One of the joys of my life is that I have lived in the age of aviation, for I love to fly, did a great deal of it in the Navy and have subsequently flown in almost everything that had wings. Shortly after my seventy-fifth birthday, when I was working in California, some Air Force people asked me: ‘But have you ever been up in a glider?’ and when I said no, they cried: ‘Well, here we go!’ And they took me to one of those fields high in the hills near Edwards Air Force Base, at which we were working, and in minutes they had me up in the air behind the towplane. Something went wrong; the towplane broke off, and we spiraled swiftly down to earth, but straightened up at the last minute to make a fine, steady landing.
‘You mustn’t allow a mishap like that to sour you on gliding,’ they told me, and in a few minutes we were aloft again, this time to high altitude, where we caught updrafts that kept us drifing there for about an hour of exquisite flight—silent, vibrationless and majestic.
Once when our government wanted to let our allies know that we really did have some secret weapons ready for their defense, I was chosen to write a revealing magazine article about the hitherto secret B-52 bomber squadron at Limestone Air Force Base in the extreme northern part of Maine, and to familiarize myself with the plane, I took a crash course as a bombardier in a group of B-52s secretly riding herd on the Soviet Union. I learned what the drill was if the United States was attacked and we had to counterattack. Having already studied details about Siberia, I understood our proposed strategy when some of the targets in Russia were revealed and exercises were mounted to simulate flights from Limestone to those targets.
Later I actually flew one of the powerful B-47 bombers two thirds of the way across the United States at an altitude of fifty thousand feet. When I say I ‘flew’ it I mean just that, but with a qualification: at takeoff I occupied the rear copilot’s seat, with the real pilot in control. However, when the plane was safely aloft, I took over the controls because the Air Force considered it important for me to experience the sensations of actually flying a plane of that size and speed if I was going to write a report about it. I accelerated, slowed, turned, banked, changed elevation and felt the entire operating system responding to my commands.
Because pilots know of my love for their profession, I have been asked to fly as their copilot on a score of different airlines, especially over the Pacific, and on five or six occasions I have actually been in the pilot’s seat to work the iron mikes that operate the automatic systems. Always I have been aboard in some official capacity, but in the case of various foreign airlines that have allowed me to be in the cockpit my official role has not involved their nations.
It is somewhat surprising that I still love to fly, and that, not long ago, nearing my eighties, I flew as copilot to the most distant Aleutian Islands, for I have been involved in three major airplane accidents in which the three planes were totally destroyed. The crashes have had no effect on my love for planes; after each one I have promptly resumed flying.
The first crash was at Manus Island when our double-decker flying boat landed in the big anchorage and continued straight to the bottom in one smooth glide. Lives were lost, but those of us in the top deck escaped.
The second crash was memorable partly because of its aftermath. We were flying in to a landing on the perilous airstrip, as it then was, in American Samoa. Pilots who had to land here during the war will remember that they came in from the sea, flew straight down the short airstrip toward a mountain at the far end, turned abruptly to the right, banked and landed in the opposite direction from which they had approached—‘a strict one-eighty,’ I believe it was called, since the pilot had to make a turn of 180 degrees under the most demanding requirements of timing and altitude control.
I was strapped into a bucket seat molded in the middle of a long aluminum bench that ran the distance of the interior of the plane; this put me facing inward, and in the seat opposite me but somewhat to the rear sat an Air Force lieutenant colonel. As we turned to land I said to myself: ‘Unh-uh! This field is hell. Too much moment on the port wheel.’ I do not find this usage of moment in the dictionary, but it is accurate, I believe; in a situation like ours it means that sideways thrust exceeds the forward to such an extent that if the wheels touch before the accumulated moment is dispersed or relaxed, the lateral force would be so great that the landing gear would have to crumple inward.
I remember looking at the colonel questioningly but casually, as if nothing serious were afoot, and I raised my eyebrows as if to ask: ‘Too much moment?’ and he nodded back, completely composed, and revolved his right forefinger to indicate that ‘Yep, we’re going over.’ And a moment later, as we both had known it would, our DC-3 landed with a thump, the port wheel crumpled inward, as predicted, and there was a fantastic mess with bodies and gear flying about. Since the motion threw me onto the colonel’s body, we had trouble untangling ourselves before rescuing the others and then leaping from the wreckage in order to escape the gasoline fire that could be expected.
