General Robert L. Scott, fighter ace, best selling author and boyhood hero of mine, passed away this past Monday at 97.
as a kid, I began to amass a small assemblage of ideals based on my reading, discussions around the dinner table and talks with friends. In the imagined room I constructed, with the sepia toned photos, heroic busts, lit by the yellow light cast from those old clear bulbs hidden behind the heavy cloth shades attached to the ancient lamps, arranged on sturdy tables, decorated with large leather bound volumes on heavy bookcases, above a busy thoroughfare, not unlike Baker Street, I gathered my champions with the all care that childhood would allow--achilles, Odysseus, George Washington, Phil Sheridan, Teddy Roosevelt, Frank Luke, Richard E. Byrd, Richard Halliburton, Jimmy Doolittle and Robert L. Scott.
When confronted by a particularly troublesome situation, or when I needed advice, I turned to my old friends. I valued the perseverance of Byrd as he banged away on his Morse key, alone in far off Little america. The utter fearlessness of Frank Luke, the Balloon Buster and World War I ace, transfixed me. The writings of Halliburton and his adventures in the air aboard The Flying Carpet were completely captivating, while his loss while piloting his junk in the China Sea was heart breaking. Doolittle's raid and his planning for it were awe inspiring, while his fears of a court martial after the mission were dispiriting, as he sat dejected on a Chinese hilltop, next to the wreck of his plane, his head in his hands. But for some reason, I felt a special kinship with Robert Scott, who had volunteered to fight with the Flying Tigers, that mystical flying circus with the gaudily painted aircraft, after carrying cargo to them over the perilous Himalayas from India.
When I was small and used to go Edwin a. Link Field to meet my father, who flew a lot on business, one of the draws of the trip was the chance to see the huge Flying Tigers air freight hanger, which was located behind the passenger terminal. I always visualized a row of P-40 aircraft parked somewhere deep inside the yawning darkness, in some sort of suspended animation, along with their crews--Rod Serling was from my hometown, after all, and went to the same high school as my old man--and that some day, they would taxi out and fly away. Robert L. Scott and Tex Hill, of course, would be among the pilots.
Colonel Scott met General Claire Chennault, the commander of the american Volunteer Group while flying supplies to him and made his bones by insuring that the proper gear and munitions for the venerable P-40's got to the group. Scott eventually persuaded the decidedly crusty General, who viewed Scott's West Point credentials with some circumspection, to loan him a fighter plane and teach him the tactics which had made the Tigers so successful. and Scott was off to a 22 plane victory streak, beginning with part time work and eventually becoming the commanding officer of the 23rd Fighter Group, when the aVG was subsumed by the army air Forces in late 1942. Scott would leave the combat zone in early 1943 for an extended tour of the home front and the War Bonds ride. Scott wrote "God is My Co-Pilot" on his return, which was made into a movie in 1945, after Jack Warner had bumped into Scott on the hustings.
Scott went into the newly formed USaF, reached the rank of Brigadier General and retired on Halloween, 1957, after 29 years in the military, where he earned a formidable number of decorations.
For me, Scott can be summed up in the following passage--courtesy of an RaF pilot who survived the Battle of Britain, but who was later killed in Burma--which was passed on to him by a priest he was ferrying, while both were jammed together in an obsolete fighter plane while it was bounced around in the midst of a horrific thunder storm over the treacherous uncharted mountains of interior China.
"They who had scorned the thought of any strength except their own to lean on, learned at length how fear can sabotage the bravest heart. and human weakness answering to the prod of terror calls, 'Help me, Oh God.'"
"Then silence lets the silent voice be heard, bringing its message like the spoken word. 'Believe in Me. Cast out your fear. No, I am not up there beyond the sky, but here, right here in your heart. I am the strength you seek. Believe.'"
The haughty Hollywood of today would have a difficult time bringing Scott's story to the big screen. Imagine trying to combine the truth of the unabashed patriotism that existed in 1942, the belief in God that winds its way through his narrative and Scott's impeccable honor through today's production filter, which is riddled with Tinseltown's anti-establishment angst, self-loathing, scorn of patriotism, anti-Christian bias and its abject hatred of america.
and if the story was fictionalized, imagine today's story line--the travesty of a pilot battling his choking personal demons, fraught with the fears of homosexuality and substance abuse, living and fighting among a group of similarly afflicted men, battling an opposing group of Oriental lads with coincident torments--all for countries they distrust, among and over a people they both despise, for what everybody considers to be little or nothing in return, in a meaningless war going on and on with no end in sight, while it lines the pockets of the profiteers and the prostitutes alike.
after being ordered from combat, the protagonist will return to the seat of demonic power which controls him, where he's ordered to lie about the madness he has witnessed and the atrocities he has committed in the name of american imperialism, while he wanders a wasteland populated by the dispossessed, stunted jingoists and mind-numbing industrialists. Oh, sure, Hollywood could give Scotty a big send up all right, with all of today's phobias and political rants writ large and with a gritty, casual, lurid, hurried, sweaty and meaningless sex scene or two tossed in for good measure.
a successful production based on the facts might be sold to the red state brutes and the hopped up Christians on the far right, but it wouldn't garner any kudos on the Oscar battlefront, wouldn't haul in the really big bucks-- though with today's profits sinking like a stone, it just might do ok if it was packaged properly and filmed in Canada--and wouldn't draw the raw stellar powerhouses like a truly heavyweight Baldwin brother, a surviving Penn, a Jenna Jameson or a Gwyneth Paltrow.
But it would be nice to bring his story to the screen, and to tell the stories of the Flying Tigers again. Can we really get too much heroism, love of country, sacrifice, duty, honor and God as part of our daily fare? are we really so jaded that simple stories such as this must be relegated to the gardens of stone where our fathers sleep and to the libraries where their stories rest in languid repose?
Today, Robert L. Scott is gone. and this afternoon I'll stand in Santa Monica's Palisades Park, between the palm trees, and listen for the throaty roar of two Wright Double Cyclone engines and the last call of a Curtiss C-46 Commando as it flies low overhead, then climbs away--like the planes that intrepid airman flew over the dreaded Himalayan Hump so long ago-- and heads west into the golden rays at sunset, bound for China with another precious load for the boys in trouble there, for those distinctive planes with the magical tigers' teeth and eyes and with those small exceptional presents the pilots always tucked away for the little kids in need. and I'll close the final door and one more book on another childhood hero--the last.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement