TEAM WORK OR DEAD DUCKS
Williams, Major Al
Team Work Or Dead Ducks By MAJOR AL WILLIAMS TALK to some of these lads home from a combat front if you think there isn't a gap already between their thinking about this war and popular thinking....
...He said, "These people just don't know what is going on, and they might as well be foreigners...
...They say from the very start of young combat airmen's training we face the blunt task of drilling into their heads the necessity for team play in air fighting...
...The natural tendency of human nature is to reward the fit, the brave, and the meritorious...
...Never an hour or a day passes without someone telling student airmen: "Leave the formation and you are a dead duck...
...It's a mighty problem to build an air fighting team made up of men of varying individual qualifications...
...Claire Chennault, a seasoned air leader now operating from Chungking against Jap air forces, from the very outset prohibited the publication of the individual "shot down" scores of his pilots...
...It's the old baseball psychology all over again, namely, team work versus individual play...
...It is the commanders of air combat units who are particularly outspoken against any influence which tends to concentrate attention, public or otherwise, upon individuals...
...He has no one to call upon when he faces split-second problems while in the air...
...From the very first day he dons his goggles and helmet, an airman becomes an individualist...
...These lads are not complaining about field leadership, but they are up in arms about the interference their own leadership must put up with from home and foreign political sources...
...To leave a formation for the purpose of running up an individual batting average in air fighting is the first fatal move toward personal disaster...
...There's shipping to be protected against surface and sub-surface enemies, and against enemy air forces...
...It's not only you that pays the penalty, for by breaking away from the team you leave a wide open door through which a smart air enemy will plunge and destroy your teammates...
...There are landings, to be made under adequate fire and supplies, equipment and ammunition that must be kept flowing at the'right time...
...Hence he must settle each problem and supply the answer and the action personally...
...Gen...
...From this psychological stage he must progress, and it's a job he must do himself, in his own mind, in addition to the pressure his instructors bring upon him to check his pure individualism and go full out for teamwork...
...The war in the Pacific, at least, is a three-unit affair—three units operating as a team...
...Time and again these lads—some of them personal friends of long standing and others mere acquaintances— reproach me with, "Why don't you blast this Hollywood nonsense to bits and write what you know about our feelings regarding this war...
...One lad told me recently that after an appropriate time in the bosom of his family and a few hours around the neighborhood, he was anxious to get back to the front...
...One of the fundamental purposes of formation flying is to teach him to think in terms of teamwork...
...But any reward which tends to concentrate the bright light of publicity upon the individual presents the air leader with a serious psychological problem...
...We must operate as a team, or else...
...His first task is to individually conquer himself, his fears, and eventually his ambitions to do and attempt more than he is fit through experience and skill to perform in the air...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 23