No lives were lost, and when the debris was cleared, the colonel and I retrieved some personal belongings and walked to the Pago Pago officers’ club, quietly pleased with our coolness under stress and the fact that we had acted rather well in the emergency when some of the younger men had not—although neither of us said anything to that effect. After we washed up in the rooms assigned us we had a good dinner, after which he went about his duties and I lingered for a couple of Cokes, then started back to quarters in the dark.
A work crew digging a service-line ditch had left uncovered a hole, and I fell into it with a thud when I hit bottom. It happened so suddenly, in the dark, and on such unfamiliar terrain that the accumulated tension of the day’s crash following a chain of close calls up north rendered me powerless even to call for help. There, stuck in a trench that I assumed was at least eight feet deep, I remained a helpless clod, until someone from the club happened by and summoned others to haul me out.
I was taken to the base infirmary, given a sedative and allowed to sleep till well into the next morning. Then I was taken by the medics who had rescued me to see the trench into which I had fallen. To my amazement, it could not have been more than eighteen inches deep: ‘The captain who discovered you almost stepped on you, your butt was sticking up so high in the air.’
It was sobering, that inspection of my trench that was eight feet deep, for up to then I had considered myself impervious to afflictions like battle fatigue, nervous exhaustion and back-pain seizures, which I had classified as cowardly cop-outs. I was humbled to learn that although at a time of crisis I could be heroic, at another time I could be as helpless as a frightened child.
The third crash was totally different from the others. In 1957, while on a routine Army flight from Guam to Tokyo in that most reliable of all planes, the old DC-3, called alternatively the C-47 and the Dakota, our engines started to sputter and we found ourselves far out in the Pacific, with either no fuel or what we had contaminated by water condensation, so that we had no alternative but to crash-land in the sea. We had ample warning that we were going down, and I remember those last minutes vividly. I did not recall all my past life in an instant or begin saying prayers. I had only one thought: Those waves out there are so big there’s going to be one hell of a bang. I’m flying my favorite way, backwards, with my head propped against the bulkhead to absorb the crash. I hope the pilot has read his manual on how to crash at sea. And as the oldest guy around, I hope I behave well.
By this time my work in aviation and my wide experience in planes of all kinds had convinced me that there was always a right way to do things, a way that gave you the greatest chance of survival, and how to land a plane in the middle of the ocean must have been analyzed to the last square inch of wave, the last configuration of plane. Wheels up or wheels down? Nose way up or slightly up? Straight in or at an angle to the waves? I knew none of the answers, but I knew they existed and hoped that our pilot had studied them.
He made a perfec
t gliding landing into a tremendously big wave that stopped our DC-3 instantly and totally, tearing out most of the bottom, and then a miracle occurred. The marvelous old plane, ripped almost to shreds, stayed afloat for three minutes. At a time like that, with so much to be done if lives are to be saved, it is astonishing how long three minutes can be. If a small group of men and women were properly drilled, they could carry out every piece of furniture in a small restaurant in three minutes; they could perform wonders. We were thirteen in the plane and at the moment of the crash, everyone knew what to do. One man threw open the big rear door. The sergeant threw out the rubber raft and activated the device that inflated it. Another man herded the eleven passengers in an orderly movement to the escape area. I checked the pilot’s cabin to be sure the crew was getting out through a special exit, and the sergeant and I were the last to leave.
At the door I thought fleetingly of all my notes and papers that were about to go down, and then I was in the water. I was not far from the plane when it quietly sank. Buoyed up by my life vest, which worked perfectly, I thought how miraculous it was that we had all performed so admirably, and then I disgraced myself: when I finally succeeded in swimming to the rubber raft, which was now some distance away from me, I couldn’t climb in. The raft had such big, slippery round sides that I simply could not hoist myself over the hump and slide in.
