"I was called in Oct. 1942 and met 500 other cadets for a private train ride to Nashville, TN for classification. Many kinds of tests were given to see what you qualified for. I qualified for pilot, and with those others who made pilot went to Maxwell Field, Montgomery, AL. We were on the honor system and signed papers after a test that we had not given nor received any help. We lived six to a room and we had 15 minutes in the morning for all of us to shave and shower. (It took longer to shower if you turned the water on.) After two months of pre-flight training we were sent to many primary flying schools through out the South."

"Most were grass flying fields. I, and some friends I made for the rest of my life, went to Charlstrom Field in Arcadia, FL, East and South of Sarasota. It had been a private flying school before the army took over and we never again had such splendid quarters. It was all white washed and looked like a resort with swimming pools and tennis courts."

"We flew Stearman P.T 17's, a by-wing with front and aft cockpits. The instructor sat in the rear seat. The landing wheels were very close together and made the plane subject to a ground loop on landing. Two of these and you were out. We started to solo by 6 hours and had to solo by ten or you were washed out. On arrival they told us to line up and look at the men on each side of you. Then we were told that only one would graduate from Primary Flight school."

"We were in Arcadia during March and April. We did 60 flying hours. One of my roommates had ground looped on an auxiliary field and he was standing with his instructor and mine, when I took off for my day after solo flight. My roommate heard my instructor tell his instructor, 'There goes Hartman, he soloed yesterday by the grace of God.' "

"Those of us who survived were sent to Basic Flying School in Bainbridge, GA. The town was even smaller than Arcadia, but the locals were super kind to us. We flew a ship we called the Vulteen Vibrator. It was a single engine plane with the instructor in the back seat. This was the first plane that had so much torque that the whirling propeller pulled us to the right on landing. We had to overcome this by crabbing to the left. Early on as I was approaching for a landing on a concrete runway, I was being pulled to the right. My instructor said, 'Hartman, you are to land on the runway, not the grass beside it.' "

"After 60 hours of basic flying during May and June of l943, we were put in an open truck convoy to Valdasta, GA, for twin enging training. We flew AT 10's. The instructor sat beside us. By now we could fly quite well and we learned formation flying and much navigation. When we couldn't find our way home, we followed the railroads, got oriented and flew home - flight plan slightly adjusted. My class graduated with our pilots wings on Aug 30, l943. Fifteen of us were sent to Mountain Home, Idaho, just outside of Boise, where we were assigned as co-pilots and met our crew."

"After much training in gunnery, bomb dropping (flower bags), and formation flying, we picked up a new B-24 in San Francisco and flew to the East Coast, then to Brazil and across the Atlantic to Africa. We arrived at our Italian base on Feb. 1, 1944."