CRESTVIEW — Over a U.S. Air Force career of more than 30 years, Lt. Col. Johnie Courtney has seen the evolution of air combat and has witnessed more than one historic event.
“His first flight was a Curtiss Jenny,” Courtney’s son Paul said. “His last flight was an F-4 jet.”
The difference? About 800-900 miles an hour, and even more if the F-4 pilot really opens the throttle.
In between, Johnie Courtney landed behind Gen. Erwin Rommel’s lines in Africa, earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for the bombing campaign over Monte Cassino, got shot down but evaded capture in Italy, escorted an atomic bomb mission to Japan, was a Berlin Airlift pilot, became one of the nation’s first combat jet fighter pilots, and trained with Chuck Yeager and the men with “The Right Stuff.”
“After I hear some of his stories, I’m surprised I’m even here,” his oldest son, John Courtney Jr., said.
Monday, Johnie Courtney turns 96.
“No, it’s 69,” Courtney joked. “I’m going the other way now.”
DESIRE FOR WINGS
Before entering the fledgling U.S. Army Air Corps — “There was no Air Force when I started. It was all Army” — on Aug. 18, 1937, Courtney’s ambition was to become a flyer.
He really wanted an appointment to West Point, but despite having the grades, he was missing a congressional appointment. However, his congressman expected the poor Baker family to buy it.
That wasn't possible, so Courtney enlisted at Fort Barrancas and was sent to Panama to defend the canal. Returning stateside for training, he found the Army would take a limited number of enlisted men in a new flying program.
“Then, things started getting hot in Europe,” Courtney said. His squadron of 16 men blossomed to more than 200 as the Air Corps rapidly expanded to face the growing threat of war.
“Finally they said, ‘You’re going to flying school,’” Courtney, by then a sergeant major, said.
OFF TO WAR
After training at Kelly Field, Texas, “the prime spot of the Air Force at that time,” Courtney and his squadron of new P-38 Lightnings headed for North Africa.
Flying off the aircraft carrier “Ranger,” Courtney saw action throughout the entire campaign. Once, he landed behind Afrika Korps lines at a desert airfield mistakenly marked as Allied.
“Patton hadn’t even gotten there yet,” Courtney said.
Then it was off to fly reconnaissance missions for the invasion of Sicily. After the invasion of the Italian mainland, he piloted an A-36 Apache from a base near Pompeii.
“Around that Mount Vesuvius is where I had my first dogfight,” Courtney said. “I was scared to death.”
A Luftwaffe Messerschmitt 109 chased him three times around the volcano until Courtney suddenly slowed, allowing the German to scoot under him, at which time he shot down the enemy.
Flying low around Monte Cassino, he drew enemy fire from concealed anti-aircraft positions dug into the mountainside. His bravery resulted in receipt of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
While strafing Ciampino Airport outside Rome, technically an off-limits area — “but that didn’t mean much when they were shooting at you” — Courtney was shot down and wounded.
“It took three minutes to fly up there, and eight days to walk back” to Pompeii, he said, adding he hid in vineyards to avoid German patrols.
ON TO THE PACIFIC
Courtney returned to the States, recovered from his wounds, and was sent off to the Pacific Theatre with a newly formed Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter group. It was quite a technological upgrade from the wobbly old 1920s Curtiss Jenny biplane he first flew.
Soon he was behind the throttle of the new P-47N Thunderbolt, a long-range fighter, fighting in battles including Tinian and Truk.
“We tore up the Japanese harbor in Truk and we never lost a single airplane,” Courtney said. “The Japanese were more surprised than we were.”
Next it was on to recently captured Iwo Jima, flying escort duty for B-29 Superfortress bombers bombing the Japanese homeland from newly paved airfields that melted in the hot sun soon after take-off and had to be repaired before they returned.
“That’s the hardest job we ever had, shooting at Kamikazes as they attached the B-29s,” Courtney said.
The most historic escort flight he made was accompanying the bomber carrying one of the atom bombs to Japan.
“Once they started their bomb run, we had to turn back because we didn’t have the special glasses” necessary to avoid eye damage from the brilliant explosion, Courtney said.
Even so, he felt and understood the power that had been unleashed, and knew warfare had changed forever.
“It was horrible,” he said. “Horrible.”
POST-WAR CAREER
After the war, Courtney was stationed in Europe at an airbase near Munich.
By then a major, he flew several supply missions in 1948 to western forces in Berlin after the Soviets blockaded land routes.
Little did Courtney realize he was at the front of the famed Berlin Airlift, which rapidly expanded to include food and fuel for the city’s western civilian population as well.
He later flew during the Korean Conflict after training in new Lockheed F-80 fighter jets.
“I was one of the first combat jet fighters, I guess,” he said modestly. “We were trying to make a combat airplane out of the F-80.”
More test pilot training followed at Muroc Army Air Field, now Edwards Air Force Base, in California, with legendary pilots including Chuck Yeager, whose exploits were chronicled in the book and subsequent film, “The Right Stuff.”
After 26 continuous years of service, Courtney retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1963, though he was reactivated in logistic roles three times.
“We bypassed ‘Nam,” Johnie Courtney Jr. said, explaining that a 36-month tour of duty in Thailand during the Vietnam War would have posed a hardship on his father’s young family of six children.
Johnie Courtney Sr.’s medals and commendations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, belie his modesty.
“That’s just a series of things that you did,” he said. “It looks better in writing than it really was.”
TOMORROW’S SKYROADS
Up here in these battle torn heights, tracer bullets blaze trails of destruction and planes drop death on those below. For awhile, it has got to be that way.
But still beyond all that, high above today’s troubles, there, untraveled, untouched by man-made wings, waits virgin air, tomorrow’s skyroad, through which planes of the future will flash at speeds as yet untried.
Someday loved ones parted will feel less alone in knowing that reunion is never more than a few short hours away.
I look forward to the time when new and happier faces will circle an earth at peace. A day when all men will be closer, made friendlier by common interests in a new-found world community.
Lt. Johnie Courtney
Italy, Oct. 3, 1943, in a letter to his family home in Baker
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Baker World War II vet recalls years as Air Force combat pilot