,000 pilots for the Army Air Corps. After the war, many of those pilots pursued careers in commercial aviation.
When the Sweetwater base began closing a representative of Eastern Airlines came by to recruit pilots for the company's growing fleet. Wyrick didn't even go for an interview.
"I figured the color vision would be a problem; and back then airlines weren't paying very well, either. I didn't think it was too promising."
But Wyrick had something some of the other Eastern candidates didn't -- an instrument rating from the Civilian Aeronautics Administration, predecessor to today's FAA. Eastern wasn't hiring pilots without a CAA instrument rating.
When Wyrick didn't show up for the interviews, an Eastern doctor urged him to reconsider. Wyrick mentioned the color vision problem. The doctor asked Wyrick to give it one more try.
The next day, the doctor gave Wyrick the yarn test. He passed easily. By then, Wyrick realized he really wasn't interested in doing anything else -- so he joined Eastern, went to Miami and started flying DC-3s. He was soon transferred to New York, where he and Lois started a family that now includes four children, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Wyrick spent two and a half years in New York before moving to New Orleans, where he was based from 1946 to 1965.
In 1966, Wyrick accepted a transfer to Atlanta and moved to Coweta County. Three years later, another lifelong dream came true when he purchased a farm.
Wyrick retired from Eastern when he reached mandatory retirement age in 1980. He regrets he wasn't able to fly for the military during the war, but says he has no hard feelings, despite being denied GI benefits and having his Army discharge stamped with "Active duty: none."
"The government provided me with great training, so I never complained too much," Wyrick says. "Everybody wanted to fly in combat, and I tried as hard as I could to make that happen. But when it didn't, I served my country the best way I could. The civilian flight instructors made a great contribution to the war effort, and I was proud to be one of them."