Chapter 33

“Yes, I’d like to declare that going through customs stinks.”

That was what Major Jack Finlayson usually felt like telling customs officers...and he’d been face to face with a lot of them over the past few years.

But today, such was not the case.  Just as they had with air-cargo paperwork, the Althing had ruthlessly streamlined the customs process for arriving visitors.  A surprising turn considering their form of government.)  By contrast, when Jack Finlayson had visited the Soviet Union more two years previously, the customs process had required  four hours and a $20.00 bribe...and at that time the raccoon been a supposedly honored guest.

Here in the Spontoons however, it had taken him five minutes at most.  Not only that, but the Customs building was both spacious and airy, and had even been given a fresh coat of paint in anticipation of Speed-Week.  There was also a great deal of attention given to leaving the travelers’ belongings unsoiled during any and all examinations -- the tables were spotless, and the officials all were wearing fresh, white gloves.  For these things, Jack Finlayson was profoundly grateful; so all the other passengers from the Pan-Am Spontoon Clipper. 

Well, ALMOST all of them.  That one-armed bobcat at the far, end table seemed to think that the customs furs were there to serve his fursonal needs.  He was actually demanding that one of them summon a water-taxi for him.  Jack Finlayson just shook his head. 

“Obviously not a seasoned traveler.” he thought, but then he frowned.  There was something familiar about that feline...disturbingly familiar, now that he thought about it. 

(It would have floored him had he known the full story behind the cat’s presence here today.)

These thoughts were abruptly interrupted voice spoke from behind him. “Excuse me...Major Finlayson?”

Jack Finlayson groaned inwardly.  Another autograph seeker.

But when he turned around, the raccoon found himself facing a bright-eyed young ferret in a spotless RAF uniform, looking all the more dapper for the pair of obviously new stripes on the sleeve.

“Yes, that’s me.” he said, wondering what this could be about

“Sir!” said the mustelid in a Yorkshire accent, favoring him with a crisp, fast salute, “Beggin’ yer pardon Major, but Air Chief Marshall Ballory sends ‘is regrets.  ‘E’ll not be able to accompany you to see ‘Er Grace, the Duchess of Strat’dern right now, an’ ‘e suggests you just go on by y’self.  Says it may be  a bit ‘fore he can join you, sir.”

Jack Finlayson heaved a weary sigh.  He KNEW things had been going a little too smoothly.

“Do you happen to know what the problem is?” he queried.  The corporal, being a corporal, probably wouldn’t know, but there was no harm in asking.

“Well...” said the ferret, glancing around and then lowering his voice, “Nowt that I was told, mind ...but I did over’ear a thing or two.  It’s got summat to do wi’ a protest filed by a member o’ the French Schneider team ‘gainst one uv t’ RAF officers...summat about a stolen water-taxi, as I ‘eard it.  Word is, she’s made a reet ding-dong outuvit and t’ Air Chief Marshall’s ‘avin’ to go smooth it over furs’nally, sir.”

Major Finlayson sighed again, but this time with a nettled, rumble in his throat.  He could guess WHICH member of the French team had filed that protest -- the ‘she’ was dead giveaway.  (Being nothing if not meticulous in his preparations, Jack Finlayson had arrived on the islands well versed in regards to Katie MacArran’s opponents and their aircraft.   He had even managed to glean a new tidbit about the German’s Mystery Plane.)

“Meantime, sir,” the ferret was saying, “Air Chief Marshall Ballory’s been fortunate enough to ‘ave got t’ loan of a motor launch from t’ British Consulate...and ‘e hopes you’ll make use of it, with ‘is compliments, sir.”

The raccoon sighed gratefully.  “Yes, I would very much like to make use of it, thank you.”  Finding a free water-taxi during Speed-Week was supposed to be about as easy as locating the proverbial needle in the mound of hay.

“Vey good then, sir.” said the ferret, turning smartly on his heel and motioning to one of the red-caps assembled near the exit, “‘Ere, lad...Uggerem t’ Major’s traps for ‘im, eh?”*

The red-cap, a musk-ox, just stared in confusion.

A few moments later, Major Finlayson was settling as best he could into one of motor launch’s iron-hard seats while the coxswain cast off from the dock.  Ouch!  He’d sat on Alaskan boulders that were more comfortable than this.

Oh well, it was still better than having to wait for a ride to his hotel.  Of course, the obvious thing would have been for Katie MacArran to send a water-taxi to collect the Major...which was exactly why she couldn’t, because it was TOO obvious.  Under no circumstances could the exact nature of their relationship become public knowledge.

That relationship had first taken root in an obscure precinct of the Basque region of Spain, more than a year previously...
 

April 29, 1937

Monday, market day for the town of Guernica, the main plaza crowded with furs not only from the town itself but also with residents of the outlying villages and surrounding hills.  At 4:30 PM, the bells of the Iglesia de Santa Maria had suddenly commenced to peal furiously.

Then, they had come.

The first was a lone Dornier Do-17 ‘flying pencil’, coming in from the south and dropping a stick a 50-kilogram bombs over the town’s central district.

It was only the beginning. 