‘For Christ’s sake, old man, get in!’ someone shouted, and I had to cry back: ‘I can’t get a hold anywhere!’
‘Swing your ass up and over!’ Since I have a notably plump rear end, that was an easy command to give but not easy to obey, so an exasperated Army man had to leap back into the water to help me; he gave me such a tremendous push from behind that I practically flew into the raft, landing in a heap on top of the others.
Our careful pilot, before we crashed, had sent out such a strong radio S.O.S: ‘Mayday, Mayday!’ (from the French Venez m’aider, Come help me) that stations in widely scattered points around the Pacific recorded it, and this enabled headquarters to triangulate the source of the call and locate us precisely as a tiny spot in the vast Pacific. A nearby Japanese fishing boat did not hear our call but it did receive instructions from land to hasten our rescue, and we were saved.
To passengers who fly over oceans I would give these assurances in case they are confronted by a crash landing at sea. If your pilot has studied the instructions his manual contains for such landings, there is a good chance you will survive. The little yellow life jackets your plane provides are amazingly effective. Take as much clothing as you can, especially a hat to prevent sunburn. It will be difficult getting into your life raft, and once safely aboard, you will probably be very seasick, for the rubber raft moves forward-backward, right-left, up-down, all at once, and so will your stomach. But quite important, perhaps fifty listening stations will have heard your distress signal, lines will intersect, and your probable position will be known.
Today, when I start a flight across an ocean, I listen attentively as the stewardess explains procedures for the life jackets and often think: I am probably the only person on this plane who ever had to use one in the middle of the ocean, and how grateful I was to have had one that day and to have it function properly, for I could not have made the raft without it. Half an hour after the rescue I was back aboard another DC-3 to resume my flight to Tokyo.
The closest I ever came to death was in a hotel in Saigon when I was trapped in my room on the top floor while there was a major riot on the floors below. Some Indians stationed in the area had been so outraged by political maltreatment that they stormed the hotel and started throwing guests out of the rooms, headfirst onto the concrete slabs outside. I watched with horror as they threw several to death from the rooms below me, then heard them storm onto my floor. From a room three doors down from me, they pitched out a fat Indian merchant who had been visiting Saigon, and he screamed to his death. Then they were at my door, kicking it open. For some reason I have never been able to explain, I grabbed my Olivetti portable, stood with it clasped protectively in front of my chest and shouted as they came at me: ‘Press! Press!’ They were so startled they simply nodded and withdrew.
Looking back on a lifetime of joyous travel, I have these answers to questions frequently asked.
‘What was the most delightful place you ever visited?’ Bora Bora. ‘The most rewarding city?’ A dead tie between Rome and London. ‘The best ancient ruin?’ Karnak and the temples along the Nile. ‘The most romantic?’ What used to be Angkor Wat in Cambodia. ‘The most spiritual place?’ Kyoto in Japan. ‘The most overwhelming single building?’ King Philip II’s Escorial near Madrid. ‘The best cuisine?’ Chinese. ‘The best special wine?’ Asti Spumante. ‘The best regular wine?’ Châteauneuf-du-Pape. ‘The best rosé wine?’ Please, no comment, not in polite company. ‘The best art museum?’ Now, here the headaches begin, for each is superb in its own way: the Prado in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, the National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington. ‘The best small museum?’ The Frick in New York. ‘The best musical auditorium?’ The Philadelphia Academy of Music.
During a visit to Aruba with a touring group to which I was not attached, I saw a man who always sat alone. One day I asked: ‘What brings you here?’ and he said he made his living by arranging incentive tours for many big businesses in his area: ‘You know, you sell eighteen more refrigerators than the next fellow and you earn a paid vacation. I handle arrangements for half a hundred different companies, no headache for them, a good living for me.’
He showed the answers he had received to a questionnaire he had circulated to ten thousand previous winners, answers to such questions as ‘How did you like Egypt?’ and ‘Was the hotel food fine-good-fair-awful?’ I was not much interested in the questions except for the last one, which he said he had just tucked in as an afterthought: ‘Where would you like to go next?’ The answer was overwhelming: ‘Anywhere.’ Ask me that same question tonight and you’ll get the same answer.
