Norman OK Airman Training

We have been mentioning our training time in Norman OK before we went to Pensacola for A school. I have some memories of that place that still stick in my mind.
The first memory is getting to start and old Navy fighter plane. The photo to the left reminds me of the type of airplane that we actually got to start the engine on. It was surreal for me, thinking that I was at the controls of a plane all by myself. Every group had a plane to train with and there was a whole line of them just like in the photo. One person would start on the starboard side with a fire bottle and then work his way to the other side and then into the cockpit to start the engine. As you walked from one side to the other you was to make a wide walk far away from the propeller of the plane.
Down the line somewhere a sailor did not get far away enough from the prop and the instructor made him run up and down the air strip stopping at each plane and shout "I'm dead I walked in front of the prop"!
Later while in the hospital at Clark AF Base in the PI a young man of 19 was brought in on a wire stretcher that had actually walked into a prop aboard an Aircraft Carrier near the PI Islands. Half of his head was cut off, but they kept him alive for about a week.