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Show Glen Lee Orton When Glen enlisted in the Air Force, he passed the written testing but not the eye exam. They told him to return in a month to retake the testing. When he took the second tests, he passed the eye exam and flunked the written tests. When asked to make some decisions about what to do, his answer to the enlistment board was... 'Just give me something with wings!' Glen was given the opportunity to enlist in the 'Glider Program. It had wings!' (It meaning the glider.) He began his training in the Glider Corps in November, 1942. Soon after, the government decided that gliders were not going to be as much a part of the war as they had planned, so Glen was sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to await reclassification. Glen's prayers were answered, and he was soon taking Primary Flight Training in Blythe, California. Later, he went on to Basic Flight Training in Lancaster, California, and Advanced Flight Training in Douglas, Arizona, and was in the graduating Class 44 - A, January 7, 1944. Now as a second lieutenant, Glen was a student in the Four-Engine Pilot School at the Army Air Forces Training Command Station at the Roswell, New Mexico, Army Air Field. By July 1944, Glen was in Yuma, Arizona, where he received over fifty hours of first pilot time in Pilot Qualified Transition Training in the B-17 aircraft. Glen was checked out to be an instructor in Peyote Army Air Force Base, Texas, and then sent to Yuma, Arizona. While instructing a student in a B-17 aircraft, in Yuma, Arizona, the aircraft crashed. The student was instructed to lower the landing gear or wheels and evidently pulled them up instead of down. This caused the plane to land on the "belly" with great force. At that time, there were no seat belts in the planes. As the plane crashed, Glen's face hit the dashboard, causing extensive damage to his sinuses and other facial nerves, and bones, etc. These injuries resulted in lifelong sinus difficulties, some of which were the primary factors necessitating a family move, to the moist climate of the San Francisco Bay area in California in the 1950's. Glen and Marian lived in Yuma, Arizona, for about one and a half years. Then Glen went into training for the B-29 aircraft. After finishing that training, he was again asked to be an instructor. Both the B-17 and the B-29 were large aircraft, and Glen must have been regarded as an efficient instructors have been asked to train pilots for both planes that were used in the war effort. This was quite an accomplishment and tribute to his character, especially considering his limited formal schooling and the humble circumstances of his childhood. Glen later received a crew and was sent to Mountain Home, Idaho to prepare for war duty. Shortly after arriving, they received the best news of all: the war was over! Hurrrrray! Second Lieutenant Glen Lee Orton served his country conscientiously and was a dependable young man of excellent character and good habits. Boyd K. Packer Submitted by Marian D. Orton, wife In 1943, when Boyd K. Packer entered military service as a flight cadet, World War II's drain on the nation's manpower had caused the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to reach its lowest ebb since World War I. His brothers Leon, Lowell, Doyle, and Bill all served in the military. Only 48 the eldest, Ronald, who had a family, stayed at home to help their father keep the family business going. Boyd's acceptance into the pilot cadet program came about perhaps by the slimmest margin on record, hanging on half a point in the written examination. As for his physical exam, he passed only because the requirements had been somewhat relaxed to meet the country's desperate need for pilots. During his military service he would be presented with all the challenges a missionary faces and more, including homesickness. For him it would be a forty-month preparation for that which was to come. Boyd was to carry his home-longing with him to nine bases in the United States, to Hawaii, to the Philippines, to le Shima Island off Okinawa, and to Japan. Boyd began his basic training at Camp Kearns, Utah, on 14 May 1943. It was his worst assignment. Because of his childhood polio, he was not physically robust and was constantly afraid of being dropped from the program. During daily calisthenics, he hid a painfully swollen knee. A fourteen-mile hike into the West Mountains during July was hard, as was his daily chore of hauling stones from the practice field when each evening a tractor churned up the next day's allotment. Boyd's miserable Camp Kearns experience was over in July 1943. From August to October, he attended Washington State College at Pullman for intensive academic studies. During that time each cadet was also given ten hours of introductory training in Piper aircrafta method of screening out those who were considered unfit for real pilot training. After completing their assignment at Washington State, his group was sent to Santa Ana, Californiavia Brigham City. It was a poignant moment for a homesick youth when his train stopped in his hometown. During the long months of intensive training, he became a good pilot. On 6 October 1945, he received his orders and arrangements for transportation to Japan, Boyd and a few others went to Nara, south of Okinawa, for a conference with other LDS servicemen. Late that evening, they returned to the northern part of Okinawa, expecting to take a boat back to their island. They didn't know, however, that all ships had been ordered to port because a hurricane was approaching. Boyd and his companions finally persuaded their commander of a PT boat to take them back to le Shima. All bombers and other aircraft had been ordered to Saipan, Guam, or other islands that were out of the path of the storm. Finally landing, Boyd and his companions took shelter on the forty-foot coral cliff in tents that were fastened to it with every piece of metal they could find. All that night and all the Monday, the wind blew fiercely against the tents. Rain poured through the roofs and walls in a torrent. Waves from the sea ascended the cliff to within feet of them. On Tuesday, the eye of the hurricane passed over and calm returned for a short time, then it hit again. All the storm's power had destroyed every building on the island, save the hospital. The mess hall, built of eight-by-eight timbers set in concrete, was shorn off and blown away. Ships at sea were lost, and many in port were wrecked and washed ashore. Cold and wet, shaken and sober, Boyd and his companions were safe. On another night, still waiting for orders that would take them to Japan, Boyd sat alone on that same cliff wondering long about what he should do with his life should he survive his tour of duty with the occupation forces in Japan. The moon was full and his thoughts turned to home and family, presumably safe under the same moon. Thus pondering the words he had so boldly marked in Jacob 1:19 in his Book of Mormon about the responsibility of 'teaching . . . the word of God with all diligence.' Boyd determined to become a teacher. It was a kind of determination that had led him against many strong thoughts of becoming a pilot. It did not matter. He would pay whatever price required. That choice, made so far from home, became a decision of immense consequence. One day, Boyd was assigned with his crew to go with a B-17 bomber to Saipan Island and then on to Guam to pick up a much needed beacon light for the base. Postwar flight-safety procedures had not yet been established, the crew was not aware that until they left Tokyo heading south. A typhoon of major proportions was forming out in the central Pacific. This made islands difficult to see from the air, since shadows of clouds could look like islands and multiple islands like clouds. After a time the navigator said, 'If we're on course, we should be over Iwo Jima,' and he began to countdown to zero, the signal to tip the plane for a visual sighting. They were right on course at that point. Boyd remembers: 'Finally, after several hours, the navigator said: 'Something is wrong. We're not on course.' We dropped down through the cloud cover. There were terrible winds. The ocean was white with waves. He said, 'I don't know where we are.' Then, the radios went out!' Lost, they began to fly a square-search pattern so that they would cover new territory each pass so as to not fly in circles. They flew a long course on the compass. At one point the other pilot said, 'Let's turn.' But for some reason Boyd said, 'Hold it just a minute.' They were just a few thousand feet above water. Then they could see a long line of white waves washing over rocks sticking out of the ocean. Nearby was an 49 |