Next, came a trio of Savoia-Marchetti Sm 79 ‘Damned Hunchback’ bombers, swooping in,  according to one pilot’s later account, “to bomb the road and bridge to the east of Guernica, in order to block the enemy retreat.”

Instead, what they accomplished was to leave a large mass of frightened non-combatants trapped inside the town.  Now Guernica was struck by three more attacks in succession.  Squadrons of Heinkel He-111 bombers, escorted by FIAT CR-32 and Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter planes came in to set about methodically pounding the town into rubble...and attempting to kill every single inhabitant they could get in their sights.  Many of those lucky enough to survive the bombs were caught in the open as they tried to run for cover and mowed down by the strafing guns of the escort planes.  According to one survivor, "They kept just going back and forth, sometimes in a long line, sometimes in close formation.  It was as if they were practicing new moves. They must have fired thousands of bullets."

The fires that engulfed the city burned for three days.  Seventy percent of the town was destroyed, and sixteen hundred civilians - one third of the population - were either killed or wounded in the onslaught.

That night, in the barracks of the Condor Legion, there was much celebrating.  The furs of the Luftwaffe would have been considerably less buoyant had they known that on the other side of the Atlantic, the lessons of Guernica had not been lost on the American President.  Three weeks later, on May 19, 1937, Major Jack Finlayson of the Army Air Corps Reserve (and America’s most celebrated aviator after Lindbergh) was summoned to a luncheon at the White House with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Officially, it was nothing more than courtesy call on the Chief Executive by America’s most celebrated air-race pilot.

And so it was, until the dishes were cleared away.  Afterwards, Major Finlayson was quietly conducted into the Oval Office for a private meeting with FDR and his chief advisor, Harry Hopkins.

The meeting opened with Hopkins passing a folder to Major Finlayson stamped, ‘Secret and Confidential’.  Inside were several photographs of Guernica burning and a dozen more of the aftermath of the raid ...including several close up shots of the victims that almost made the Major lose his lunch.

“My God,” he’d said, returning the folder to Hopkins with a trembling paw, “I didn’t...I had no idea it was that bad.”

“Yes, Major.” the President responded, biting down so hard on his famous cigarette-holder that it seemed he would snap the stem, “It’s that bad...but what’s far worse, I call it scandalous, is that the United States Army Air Corps is at present no more capable of preventing this sort of thing than was the Spanish Republican Air Force.”

Jack Finlayson said nothing to this.  The President wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.  Over the course of the last two decades, America’s air power had been whittled away to the point where it was practically nonexistent.

“That is a totally unacceptable situation, Major.” Roosevelt was saying, “Totally unacceptable.  I will not see America’s skies left open to the kind of dastardly attack the Nazis and the Fascists let loose against Guernica.  Within a year from now, when the time is right, I intend to press Congress for the expansion and the modernization of the United States Military Air Arm.  By 1940, I envision a force of 10,000 aircraft and 3500 combat planes.”

Jack Finlayson could have kissed the FDR.  This was exactly what he, what every American military aviator had been PRAYING for ever since the fisher had first taken the Oath of Office.  Ohhh, but he wished Hap Arnold was present to hear this.

“Where do I fit in. Mr. President?” he’d asked, barely able to contain his excitement.

The answer had come in typical, roundabout, Rooseveltian fashion.
 
“As you know, I’m not an aviator,” FDR had said, putting it VERY mildly.  In point of fact, he never flew at all, preferring to travel by train, or ship wherever he went, “so I’m hardly in a position to judge the state of our air power.  That is why Harry here,” he nodded to the pronghorn antelope on his left, “will be leaving shortly on a tour of America’s aircraft manufacturing plants.  His job will be to assess their ability to switch from the manufacture of civilian aircraft to warplanes and, in the case of those plants already building military aircraft, to gauge their ability to increase production in order to fill our needs.”

“What we need from you, Major.” said Harry Hopkins, picking up the thread, “is an assessment of exactly what those needs are.  You’re to accompany me on my trip and make a determination as to which of the aircraft we’re producing will be the most effective, should we find ourselves in an air-war, and which will not.  In short, we need to know what we’re doing right, and what we’re doing wrong.”

“What we especially need to know, Major.” said the President, “is what kind of planes SHOULD we be building?  Do you think you can help us with that?”

“Mr. Hopkins, Mr. President,” the raccoon had told them, placing his paws on his knees and looking from one to the other, “I don’t need to undertake any tours to answer that question.  I can tell you right NOW where we’re most and least capable.”

Hopkins and Roosevelt had regarded each other for a second...and the Major had thought he’d seen just the hint of that famous grin on the face FDR.  Had the fisher been counting on his saying this all along?

“Then please, enlighten us, Major.” President Roosevelt told him.

Jack Finlayson was only too happy to oblige.

“Where we’re in best shape, Mr. President is in our bomber force.  All that’s really needed there is an increase in production.  The Nazis haven’t got anything that can hold a candle to the new B-17 Flying Fortress...and they’re not going to in the foreseeable future.  Ernst Udet’s got Goring pretty well convinced that large numbers of twin-engine bombers can do the job just as effectively...and even if he didn’t, Germany simply doesn’t have the production capacity to build a four-engine bomber fleet right now.  Building engines fast enough to keep up with airplane production has always been the biggest bottleneck in the aircraft industry...and that’s especially true in Germany.  Keep in mind that the Nazis have only been in power for four years now, and they’ve only been rearming for the last three.  Germany simply hasn’t had the time to gear up airplane engine production to the point where they can build even a twin-engine bomber force as large as Goring wants.  It’s the Luftwaffe’s dirty little secret.”

