A Symbolic Choice

Young Raymond Miller served as copilot, flying in 8th Air Force combat missions over Northern and Central Europe in World War II. Their aircraft was a four-engine heavy bomber known as the B-17 or Flying Fortress. The aircraft was touted as a strategic weapon; it was a potent, high-flying, long-range bomber that was able to defend itself.

After the Pearl Harbor surprise attack in 1941, with the country living under the cloud of war on two war fronts, Raymond, with his brother Russell, symbolically chose to enlist into the reserves on a fall day October 13, 1942. Later, his younger brother Richard would enlist after graduating from Indianapolis, Indiana's John Herron School of Art.

Raymond "Ray" Miller was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on October 3, 1922. Raymond was the oldest of three boys. Russell was born on April 20, 1924, and Richard on December 9, 1925. The boys grew up deeply connected, being close in age. They had fun playing, working, and planning things together, with interests in flying.

As children of working-class parents Leroy and Josephine Miller, they were poor. Their father, Leroy, was restless and would move the family from place to place. In 1927, the family would move from Ohio to Marion, Indiana, where his mother's parents, Calvin and Jennie Griffin, were living. His mother was born in a small town southeast of Marion called Jonesboro. Most of the time, to go to school or church it meant walking. Raymond was enrolled in School Number 9 on Salem Pike, about 1 1/2 miles east of his grandpa Griffin's house where the family was staying. With there not being any school bus, Raymond walked or ran to and from school. In the winter, sometimes after running, his lungs would burn from the frigid cold.

Raymond was a good student. He was a natural at whatever he did and not afraid to work hard. With Russell and Richard, he worked on different projects. They each had chores to do. They helped with the garden and cared for the chickens. The three drank three gallons of milk a day. On the Spratt's farm where their mother bought the milk, they helped Mr. Spratt with his chores. They worked helping them to make hay and putting it up in the barn's hayloft. They were not paid, but for the three, it was fun and kept them busy and entertained. They also shucked corn and loaded it on the wagon. To their north was the municipal golf course where they became involved at being caddies. They would go to the caddie house at five o'clock in the morning and wait for jobs. They were fortunate to get some of the regular golf players to pick them to caddy. If they were good and didn't lose any golf balls, they got paid twenty-five cents for every nine holes. If lucky, they went eighteen holes and made fifty cents, and if they didn't lose golf balls, they were tipped another quarter. Sometimes they made as much as one dollar and fifty cents a day. They felt rich for they were making money.

The family moved to Five Points on the northwest side of Marion, and it actually was a place where the roads merged and made five points. Not living in the city limits, Raymond went to the ninth grade at the Marion Sweetzer High School. Raymond tried out for the basketball team, which called for evening practice. Since the school bus had already left, Raymond had to walk home about six miles. He says, needless to say, "I didn't do that very many times, but to play basketball, I had to make that long walk."

While in high school, Raymond got a job at the Marion, Indiana Shoe Factory and was paid 35¢ an hour, $13 a week. Feeling rich with his earned savings, he went downtown to the car agency and bought a 1932 Plymouth for $100. Being proud of his first car purchase, he took his father along for a ride when he went to play ball at Summitville. The car broke down with a flat tire. Raymond, in a change of mind, took the car back downtown to the car dealer who said he'd take the Plymouth in on a trade, so Raymond traded for a 1930 Model A Ford coupe for $90. That car would last Raymond fifteen years until 1954 when he sold it for $120. It provided transportation for his father and Richard, which Raymond was most proud of.

In 1939, Raymond became heavily involved in playing baseball, which pleased his father. He hadn't participated in a whole lot of sports. His major sport was baseball, although he did play on the golf team and played a little football. Raymond graduated from Marion High School in Indiana in 1940. There was a local restaurant called the Hilltop where the young people gathered after games and dances. Raymond would stop at Hilltop Restaurant and listen to all the latest of news.

In school Raymond took science classes and for his merit performance received the Bausch and Lomb Honorary Science Award. Raymond was intelligent. While he was in the sixth grade he was promoted a half grade ahead from class 6-A to class 6-B.

In 1940, Raymond went to work at the Anaconda Wire Factory. During that time, he played a lot of ball. After staying out of school for a year, in 1941, Raymond enrolled in Marion College, and in the spring of that year, he traveled to Greenville, Tennessee, and tried out for a class D professional baseball team. To his amazement, his father let him and Russell use his new 1939 Plymouth Chrysler to drive to Tennessee. Raymond tried out and made the club. He joined the team at the end of the school term. After some time, he received word from Greenville that the league was folding because of the war and there was no transportation.

