Mike's Flight with Jimmy

[In September, 1942 and October, 1942, the record shows that some of Mike's Bombardier Training was out of Kirtland Field, an air field located in the southeast quadrant of The Albuquerque, New Mexico Urban Area.  "The school at Kirtland taught bombardiers the technique of bomb sighting. Bombardiers were required to crawl down shafts that gave way to the “bubble,” from which they had bird’s-eye views of the ground below. The bombardier’s job was to feed the bombsight the needed information, air speed, wind speed, wind direction, altitude, and the angle of drift. As the aircraft approached the target, the pilot turned the aircraft over to the bombardier and the Norden bombsight, which was also an automatic pilot that flew the aircraft as bombs were released over the target. Classroom instruction at the Albuquerque base was held at night and training missions were flown during the day to bombsights around Albuquerque). Servicemen and WPA workers were tasked with laying out bombing ranges for training. These were located west and southwest of Albuquerque, including a major range located between the neighboring village, Los Lunas and the Rio Puerco. 

Bombardier school [at Kirtland] was 12 to 18 weeks during which a student dropped approximately 160 bombs; precise records were kept of hits and misses. The elimination rate for trainees was 12 percent, and upon graduation, a new bombardier was transferred to an operational training unit and trained for overseas duty. Albuquerque was an operational training facility, and the first class of 61 bombardiers from the Albuquerque base school graduated 7 March 1942. [Mike's class graduated October 10, 1942.]  By 1945, Albuquerque’s flying training field had turned out 5,719 bombardiers….

Film actor Jimmy Stewart was stationed at Kirtland Field briefly, from August-December 1942, assisting bombardier cadet training by flying bombers on training missions."  Information provided by Wikipedia.

[Mike's record shows that he flew on one Bombardier Training Mission with J. M. Stewart as pilot on October 8, 1942 out of Kirtland Air Field for 1 hour and 30 minutes.]