“I see,” said the President, replacing the cigarette in his holder and beckoning to Harry Hopkins for a light. “And what would you say is our Achilles’ heel, Major?”

“In our pursuit planes, sir.” Finlayson had responded at once, “Right now, we don’t even have anything on the DRAWING BOARD that can take on the Me-109 or the Heinkel He-112...much less the new generation of pursuit planes the Luftwaffe has in the works.”

Now, for the first time, he saw expressions of surprise on the faces of both Hopkins and Roosevelt.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they were stunned.

“What about the P-40?” said Hopkins a little defensively, referring to the newest variant of the Curtiss ‘Hawk’ series, then still in the testing phase.

“The P-40's a tough, rugged design.” Jack Finlayson had conceded, “and it’s fast as all get out in a straightaway dive.  But in terms of climbing and maneuverability, the ME-109's got it beat by a country mile.  And that’s not even mentioning the Curtiss P-36. (scheduled for production in 1938.)  A P-36 wouldn’t last five minutes in combat against the current crop of Luftwaffe fighters.”

“What would say is our best pursuit-plane then, Major?” this question came from President Roosevelt.

“That new interceptor that Lockheed’s working on,” Finlayson had told him, “the XP-38.  Now THERE”S a plane with some tremendous potential.” He stopped, bringing himself up short, “But I’m afraid it’s got some other problems.”
 
“And what are those?” asked FDR.

“First of all, Mr. President,” the raccoon told him, “ it’s a radical design; a twin boom, twin engine pursuit plane, like nothing we’ve ever built before.  Any time you introduce a plane with a completely new design, you’re going to have some serious difficulties in bringing it to the production phase.  That’s just a fact of life.  Second, because it IS a twin-engine plane, the XP-38 is going to be more difficult to manufacture in quantity than a single engine pursuit plane.  America may be doing better than Germany in aircraft-engine production, but not by much.  And lastly, it’s going to be much more difficult to maintain than a single engine aircraft; it’ll need two mechanics to keep it running instead of just one.”

“I’ve heard Seversky is launching a plan to greatly improve the P-35.” said Harry Hopkins, “Do you know anything about that, Major?”

“I do,” said Finlayson, not a little impressed.  Clearly, the antelope had been doing his homework. “And I must tell you, they’re going about it exactly the right way, sir.” As a first step, Seversky was planning to enter a modified version of the P-35, called the SEV-S2 in the Bendix Trophy races. 

“But,” the raccoon added quickly, “that’s not going to bear fruit for at least another three years...IF it bears fruit.  Right way or wrong way, what Seversky Aircraft is attempting is still a crapshoot.”

At this, Roosevelt lapsed into a short silence, the cigarette holder clenched between his teeth jumping up and down like a seismograph. 

That America was falling behind the rest of the world in pursuit plane design should not have surprised him.  At the start of the decade, pursuit planes had been regarded as essentially useless, not just in America but everywhere.  “The Bomber will always get through.” British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had famously declared in 1932...and it was a sentiment heartily echoed in the American Military.  A year before the ‘Dear Vicar’ had made that iteration, General Walter Frank of the US Army Air Corps had categorically stated that, “due to increased speeds and limitless space, it is impossible for fighters to intercept bombers, and therefore it is inconsistent with air force to develop fighters.”

That belief had stemmed from what General Frank had known was in the pipeline...the Martin B-10, the world’s first all-metal, monoplane bomber.  Not only was the B-10 faster than any other bomber then being produced, it was also faster than most pursuit planes of the time.   This led another Air Corps General, Clayton Bissell, to remark that ‘the only way a pursuit plane can bring down a bomber is by dropping a ball and chain into it’s propellor’.”

Then came the Spanish Civil War...and all of a sudden the bomber WASN’T getting through.  Even the Condor Legion’s much-vaunted Heinkel HE-111 bomber, considered the finest in the world, wasn’t getting past the Republicans’ Soviet-built pursuit planes.

...UNTIL the Germans adopted the simple expedient of sending their bombers into battle with fighter escorts. (As they had done at Guernica.)

And not just any fighter escorts, but the new, fast, and deadly Messerschmitt ME-109, an aircraft barely out of the testing phase...but far superior to it’s Republican counterparts in every single aspect.  Practically overnight, the tide of the air-war in Spain had turned in favor of the Nationalists, and the rest of the world’s air forces had taken notice.

...ALMOST all of them!

In Britain, full scale development was ordered on two new pursuit planes, the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire, and in France, the Hispano-Suiza  engine works launched an ambitious scheme of aircraft engine modernization.  Even the Japanese had taken note of the Nationalist triumphs, laying plans for successors to their front-line Mitsubishi A-5M and Nakajima K-27 pursuit planes even as they were being introduced on the battlefield.

