CHAPTER 1

Herb was born September 25, 1921, to Fred L. Greer and NellieD. Greer in Chelan, Washington, a small town of about twothousand people.

Over the next ten years the town was to see its population grow, andby 1930 some 2,484 souls lived there. Chelan lies at the southerntip of Lake Chelan (pronounced Sha-lan), which means "beautifulwater" in the language of the Chelan Indians. Chelan is 159 milesfrom Seattle and 93 miles from Yakima.

Lake Chelan is known today, as it was in the early 1920s, for itsorchards, and particularly for its Red Delicious apples. WashingtonState produces more than half of all eating apples in the United States,and its orchards, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade mountainrange, cover 174,000 acres.

Herb's father and his father's brothers, along with Herb'sgrandfather, purchased an apple orchard in Quincy, Washington,located approximately fifty miles from Wenatchee, which by manyis considered the apple capital of the world. They were happyrunning the orchard for several years until one night a severefrost caught everyone, including the weather bureau, off guard.Without a warning weather forecast, farmers hadn't anticipatedthe need for "smudge pots" to counter the freezing conditions,so, unfortunately, they lost their entire crop. Smudge pots wereheaters that pumped out thick black smoke, casting a pall over theorchard that reflected infrared radiation, trapping enough heatbetween the cloud of smoke and the ground to stop the delicatebuds from freezing. Farmers would burn old tires and would usemotor oil in the pots. Unfortunately, the smoke was both a healthand an environmental hazard, so by 1950 the use of smudge potswas starting to be regulated.

Unable to recover from this setback, Herb's family sold the orchard toa company in Wenatchee and moved to Grand Coulee, Washington,where Herb's father found work helping to build the Grand CouleeDam. Once the dam was completed, the family moved to Redding,California, where Herb's father went to work as a mechanic for thehighway department and his mother was a laundry worker. Herb, theoldest of seven children, had three brothers, Don, Frank, and Harry,and three sisters, Shirley, Darlene, and Dallas.

* * *

I was quite a handful as a kid, and I can remember breakingthe headlight on our car with a rock before I was five. On thatoccasion my father saw to it that I couldn't sit down for a week!

I can remember Don and I were quite the mischievous pairwhen we were around five and six, especially when we gotbored. One of the things we started doing was standing nailsjust behind the tires of visitors' cars. The anticipation of themhaving a flat tire on the journey made us giggle like crazy.Of course it wasn't long before my parents put two and twotogether and realized that all these flat tires only occurred afterpeople had visited us. Then you know what really hit the fan—andI don't mean feathers! We got paddled well and thoroughlyon that occasion, but I suppose it saved us down the line frommore serious penalties.

Apparently when I was very young I used to answer everythingwith "Huh?" If mom called it was "Huh?"—nothing else. Itdrove my mom crazy. I haven't changed a lot in all these years;I'm told I still use the term on occasion. Unlike most other kids,whose first words are traditionally "Momma" or "Daddah," Ithink mine was a nongender specific "Huh?"

When I was seven, something happened that was to change mylife and set me on a path that would determine what would bethe central theme of my life—flying.

Out of a clear blue sky my brother, Don, and I heard a droningsound that became louder and louder; then we saw two specksin the distance, which got bigger and bigger as the dronebecame a roar. We ran three miles to get closer, and then wesaw them, our destiny—although neither of us knew it at thetime. Two army biplanes had landed in a wheat field. Little didI know they had cast a spell over me. I was in awe and becamedriven to discover everything I could about these wonderfulmachines, and to see places that I could only imagine in mywildest dreams.

It was some time later when my father's friend, Burley Nix, theowner of the local Buick dealership, invited my dad and I to flyin his single engine, two-seater Eaglerock biplane with its largewooden propeller and wire wheels.

My dad encouraged my mother, my brother Don, and me to takea spin. In those still fairly early days of flight, you had to be quitea brave soul to risk going up in one of these contraptions but,like most kids, fear doesn't play a major role in most decisions,and when we got a chance to go up in this beautiful machine, wejumped at the chance. We took off two miles outside of Spokane,Washington, and soared like an eagle over the county where allthe houses and farms became insignificant dots and the onlything that mattered was the wind in our hair and a sense ofexhilaration that left us wanting more. I had taken the firststep toward my dream. From the moment we were in the air, weknew that this was going to be part of our life forever.

* * *

It wasn't unusual for people in rural areas to get the opportunityto fly in those days. As part of Eaglerock's promotional campaign,"barnstormers" would travel across rural America and land infields charging people anything from fifty cents to a dollar for theopportunity to take a flight.

The Eaglerock was the creation of the Alexander Aircraft Companyin Englewood, Colorado, and was at the time considered to be stateof the art. Even Lindbergh had considered using it for his New Yorkto Paris flight. However, the company was so busy with orders it wasunable to meet his schedule.

By the time I was eight we lived on an apple orchard and ourworld revolved around apples. My father, his brothers, and mygranddad owned it. The area was famous for its Red Deliciousapples—they were large, deep vibrant red, sweet, and delicious.In the early spring the orchard would come to life and we wouldbegin spring-cleaning, clearing all the prunings and other brushfrom beneath the trees. Pieces of wood, dried grass, and otherbits and pieces would be piled in an area and then burnt, thesweet smell of burning applewood permeating the air.

This was also a time to fertilize the land and trees, a timeof anticipation. By May the new buds were blossoming withtheir sweet perfume-like smell, and the farm came alive withactivity.

They were good days; I used to go round in bare feet wearingoveralls—my first uniform!

It was quite a good life, but we weren't rich gentleman farmers.It was tough for my parents to make a living and keep all us kidsfed and clothed. I remember that haircuts were the traditionalkitchen bowl-on-the-head variety—one size fits all!

