If My Heart Had Wings: A World War II Love Story(16)

Stopped at Delhi going back and spent a swell night there. Had to stay in a hotel... Took a real shave for a change...



At the hotel... we were treated like men again... we have a “bearer” (valet), a native who looks after our personal wants, etc. ... They’ll heat water, press and/or launder clothes, shine shoes, make bed (poorly usually), sew buttons, etc. ...



... Served us tea in bed 10 min. before our call to be awakened. A good tho small fireplace in each room... and plenty of hot water. I bet I soaked for 30-40 minutes.





Lyndon (far rt.) and fellow pilots in Delhi, India, 1943

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T RIPS LIKE THESE WERE a real boon for Lyndon. Besides gaining valuable piloting experience and enjoying the royal treatment, the flights themselves were relatively safe and gave him opportunities to explore the cities and sights of India.

Decades later, while in the middle of reading his letters, I came across an old receipt for an evening bag he’d purchased from a store in Delhi on that trip. On the back, he’d scrawled this note to his parents:

... Bought Nina a velvet silver & gold hand embroidered bag that looked nice even to me... This outfit’s head office, if they had a few modern showcases, would put any place I’ve seen in the U.S. to shame.



But all too soon, it was back to Chabua, where he would begin flying the notorious Hump. In an attempt to reassure his folks that he was safe (or maybe it was just proof of his na?veté), Lyndon wrote:



I haven’t been “Over the Hump” yet as I was sent right back on this special mission, but as soon as I get back up there I’ll start in. It’ll be a little shorter but at a higher altitude than some of our regular runs in and out of Pope.



In other words, no big deal.

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T HE DAY AFTER LYNDON’S deployment, Mom jammed as many of her newly-purchased household items as she could into two suitcases and caught the train back to St. Paul. Goodbye to married life; hello to the old grind.

“There I was, a ‘married lady’ back in my parents’ house, living in my old teenage bedroom. It was like nothing had ever happened,” she told me, shaking her head.

We were almost done putting together my pesky fall wardrobe—all the way to the point of tacking down facings and adding buttons.

“So, then what?”

“Well, of course, I had to go back to school and finish my degree. I took twenty units that spring. Ugh!”

“Well, that’s what you get for running off and getting married!” I joked.

“Yeah. Hmpf.”

I felt for her, though. Cinderella was definitely home from the ball.

“And that was it? Just studying your head off and waiting around?”

“Pretty much. The first thing I did, though, was get a picture taken of myself. He’d asked for one.”

“What picture?”

“You’ve seen it—it’s the painted one.”

I knew what she was talking about; it was in our family album. Throwing my sewing aside, I dragged the album out of the closet and flipped through the pages until I found it.



Nina Ostrom Raff, age 21 - 1943

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T HERE IT WAS: A CLASSIC 1940s colorized portrait of my very beautiful mother. Her skin was bronzed, with rouge and lipstick painted on, and eyelashes painstakingly drawn in. She wore the double strand of pearls that Lyndon had given her as a wedding present, and she looked dreamily into the distance.

I wondered what she was thinking. Was she imagining a wonderful future for herself with her husband back from the war, a home of her own, a career, children; all that good stuff?

But when I asked her, she just snorted and said pragmatically, “Oh, who knows? I was probably just hoping the picture would turn out okay.”

Then she turned back to the sewing machine and ran up a seam at breakneck speed. So much for romantic longings.

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I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH Mom knew about what it was like to be a Hump pilot. Lyndon didn’t say much about it in his letters to his family, and I suppose it was the same in his letters to her. But years later, I would read about what Hump pilots went through during the war. And it was even more awe-inspiring and alarming than I’d imagined.

For a pilot based in Assam, flying the notorious 1,000-mile round-trip over the Hump always began the same way. At 4:00 a.m., someone from Operations stole into his hut, shook him awake, and whispered one word into his ear: China.

I could imagine Lyndon quietly gathering his shearling jacket, over-trousers, and boots, while trying not to wake his bunkmate, then making his way through the darkness to the Operations hut. There he would get his orders, review the route, pick up the cargo manifest, and say hello to his three-person crew: a co-pilot, a navigator, and a radio operator.

As the last of the cargo was being loaded (typically it was 55-gallon drums of gasoline, although C-47s also transported small vehicles, ammunition, heavy equipment, canned beans, trash cans, personnel, and, once, even a grand piano for Madame Chiang Kai-shek), Lyndon and his co-pilot would safety-check the plane inside and out while the crew settled themselves on board.