Only in America were the lessons of Spain apparently being ignored.  The reason was simple:  Britain and France lay within bombing range of Germany while the US, on the other side of an ocean, was not and never would be.  Even the B-17 Flying Fortress couldn’t make at across the Atlantic and back without refueling, so why worry?

That was the American military’s thoughts.  Amongst the civilian population it was a different story.  Whenever the American isolationists decided to play the fear card, they invariably conjured up the image of Manhattan going up in flames after a bombing raid.  This should have been a boon to the United States Army Air Corps but ironically, it had just the opposite effect.  “Don’t provoke Hitler.” was the isolationists’ creed, “Not unless you want New York to end up like Guernica.”  And in the isolationist camp, ANY more towards American rearmament was synonymous with provocation, especially if in involved the introduction of a new pursuit aircraft.

Fortunately for Jack Finlayson, FDR and Harry Hopkins didn’t see it that way...as the President was now making abundantly clear to his guest.

“Major...that is even less acceptable to me.  If we are going to keep America safe from the Luftwaffe, then we MUST have a pursuit plane capable of beating the ME-109 on it’s own terms.” He paused, rapping his paw lightly on his desk.  “No...I’ll take that back.  I want a pursuit plane capable of beating not only the Me-109 but the NEXT generation of German pursuit aircraft.” He looked at Harry Hopkins, “If the British can build the Spitfire, I see no reason why America can’t make an aircraft at least as capable.”  The pronghorn nodded, and the President looked at Major Finlayson again.

The raccoon would never forget Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s next words.

“Major,” he said folding his paws on his desktop, “I want you to form a committee, a committee whose function will be to hammer out the specifications for...let’s call it the American Spitfire -- only better.  Once this committee has decided on the necessary capabilities for this new pursuit plane, you and Mr. Hopkins will be charged with finding an aircraft company to design and build it for us.”

“Ummmm, Mr President?” Finlayson had asked, thoroughly taken aback, “How many members do you envision for this committee?  How, exactly, are we supposed to come up with these specifications you’re talking about?  And who do I have the authority to consult?”

FDR just waved a paw.

“Why don’t you write out a proposal for your committee this evening?” he said, “List how many members it should have, what kind authority you’ll require, what sort of expense account you’ll need, and anything else you can think of.  Have it on my desk by the day after tomorrow and I’ll sign it.”

When he left the Oval Office, Jack Finlayson was completely flabbergasted.

“The President invites me to the White House,” he said to Harry Hopkins, shaking his head as if trying to recover from a sucker punch, “in order to give me the job of assessing the state of our Air Power, and practically on the spur of the moment, he ends up putting me in charge of an open-ended committee to come up with a new pursuit plane...bringing whoever I want on board, talking to whoever I want, and giving me whatever kind of authority I think is necessary -- before I’ve even MADE any proposals?”

“That’s the Boss for you,” said Harry Hopkins with a dry, frosty smile, “Much as I admire him, he’s no great administrator.  Sometimes he assigns five furs to do one job, other times he’ll assign one fur to do five jobs; often he does both.”  Then his expression had turned serious, “However, I must be firm upon one point Major.  Above all else, you and your committee must accomplish your task with the utmost discretion.  If the wrong furres were to find out about it...”  He left the rest unsaid, but perhaps he shouldn’t have.

“I understand sir,” Major Finlayson had answered, nodding, “and I fully agree.  If Hermann Goring were to get wind of this, he’d order an all out effort to go us one better...and he’s already got a head start.”

The antelope immediately stopped in his tracks.

“Goring?  Goring!”” he said, regarding Jack Finlayson as though he had just discovered him by lifting a rock, “I was talking about CONGRESS!”

Wisely, the Major decided not to pursue the matter any further.


Once he recovered from his bewilderment however, Jack Finlayson made decisive use of the mandate the President had given him.  He asked for, and got, the right to consult the British regarding the new US pursuit plane.  Furthermore, he decreed that the sake of security, the Diva Committee (a tortured reference to the British Spitfire) would never meet as a whole.  In fact, the individual members would never know the identities of  the others in the group -- or even how many there were.  Each would make his recommendations privately, and the Major would collate their findings into a final report, together with his own recommendations.  He furthermore demanded access to all intelligence documents regarding the latest German developments in pursuit planes, and the right to all files pertaining to the new pursuit planes under development by Grumman, Vought, Lockheed. and Severksy .  He also wanted full co-operation, no questions asked, from both the US Army Air Corps and the US Naval Air Arm.  Last but not least, the Major submitted his list of proposed committee members to the President.  Most of these either passed without comment (Colonel George C. Marshall) or with a murmur of approval. (Colonel Hap Arnold)

At least one name on the list, however, was unfamiliar to FDR.

“Who’s Lt. Colonel George Kenney?”

“One of the most innovative officers in the AAC, “ Finlayson answered at once. “And a technical wizard.  He spent three years at MIT before joining the Air-Corps and he knows air-tactics inside and out.  Rewrote the basic attack aviation textbook back in 1927.”  He did not add that George Kenney had been exiled to Ft. Benning, Georgia as an infantry instructor the previous year, for being too outspoken in his support for the B-17, an aircraft then viewed as a white elephant by the General Staff.

