Old Aviators Never Fade Away... they just buy computers...find each other...form associations...publish newsletters and hold reunions!

When General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his command during the Korean War, he made a speech to Congress that included the oft-quoted lines, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." That may be true for old Army generals but it is not true for a large group of World War II flyers that I have come to know, thanks to the PC.

All of us became pilots in the Army Air Force through the Pilot Aviation Cadet Training Program. This was an arduous, ten-month program that was difficult to get into.

Although the entry requirements had been reduced from two years of college to high school graduate, you had to be between the ages of 18 and 24, pass a stringent physical exam and a tough intelligence test.

If you managed to get through this, you were eventually herded onto a troop train headed for a Classification Center. I was on a train that left Chicago's Union Station at an ungodly early morning hour and arrived two days later at the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.

Here we were again examined, prodded, given multiple shots, issued uniforms, and given batteries of physical and psychological tests. The tests determined whether we went on to six weeks of brutal preflight training and then on to nine months of rigorous, demanding pilot training. More than one-third didn't make it through pilot training - they "washed out" along the way.

Those of us in my pilot class, 43-K, who were able and lucky enough to make it, graduated on December 5, 1943. Graduation day was momentous. We had looked forward for months to putting on our officer's uniforms, pinning on our second lieutenant gold bars, and donning our shiny, silver pilot's wings. Many of us had been together as bunkmates and close friends for the entire period. Now, we received orders that sent us in every direction. We learned to fly bombers, fighters, and transport aircraft of every description. It wasn't very long until we were flying combat or combat support missions in every corner of the globe.

Aviation Cadet Marshall Dean's graduation photo

In my own case, I received a short transition course that taught me to fly the C-47. This was the military version of the Douglas DC3 airliner. In the Army Air Force, it became affectionately known as "the Gooney Bird."

After serving with the 349th Troop Carrier Group towing gliders and jumping paratroopers in Nebraska and South Carolina, I was picked, for some unknown reason, as a combat replacement. The next thing I knew I was on a crowded, smelly troop ship sailing out of San Francisco headed for points unknown to the passengers.

After 32 days we landed at Bombay, India. I was assigned to the 3rd Combat Cargo Group flying combat supplies to the American, British, Indian, and Chinese troops who were pushing the Japanese invaders out of Burma.

In six months, I flew more than 250 combat supply missions and was awarded four Air Medals and three Distinguished Flying Crosses. Then I came home - again by troopship, but this time by way of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

After the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was defeated. The war was over. Most of us headed back to civilian life. I attended the University of Missouri on the GI Bill.

Others went back to farming or pre-war occupations. A few formed or joined organizations based on the aircraft they flew, or the organization or theater of operations they served in. Most of us were too busy to give a passing thought about those exciting times as an aviation cadet.

This was the way it was until about seven years ago.

Lt. Col. Harold Jacobs, USAF Retired, changed that. He decided to start a computer search for the over-2,000 members of Aviation Cadet Class 43-K. I was one of the first ones he contacted. A small group of other volunteers formed the original search party.

In those days, not many of had computers with Internet capability. (I had an Apple GS with no modem or hard drive.) However, the primary search software was Phone Disc USA that was available at many universities and libraries.

The searchers dug out their original graduation orders and followed up their finds with telephone calls. The search is still going on, thanks to search engines such as Yahoo!, Excite, and Web Crawler.

An organization, the 43-K Aviation Cadet Association, was formed. It is now the largest of its kind. We located 1,174 of the graduates. The names, addresses and telephone numbers are on a computer roster maintained by Colonel Jacobs, the founder and president of the association.

Marshall works on his Association's quarterly newsletter

More than 600 are active, dues-paying members. They receive a quarterly newsletter that I edit and publish with my Gateway 2000 and Microsoft Word. Even more important, the computer has actually brought us back together. We have had four well-attended reunions at San Antonio (twice), Colorado Springs, and Cincinnati. The next one will be held in the fall of 1999 in Tucson.

Why do we go to these reunions? Perhaps it is because our long-suffering families and friends have listened time after time to our war stories which, admittedly, are often embellished in the telling.

So one of the main reasons we hold reunions is to do what is known as "hangar-flying." This is sitting around and talking about what happened to us over 55 years ago.

The talk is about bombing the Ploesti oil field in Rumania, fighting off Japanese "Zeros" in the South Pacific, flying supplies over the Himalayas, or dropping paratroopers in France on D-Day.

You can always spot the former fighter pilots: they always use their hands to describe their "dog fights." The stories add up to an oral history of the role of aviation in winning World War II.

Most importantly, however, we gather together to renew old friendships and to re-kindle the comradeship we shared during those long gone glory days. Our numbers our dwindling but we are not fading away.

Thanks to the ability of the personal computer, we are able to reach out and find each other again. Many of us correspond regularly through e-mail. This renewed comradeship is priceless.