Raymond was at the Marion Armory playing basketball on December 7, 1941. When Raymond got home, they received news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. The next day, President Roosevelt stood before Congress and called to America to fight. He called December 7 a "date which will live in infamy."

Congress declared war against Japan. At the time, Raymond's father thought that he was the one who was going to have to go into the service. The next week, young men flocked to volunteer because of the shock and carnage of the Japanese's surprise attack. The Selective Service Act ratified in 1940 was better known as the Selected Training and Service Act. The United States Navy and the Marine Corps did not participate in conscription. The conscript swelled the ranks of the United States Army. In one month, sixty thousand men had enlisted in the United States Army and Navy.

When Raymond's father found out that it may be his sons who would be going into the military, he suggested that he take them down to the Everglades and hide out. "Well," Raymond says, "you can imagine our reaction. We refused to do that."

Russell graduated from high school in 1941. In the fall of 1942, Raymond and Russell enrolled in Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. On October 13, 1942, they walked across the West Lafayette Bridge to the recruiters' office in Lafayette, Indiana and enlisted in the Reserve Army Air Corps. This allowed them to keep attending school and be available if they were needed. Raymond had gone to Purdue University majoring in civil engineering. He was to play on the baseball team in the spring, and during the winter, he cleaned the locker room and was given all his meals free at the student union. In those days, it was known as a scholarship-type token, just at a totally different scale than today. Purdue began to give out scholarships in 1958. Raymond and Russell stayed at a rooming house where there were bunk beds. They traveled home every weekend in Raymond's old Model A Ford. They enjoyed their time while attending Purdue University.

Called to Serve

Raymond and Russell both were called into the service in the spring of 1943. They reported to Fort Thomas, Kentucky. They arrived there in the evening, and they were very hungry. The mess hall was closed, and all they had left was spinach. Though never liking spinach much, they ate it. It was there that they sent their clothing, all covered with soot and smoke, back to their mother and Raymond says, "Poor mother cried at the thought of us being on the train and being called into service."

After the United States' entry into war after the Pearl Harbor attack, the number of volunteers for the pilot training was enormous. Training came in five stages to accommodate the large number of volunteers. The previous four stages were extended to the five stages with the creation of the preflight stage in 1942.

Raymond and Russell, for basic training, were sent to Biloxi, Mississippi, where they would stay together, and then they were sent to ground school in San Antonio, Texas. From there, they went to college training at Jefferson College, in Saint Louis, Missouri, where they continued their studies in navigation, Morse code, engine maintenance, and celestial navigation, as well as learning the basic education that was needed. All pilots in cadet school were taught code and had to receive and send at least twenty words a minute to be able to graduate.

While in Saint Louis, their parents visited them. It was extremely hot, and their father told them he had to drive less than the fifty-mile speed limit, not because of the speed limit, but because the tires on the car were almost bald, and he didn't dare drive faster for fear of a blowout. New tires were not available because rubber was on the war priority list, so their father put two old tires in the trunk in case they were needed. This makes Raymond recall the time he bought new tires for his 1930 Model A Ford, and his father, angrily, asked, "What are you buying tires for?"

Those new tires that Raymond put on his Model A Ford turned out to be a profitable purchase because with rubber rationed during the war, tires were hard to get. The tires lasted on the car during the whole ensuing war.

While assigned in Saint Louis, Raymond was fortunate enough to see a baseball game between the Saint Louis Browns and the New York Yankees and got to see his hero, Bill Dickey the catcher, which was always Raymond's favorite position. The game was played at the old Sportsman Park. Today, it is the site of the Herbert Hoover Boy's Club. A baseball field is at the same location where the Cardinals and the Browns once played.

Russell played baseball until he broke his arm and lost his chance to be a pitcher. Baseball was a natural interest for the boys as it was for their father. Their father, a good baseball player, played for the Twilight League. He was gifted with being able to pitch with either his right or left hand.

Raymond and Russell spent six months at the college training detachment at Saint Louis, Missouri. They had ten-hour dual flying in a piper cub to see if they could fly or not. There was never a shortage of young volunteers for air cadet training for there was prestige being a young cadet.