Roosevelt nodded, and continued down the list.  At the last name, he finally balked.

“Good God, Major,” he said, dropping the proposal as though he had suddenly realized it was covered in slime, “Not Lee Claire Chennault...that horse is a loose cannon.”

“To a point, I agree with you Mr. President.” said the raccoon, nodding, “Colonel Chennault’s idea that airplanes can win wars all by themselves is pure fantasy.  But when it comes to pursuit plane tactics, even Colonel Marshall says he’s a genius.”  (Actually George Marshall had said the Louisiana Quarter Horse was PROBABLY a genius.) “Furthermore, like or not, he’s the only army officer around with any sort of air-combat command experience...unless you count World War I, and I don’t.”

The President had just grunted.  “And I suppose you’ll want to go to China to speak with him fursonally?” Colonel Chennault was senior advisor to the Chinese Air Force...and also, as Major Finlayson had just indirectly pointed out, it’s de-facto commander.

“That’s the plan, Mr. President,” Major Finlayson had said.  Seeing the expression on Roosevelt’s face, he had decided that now would be a good time to qualify the choice, “Though believe me, I have NO intention of telling him the full purpose of my visit.  As far as the Colonel, or any of the other members of the committee will know for that matter, I’ll be consulting them in regards to pursuit plane development in general -- not with an eye towards actually producing a new aircraft.”

That was enough for FDR...barely, but enough.  With a grudging nod, the fisher affixed his signature to the Major’s proposal.

When Jack Finlayson actually began his consultations however, the initial responses were what would have been called in the 1990's a ‘no brainer’.  The new pursuit plane should be fast...and it should be highly maneuverable.  It should be fast...and it should have good visibility.  It should be fast...and it should able to absorb a fair amount of punishment.  It should be fast...and it should only be a single engine aircraft.  It should be fast...and it should have a superior rate of climb.

And it should be fast.

“Might just as well have skipped the committee altogether.” the Major muttered to himself as he boarded a train for Portland, Oregon where he was to meet with Colonel George C. Marshall at Pearson Airfield, just across the Columbia river in Vancouver, Washington.

In fact, it was Colonel Marshall who gave him his first new idea.

“If you want my opinion, Major,” the fox squirrel told him over lunch, “the problem with our pursuit planes is that they’re getting too big for their britches.  We continue to develop larger and larger pursuit planes with bigger and bigger engines...and I think that’s a mistake.”

“But a bigger plane can take more punishment and carry more firepower,” Finlayson had countered, playing the devil’s advocate.

“In regards to your second point, that’s not necessarily true.” Marshall had said, “Look at the Hawker Hurricane...EIGHT guns, and it’s not a large plane.  As for larger planes being able to absorb more enemy fire than smaller ones, a big plane is also a bigger target, don’t forget. And may I say, this cuts right to the heart of what’s wrong with pursuit plane development; we keep building planes to take punishment when our first concern should be how well they dish it out.”

It was one of the most important pieces of input that Jack Finlayson would receive.

But it was George Kenney, in Fort Benning Georgia, who turned out to be the real treasure trove of ideas.

They met behind the screens of the Redbone hound’s front porch, safe from the mosquitos but not the stifling Georgia heat and humidity.  As they talked they sipped from glasses of iced tea, and gamely tried to cool themselves with paper fans.

“First of all Major,” the canine told him, “you want a plane with landing gear that open outward from the fuselage, and are spaced as widely apart as possible.  That makes for stable landings and take-offs.  Second, it should have all of its machine guns firing from the wing and none through the propellor.  A synchronized prop will never be able to perform as well as a unsynchronized one...never.  And that’s not even mentioning what having to fire through a propellor does to the cyclic rate of a .30 or .50 caliber machine gun.”

On the surface, this should have seemed obvious...but in fact, it was a tall order.  In 1937,  the stock method of creating a high performance aircraft wing was to make it as thin as possible.  All the top race-planes of the day had wings like razor blades; the Gee-Bee R1 in which Major Finlayson had won the Thompson Trophy had been fitted with thin wings.  So, for that matter, was the Messerschmitt Me-109.

Even so...the more Finlayson thought it over, the more he agreed with Colonel Kenney on the subject.

And the Colonel had more to say, a lot more.

“The conventional wisdom in the Air Corps seems to be that the only way to increase airspeed is through increased engine size.” The canine shook his head  “And I don’t buy it, Major.  Look at that French plane that won the Thompson last year.  It didn’t have a large engine...but it did have wing flaps, retractable gear, and a multiple pitch propellor.  AND it set a new course record.  If America is ever going to keep pace with the rest of the world in pursuit plane development, we need to stop being so damned one-dimensional in our thinking.”

Jack Finlayson would have loved to tell Colonel Kenney how well this last idea dovetailed with those of General Marshal, but of course he did no such thing.

On the train back to Washington before, Jack Finlayson had a chance encounter with Hap Arnold, also returning to the capital after an inspection tour of Fort Bragg.  He didn’t expected much to come of it; he had already consulted with the Army Air Corps assistant Chief of Staff earlier, and the arctic fox’s ideas regarding pursuit planes had been things that Jack Finlayson had more or less already known.