Some questions require longer answers. ‘The best ride you ever had?’ On a bitterly cold winter’s night we were trying to land our plane at Tromsø, Norway, far north of the Arctic Circle, but the field was closed in by a local blizzard. We landed instead at the small military emergency field at Bardu, some fifty miles away, and since we were in the land of perpetual night, time of day meant nothing. We climbed into the taxi of a driver who liked to sing and set out for Tromsø with him yodeling folk songs and us clinging like mad to whatever we could grab hold of in the backseat. The road had been cut through huge snowdrifts, which made it palisaded on both sides, and the driver’s delight was to drive at breakneck speed directly at a turn in the road, crash into the solid wall of snow and ricochet off in the desired direction. When I asked what would happen if another madman like himself happened to be coming from the other direction, he said: ‘With all this snow, I’d see his headlights reflected into the turn and slow down.’ Later a waning moon appeared and we sang our way safely into Tromsø, a ride I would never want to forget or repeat.
‘The finest dinner?’ Unquestionably the eighteen-boy rijstafel at the old Hôtel des Indes in Java. In a garden under palm trees with an eleven-piece gamelan orchestra playing celestial music, a waiter places before you a large plate containing only one thing, a generous mound of white rice. But then from beyond the gamelan players come eighteen barefoot men wearing colorful Javanese turbans and carrying in each hand an exotic dish: fish, chicken, saté in a peanut sauce, pineapple, orange, six or seven unique fruits, curries, sauces, grated coconut, fried egg, crisp onion and various condiments I could never identify. Since each man brings two dishes, you have thirty-six in all, and during the leisurely meal the rice plate is refilled twice and the boys return with more delicacies, so one certainly does not lack for sustenance. The trick, of course, is to partake sparingly at first and allow the Lucullan meal to proceed as slowly as possible.
My second best meal was a late-night snack at the Ritz Hotel
in Madrid. I had no breakfast (as is my custom), had to skip lunch in order to catch a plane from Rome, and missed dinner because the airline had forgotten the meals. When we reached the hotel it was so late that all the services were closed, so I prowled the nearby streets until I found a bottle of red wine, some excellent crusty bread, a slab of hard cheese and two small tins, one of Norwegian sardines, the other of salty anchovies. At midnight my wife and I had one of the most delectable meals we can remember, and the one we most often refer to when we recall the joyous surprises of travel.
‘Any health problems?’ I followed one invariable procedure: Do everything the doctor orders, take all my shots, then live as I’ve always lived and eat everything. In the old days we were required to have so many inoculations before we could fly overseas that one doctor said when recording my latest battery in the yellow book we were forced to carry: ‘You’re a human pincushion!’ This regimen kept me free of all major diseases except a frightening case of malaria, which has dogged me for fifty years. Of course, in the first days of almost every major trip I become violently ill with a gastric upset, caused probably by unfamiliar water, but it lasts only a day and I welcome it as a benevolent purgative.
‘With all the places you’ve been, is there any one place you’d not want to return to?’ Calcutta. The poverty there, the death in the streets, the incredible living conditions were too much for even me to take—and I can tolerate almost anything. Once when I checked out of my hotel, no fewer than thirty men, most of whom I had never seen, had lined up for tips. Meticulously I looked into every face and tipped generously those eight or nine who had served me in some trivial way or another. When I climbed into the waiting bus, which would convey me to the plane that would take me away from that dreadful city, the men I had not tipped trailed the bus for the first block, screaming and cursing at me in a most hideous manner. When I asked an Englishman why the men were being so hostile, he asked: ‘Didn’t you tip them?’ and I explained that I certainly had, and generously to those I remembered as having done something for me. He cried almost in pain: ‘Oh, Mr. Michener, you’ve done a terribly wrong thing. You should have given everybody at least ten cents.’ And then he added soberly: ‘Because for them, ten American cents might truly be the difference between life and death.’ I can still hear the screams of those anguished men of Calcutta who had received nothing from me.