From there they were sent to primary flight training in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in January 1944, where they flew an open-cockpit PT-19 Fairchild single-engine model plane with a 120-horsepower engine. They hand cranked the engine to get it started. It was a low-wing plane with a double cockpit where the student and instructor would ride. It was there that they learned to do acrobatics, slow rolls, snap rolls, and split Ss. They learned to shoot landings and do cross-country flying and were taught how to fly solo. Raymond says, "You had to learn to take off and land after six hours. You can imagine how tense I was when the instructor climbed out and told me, 'Take the plane around and land three times.' Talk about being frightened! There was one student who went up with an instructor doing acrobatics and the wing had come off. The only way we could converse with one another was through a speaking tube. The instructor tried to tell the student to bail out and banged on everything, but the student froze and couldn't move. Finally, the instructor bailed out, and of all things, the plane went upside down, and the student was thrown clear. Both the instructor and student were safe. The acrobatics, I think, were possibly done to see if you got sick. If you did, flying was not for you."

They attended ground school and physical training as part of their training as well. Raymond said, "I got lost during my solo flight at Tulsa while in my primary training. I tried to find the landmarks, railroad tracks, and buildings—I never had the sense to read a depot sign, which was something they never taught. In the process of flying, I looked around and saw a glimpse in the sky—kind of like a silver glimpse—and thought, Well, it won't hurt to fly toward those. And sure enough they were airliners for the Tulsa Municipal Airport. I felt I had no other recourse but to land at the airport. At random, I called the instructor and thought, Well, this is no more for me. He had me to fly formation back with him. He never washed me out."

During their primary training, the instructors were middle-aged civilians who had hundreds and thousands of hours of experience. They were fortunate, for the instructors taught those things only an experienced trainer could do. For example: they had very little auxiliary fields and short runs or strips to get in on—they couldn't come in and make a gradual approach. They taught them to sideslip and lose elevation quickly just before landing. These were things only an experienced trainer could teach. The trainees were grateful to have such superb training.

It was at Tulsa that Russell washed out of flying training. Raymond felt sorry for him. His instructor told Russell that he would make a good Sunday-afternoon pilot, but he had no sense of direction. Tulsa is where Raymond and Russell would part ways. Raymond and Russell would be separated after being together since their entry into the Army Air Corps. This was where they would lose track of one another. They didn't see one another until after the war. Russell went on to gunner school in Colorado. Raymond went on to basic training at Coffeyville, Kansas, and there he flew the basic trainer called a Vultee BT-13 Valiant. There they learned to fly at night, make night landings, and make cross-country flights. The BT-13 was a larger low-wing model plane with a 450-horsepower engine. It had variable pitch propeller and no retractable landing gear, but it had a huge engine that they didn't have (at least for those days), so cadets were very much impressed by the plane.

While in basic training, cadets had military instructors. Raymond said, "Not that I am intelligent, but I was flying with an instructor to an auxiliary field, and on our approach, we couldn't touch down. We would overshoot every time, and I thought, Hey, something is wrong. I said, 'Why don't we turn and come in 180 degrees from the other way? I think we are landing downwind.' This was at night when we couldn't see the wind sock. The instructor didn't know we were landing downwind, so we turned around and came in the other way and made it. That was not a reflection of my knowledge, just a stroke of luck, but the point is, some of those military instructors weren't too good."

From Kansas, Raymond went to advanced flying training in Pampa, Texas, in May 1944 and learned to fly what was called an AT-17 Cessna Bobcat (which pilots called the Bamboo Bomber) twin-engine advanced-trainer aircraft, sometimes referred to as a UC-78. With their instructor, they learned dead reckoning, cross-country flying, and shooting landings. That particular stretch of country was always plagued by huge wind gusts, and sometimes, they would have to land in a fifty-mile-per-hour wind and crosswinds. Many times, they had to come in at full throttle so they could get back on the ground. Raymond says, "I had quite an education there in instrument flying and some formation flying, cross-country. At night, we flew airways that were lit by beacons. They were ten miles apart, and we learned to fly on the radio range for our navigation."

The students were sent on a rendezvous mission with an instructor, taking off from different places. They had no other information except they were to rendezvous at a certain point. Raymond was command pilot with a copilot. The copilot evidently thought they were gaining too much and he lowered the flaps and they did not come up. Raymond had to search for an auxiliary field overlay and found a farm field and landed there. Raymond sent the copilot to call the instructor who brought a mechanic and got the flaps up. The instructor told Raymond to fly formation with him back to the base. Raymond thought that was the end of his flight career, but the instructor must have known the situation because when they landed, he winked at Raymond and said, "Go on to where you stay."