But now, having had some time to mull it over, General Arnold had a few new thoughts to share.

“I would want a plane with plenty of staying power.” he said, as they had sat down together in the dining car. “A pursuit plane that has to break off in order to land and refuel is as effectively out of the battle as if it had been shot down.  And also, as I see it, air combat is very shortly going to start happening much more rapidly than it has in the past.  Engagements are going to become shorter, faster and be fought at much higher speed than ever before.  With that happening, pursuit plane pilots will be required both to act and react much more quickly than they have in the past.  And for that, we’ll need quick aircraft; planes that are highly responsive to the pilot’s touch.”

Jack Finlayson made careful note of these observations.  They were the last he would be hearing for some time.  His next stop was China, where he would be meeting with the brilliant, if somewhat erratic Colonel Lee Claire Chennault, USAAC ( Ret.) 

It took the raccoon two frustrating weeks to reach Nanking; a 36 hour flight to Spontoon Island, a three day wait for a flight to Manila, then another 40 hours in the air.  Three more days wait for a plane to Hong-Kong.  Four days waiting for his visa to clear.  Then, just as he was about to board his plane for Shanghai, he learned that all flights in and out of the city had been canceled.  Instead, a weeklong trip by boat ensued, and when he finally reached Shanghai, he was held up for another 24 hours going through customs.  Then two more days passed before he was able to book passage to the Chinese capital in Nanking, a two day journey by train, and then came three more days of waiting before he was permitted to see Colonel Chennault.

When he finally did, it was not a fortuitous encounter.  The Major was taken by car to a dusty airfield on the outskirts of the city where his driver, a pangolin who spoke no English, simply waved in the direction of a rickety bamboo tower and drove off.

At the top of structure, Finlayson found him, a bayou quarter-horse with light chestnut fur and a face like crushed leather, staring out at the sky through a pair of well-used field glasses.

“Colonel?” he started to say, but the equine just waved him off.

“In a minute, Major...In a minute.” he said, still keeping his glasses trained on the horizon. 

Then Jack Finlayson had heard it, the unmistakable hum of approaching aircraft engines.  He immediately silenced himself.  No, this was not the time to talk.

A moment later, there they were, a flight of eleven biplanes approaching from the southeast.  They were Curtiss Hawk pursuit planes...not the new P-36 but it’s predecessor, but the old Hawk III, an aircraft that dated from 1926...and as they turned to make their landing approach, this is what the major saw:

The first pilot made a flawless approach....or would have if he’d remembered to deploy his landing-great before touching down.  With a shriek that must have been audible in Shanghai, the Hawk went screeching down the runaway in a shower of sparks, the propellor disintegrating into pieces of flying shrapnel, one of which hurtled between the struts of the tower with the force of an artillery shell.  Fortunately the pilot, a Chinese leopard, was uninjured...but when he pulled himself from the cockpit, he actually smiled and waved at the tower as if he had just performed a great feat.

And it only got worse after that.  The second and third planes in the squadron managed safe, if shaky landings, but the fourth pilot banked his Hawk too sharply on approach and failed to correct in time.  When his right wingtip hit the ground, it sent his plane into a cartwheeled somersault, coming to rest in a confused heap -- just in time to be struck by the fifth plane, which tore off its left wing and went whirling down the airstrip like a runaway hockey puck.  Miraculously, neither pilot was injured. 

Planes number six through ten managed to get down all right, but the last pilot forgot to cut his engine in time and went off the end of the runway, flipping over into a marsh.
In the space of less than five minutes, in perfect weather, Chennault’s pilots had managed to crack up four of their squadron’s planes.  When Finlayson looked at the Colonel, he saw the quarter horse trying very hard to appear stoic, but he could not quite bring his eyes to meet the Major’s.

Jack Finlayson was sympathetic, not disgusted.  He knew the story behind the debacle.  Most of Chennault’s pilots, the Chinese ones anyway, were scions of wealthy families and had learned to fly at an Italian staffed school near Lo-Yang.  This school had operated on the principle that rich young mels were not to be washed out, no matter how inept they were, and were to be coddled every step of the way. 

In time, Colonel Chennault could have separated the wheat from the chaff, but in his present circumstances, he simply didn’t have any.  Less than six weeks after his arrival in Nanking, the Marco Polo bridge incident had taken place and the Japanese had launched an offensive into China -- and so the Colonel was being forced to scramble at every turn.

That was why Jack Finlayson said nothing to him as they climbed back down from the bamboo tower.

Later, over glasses of bourbon in the Colonel’s Spartan office, he learned that Lee Claire Chennault’s reputation for having strong opinions was more than well justified. 

