I recently read a book entitled, "Flights of Passage" by Sam Haynes. He was a Marine TBM pilot in WWII and took some of his flight training at Memphis.

The way he describes the base at Millington was exactly as it was when I was there first in '54-'55 and again in '60.

The book is interesting from a historical viewpoint, but it's nothing to jump up and down about. Haynes never advanced beyond 2nd Lieutenant, and would be considered a shitbird in today's Corps. Throughout the book, he views enlisted men with disdain. When he flew submarine patrols off of Okinawa, with two enlisted crewmen in the back of the plane, he would set the plane on autopilot, light a cigar, and read his mail.

Also on Okinawa, once on takeoff he pulled his wheels up as soon as they cleared the runway. Only something caused the throttle to ease back and the plane settled into a wheels up landing. He said he couldn't figure out why his two crewmen were clear of the airplane at a dead run before the plane even stopped sliding. Then it dawned on him he had a full load of armed bombs and rockets in and on the plane. He was grounded for two weeks, and during that two weeks he was ordered to help a maintenance crew dismantle the airplane for parts. Not really up to the Corp's standards of professionalism as either a pilot or officer.

Subj: TWS Millington TN Post

Was there (1955/1957) to work on setting up the first Helicopter school. We had HO5S-1 Helicopters & one H37 Helicopter as training aids. They were from the VMO- Squadrons (HO5S-1 ) I had them in Korea 1953 VMO-6.. I bought a home in Frasher area near Memphis. Goose I was in VMTB-232 on Okinawa during the battle we had TBM- A/C. I am going to look up our personnel & see if that Lt Haynes was with us.. We had some dumb ass 2nd Lts there. I remember one, he was in a sweat scared about the mission. He taxied out to the end of the runway with the wings folded. He did his full runup check than with rockets on the wings & 4 Five hundred LB bombs in the bombbay went roaring down the runway with the wings still folded. The Gunners were screaming at him & he went clear to the end of the runway before he realized what was going on. That was at Awase Air strip which was built by the Sea Bees & we went there from the old Kadena/Yomitan strips. (Vacated long ago) . Over near where Sam By the Sea resturant is now,) A sugar cane mill was later built on the old coral strip. Gy///Msgt Moore