“Everyone thinks they know what pursuit planes need these days, Major,” he said in a wheezy, Lousiana drawl, the rattle a result of the chronic bronchitis that had led him to retire from the Army Air Corps, “They want speed, maneuverability, visibility, responsiveness...but they always leave one thing out of the equation.  Most Air Corps Officers still cling to the old World War I notion of planes fighting as individuals...even after what we’ve seen in Spain.”  Here, he’d snuffled and shaken his head, “That’s wrong Major, completely wrong.  For maximum effect on the battlefield, pursuit planes should fight as a team, bringing massed firepower to bear on the enemy the same as the infantry does...and for that, you want a plane that’s both stable in flight and even more important, easy to fly.  The easier a plane is to fly, don’t forget, the easier it’s going to be to hold it in formation.  And you need to hold formation to carry out a massed attack, believe me.” He snuffled again, “And there’s another thing to remember.”

“What’s that?” asked Finlayson, remembering to talk loudly as he spoke.  Colonel Chennault also suffered from partial deafness, the legacy of having damaged his eardrums performing one too many high G maneuvers in an open cockpit plane....an activity with which the Major himself was more than little familiar.

The quarter horse pulled at an ear as if to remind him of this fact.

“If America ever does have to fight in another war, God forbid, we’re going to have mobilize our boys very quickly...and that means training pursuit pilots and getting them into combat as fast as possible.”  He put down his glass and leaned forward.  “Would you rather send green pilots into combat in a plane that’s easy or tricky to handle, Major?”

That was when they heard the voices shouting in Chinese outside in the hall.  A moment later, the door to Colonel Chennault’s office burst open like a starting gate.  And there, standing in the doorway, in a rumpled flight, suit was a VERY attractive pinto mare with her ears laid back into her scalp. 

“You can’t, Colonel!” she cried, storming into the office and ignoring Finlayson as if he were a potted palm. “You CAN’T give my planes to that bunch of idiots.  They won’t last five minutes in combat with the Japanese!”

Colonel Chennault’s ears also went back.

“If you don’t MIND Captain, I’m in a meeting.” he neighed.

For the first time, the mare seemed to notice the Major.

“I don’t care if you’re...”

And then she REALLY took note of him.

“Oh, my God....aren’t you Jack Finlayson?”

“Will-you-get-out-of-here?” the Colonel wheezed, sounding as if he were about to suffer an asthma attack, and then called out through the open door, coughing loudly, “Ling-Ho? *Cough!* Will you or someone else kindly escort this crazy mare OUT of my office?”

“Listen to me Colonel,” said the horse femme, “You’re making a mistake.  The Chinese pilots aren’t inept, they just never had the right kind of lead...”

“I believe *Cough!* that we have been over this before.” said Colonel Chennault, rising from his desk as two Chinese soldiers, a sloth bear and a tiger appeared on either side of his uninvited visitor. “And the answer is still ‘no.’  Ling?  Chu?  *Cough*  Kindly escort the young lady outside...and see that she STAYS outside.”

At this the sloth bear put one of his paws on the mare’s arm.  In a flash, she batted it away and barked an angry command at him in what sounded like fluent Chinese.  The Major’s considerable amazement, the ursine didn’t just back off, but actually seemed to SHRINK away from her.

That was when he first noticed something else about the interloper; her left eye was the color of blue chalk.

“You’re making a mistake,” she told the Colonel one last time, and then turned to follow the sentries out, all dignity.

“Was...that who I THINK it was?” Major Finlayson asked cautiously, when they had gone.

“Yes, it was Colonel,” said Chennault, plopping himself down again with a rumbling sigh, “That was Katie MacArran,”another snuffle, “Or should I say, Captain Catherine MacArran, China Air Force Auxiliary.”

“Hmmm, so this is where she ended up,” Finlayson mused, in a slow murmur, “But what the heck is she doing here?”

It was phrased as a rhetorical question, strictly from the raccoon to himself, but Colonel Chennault didn’t take it as such.

“Well, it wasn’t at my behest, I can tell you.” he said, “the Chinese government recently purchased a dozen NA-50 Pursuit planes from North American Aircraft; turns out that’s a company owned by Miss MacArran, and she helped design it...so she insisted on coming along with them as an ‘instructor’.”

Jack Finlayson scratched his head.  “The North American NA-50?  Never heard of that plane.”

“You wouldn’t.” said the quarter horse, “It’s built strictly as an export aircraft.  The Kuomintang likes them and so do I.  They could be a bit more faster and more maneuverable., but they carry a helluva lot of firepower and, like I said earlier, they’re easy to fly.”

“Hmmmm,” said the Major, looking thoughtful again, “But if you don’t mind my asking, Colonel, what’s that got to do with her little outburst just now?”

Colonel Chennault coughed again and dropped a hoof against his desktop.

“It’s got to do with who all I’m going to put in the cockpit of those planes, Major.  As you may be aware, in addition to the Chinese pilots, I also have a fairly large contingent of mercenary aviators at my disposal.”

“I am.” said Major Finlayson, still wondering where this all was going.

“Right.” said the Colonel, “and as soon as those planes got here, their leader Mike Lowry started hectoring me to let his boys have them.  Miss MacArran disagreed and said I should put the Chinese squadron you saw this morning at their controls...and, get this, with HER in command.”

Major Finlayson hooted in surprise.  There was a derisive nickname Howard Hughes had bestowed on Katie MacArran in the wake of the ‘35 Thompson scandal.  He had dubbed her, ‘Katie Loose McCannon.’  At the time, Finlayson had considered it a low blow.  Now he wasn’t so certain.

And yet...

“If you don’t mind my asking, based on what, Colonel?”

“First of all,” said the quarter-horse, “based on her record in Ethiopia and especially the Spanish Civil War, which admittedly is impressive, I’ll give her that...better than Mike Lowry’s, as she never stops reminding me.  He shot down three Nationalist planes, she bagged five, including one of those new Messerschmitts the Germans have been deploying.  She was the first Republican pilot ever to bring one down, so the story goes.”

Jack Finlayson let out a low whistle.  If that was the case, he would definitely need to have a few choice words with Katie MacArran before leaving China.

“Miss MacArran also insists that she can make that squadron into an effective fighting unit, given the chance.” Colonel Chennault was saying, “That gold mine of hers in New Guinea is run almost entirely by Chinese, and she speaks their language almost perfectly.  And, so she swears, she also learned from that experience how to motivate those boys, says that with proper discipline the squadron you saw smash up all those planes this morning can be the best unit in the Chinese Air Force.”

He looked at Jack Finlayson as though expecting him to guffaw, but the raccoon only sucked at his lip, remembering how the pinto mare had cowed her escort with only a few words. 

Meanwhile, Colonel Chennault was leaning forward across his desk and lowering his voice.

“Just between you and me and the doorknob, Major...she just about had me convinced before this morning.  Those mercenary pilots of mine subsist almost entirely on high-octane beverages, and they’re no slouches at cracking up planes themselves.” He leaned back again, and rubbed his muzzle, “But after what just happened, Major...there is no way I’m giving those new planes to that Chinese squadron.  What you didn’t see was that they wrecked two MORE of their planes on take off before you got here.  That’s five planes out of thirteen, total write offs, and one that’ll be in the shop for at least a week.” He snuffled again, “Those boys are hopeless, Major...utterly and completely hopeless.  I’ve already issued orders to disbanded their squadron, and send them home.  As for the NA-50s, much as I’d rather not, I’m assigning them to one of the mercenary air-groups.”

Jack Finlayson sat silently for a long moment, before he spoke again.

“You know,” he said, “I once knew a pilot who made the guys in that goof-up squadron of yours look like Eddie Rickenbacker...wrecked an entire flight of Jennies.”

“Really?” said Chennault, leaning forward across his desk again, ears canted forward and wearing a keenly interested expression

“Oh yeah.” said the raccoon, “Happened back in 1919, when I was serving under Colonel Harvey Burwell at Rockwell Field, outside of San Diego. We had a flight instructor there who was a one-fur wrecking-crew...cracked up at least three planes and when he wasn’t doing that, he was busy performing unauthorized stunts.  Got himself grounded at least half a dozen times that I know of. Yet even after all that, he somehow managed to talk Colonel Burwell into letting him and his squadron make a cross-country demonstration flight to DC in three of the airfield’s JN-4s.”

Now it was Colonel Chennault’s turn to hoot.

“From San Diego to DC in a Curtiss JENNY?  Oh my God....your boy have a death wish or something, Major?”

“Beats me.” said Major Finlayson, rubbing the back of his neck, “but you can guess what happened.  They didn’t even make it across the Colorado River.  The two wingmen crashed just outside of Needles, and the lead pilot had to turn back for Rockwell...and then HE crashed on landing.  When Colonel Burwell called him into his office, I was there, the first thing he said to that pilot was ‘YOU are a damned Chinese ace!  Know what that is?  That’s a pilot who wrecks more of his own country’s planes than he does of the enemy’s!’”

With a loud, choking horse-laugh, Colonel Chennault fell back in his chair.

“Oh Goddam...that is SO right, Major.  Whatever happened to that damfool pilot anyway?”

Major Finlayson’s expression, and his voice, became very, very solemn.

“You’re looking at him, Colonel,” he told the quarter-horse quietly, “you’re looking at him.”


next


*”Excuse me son, but could you come and carry the Major’s belongings for him?” 
(Much thanks to Simon Barber for his most timely input regarding Yorkshire-speak)

Aircraft references:

Dornier Do-17:
http://www.the-battle-of-britain.co.uk/machines/Do17.html

Savoia-Marchetti Sm-79
http://www.aviation-history.com/savoia-marchetti/sm79.html

Heinkel-He-111
http://www.aire.org/gce/english/nac/he_111.htm

FIAT CR-32:
http://www.comandosupremo.com/Cr32.html

Heinkel HE-112
http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/FRheft/FRH0001/FR0001d.htm

Messerschmitt ME-109:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-air-support/ww2-enemy/me_109.htm
( Yeah...like you don’t ALREADY know this plane. )

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress:
http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/b17.html
( Ditto! )

Curtiss P-40:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p40.htm

Curtiss P-36:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p36.htm

Lockheed XP-38:
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p38_1.html

Seversky P-35 and SEV-S2
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Seversky-Racer/info/info.htm

Curtiss Hawk III:
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/hawk_china.htm

Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”
http://www.airminded.net/jenny/jenny.html

And, last but not least...
North American NA-50: ( Also known as the P-64 )
http://www.airventuremuseum.org/collection/aircraft/North%20American%20P-64_NA-50.asp