Once the trees started to bloom, the orchard would be a riot ofbeautiful white blossoms, buzzing with industrious, friendlybees. Their job of pollinating the trees was so important thatmy father used to rent hives to ensure there were enough of thefellows to get the job done.

I used to walk to school most days, although occasionally Icould catch a ride on one of the trucks. My school uniform wasmy overalls—it seems that my whole childhood was spent inthose dungarees! I used to take an apple and a mashed "brownbean" sandwich for lunch every day.

As I got older, I started to work in the orchard. It was expectedof me, as I was the oldest child.

When the apple crop was getting close to harvesting time, Herbwould make apple boxes out of wood. He would work all day nailingthese boxes together. This was a long job, as he would have to helpmake enough for the entire apple crop. The money earned wasn'tspent on luxuries—it went toward new shoes, underwear, andoveralls, and if he did really well, he might have enough for a newwinter coat.

Many times my brother, Don, would stack the boxes and bringthe raw materials for box making. That way, when I finisheda box, I had the material available to start on another. Thishelped us to maximize the number of boxes we could make eachday. When, on occasion, we went to town on the weekend, wewere sometimes each given fifty cents to spend. When we wentto visit an uncle or aunt on a long weekend, we occasionallyreceived up to one dollar to spend. When we had a dollar inour pocket, we felt as though we were rich and could buy theworld, or at least a good portion of it. On birthdays we wouldnegotiate the amount of money to be spent on presents.

Our old Chevy sedan didn't have a heater, so during the winterif we had to travel any distance, my father would heat a fairlylarge rock, either on the iron stove or over the coal-burningfurnace, and place it on the rear floor of the vehicle. This wouldhelp us to stay reasonably warm, at least for part of the trip.

I learned early on that a good work ethic was expected of me,and I worked hard on the farm. This doesn't mean to say thatI was a perfect kid. When you grow up on a farm, you developa lot of rough edges that kids more traditionally brought up intown don't necessarily have.

We weren't squeamish for a start—nature was there to betamed, and undesirable critters were likely to take the foodout of your mouth, so early on I learned how to use a .22 rifle.We would walk six to eight miles a day hunting cottontailrabbits and had no compunction about shooting them fordinner. Some animals were pests, and it was our job to keeptheir numbers down. Chicken hawks were a constant threataround the chicken houses, especially if there were baby chicksaround, and were definitely fair game. Rattlesnakes too neededculling for obvious reasons. A kid living on a farm has to pullhis weight, and these little things made a difference. We didn'tkill for killing's sake, though, and left harmless critters like bullsnakes and black snakes in peace, as they were not the enemy.

There are a few things I did as a kid that I look back on andthink perhaps they had a hand in hardening my future attitude.As I said, life on a farm is down-to-earth, and a lot of the timeyou found yourself facing reality head-on. We had a differentview on pests, and it wasn't always very humane. For instance,I remember the time we went up to one of the horses and stolea hair from its tail. This had to be done with great care if youdidn't want to end up taking an unexpected and painful flightacross the barnyard. Now, a horse's tail hair is long and strong,but still fairly thin, and we threaded it through a kernel of driedcorn that we had carefully drilled a hole through, and tied it onsecurely. The other end we nailed to the roof of the workshop.Then we waited until Mr. Magpie came along and gobbled itup. He was then trapped! At this point a hired hand walking bysaw what we were doing and told us to hang on to the bird andthat he would take care of it. A few minutes later he returnedwith a dynamite cap and about six to eight inches of fuse. Hethen joined the fuse and magpie together using the reverseprocedure to how we got the horse's tail hair and tossed thebird into the air. The bird took to the wing instantly, and a fewseconds later a loud blast and the wide distribution of feathersannounced that another farm pest had bitten the dust.

Although it was mostly farm pests that bore the brunt of ouradolescent brutality, we occasionally teased the billy goats byinserting Lady Fingers into their rear ends and then lightingthem. We found the resulting scene of old Billy snorting andgalloping across the yard highly amusing. Of course this wasusually a one-time performance, as they were usually prettyskittish about any further contact with us.

There was always a clear line between friend and foe for meeven as a child. Looking back, I suppose this was some earlyconditioning, preparing me for my life in the war. Enemieshad to be dealt with whatever way you could. It was them orus—and it wasn't going to be us.

For a while Don and I hunted gophers. They would dig holesand burrows in the irrigation ditches, and these holes woulddivert water that was much needed by the trees. This meantthat the farmers had to hire extra men to continually walk theorchard, finding and repairing the holes. This led local growersto put a bounty on these incorrigible critters that offered fivecents for each left ear. This turned into quite a little businessfor us. We would lay traps in the gopher holes and then go backlater, and if we had captured any, we would then make surethat they never did any more digging! With a bag full of leftears for our trouble, we would present ourselves at the end ofthe day and get paid. All went well until in the true traditionof entrepreneurship we thought about how we could increaseour profitability. I can't remember whether it was Don or Iwho thought of it, but we decided we could double our profitif we presented both ears for payment; after all, who couldtell the difference between a left and right ear anyway? Ofcourse it didn't take long for our employer to catch on to whatwe were doing, and that was the end of a beautiful businesspartnership.

CHAPTER 2

Herb's school life was pretty much that of the average all-Americankid; he played baseball and basketball, skipped afew lessons, had crushes on sweet redheads and not-so-sweet blondes,got disciplined, and missed homework deadlines. The difference,however, was that he had to leave school during the tenth grade andgo to work. The Great Depression era was economically tough onmost American families, and his was no exception.

He was the oldest and knew where his responsibilities lay. This pattern ofsacrifice would repeat itself as the world moved inexorably toward war.

In Grand Coulee he worked as a mechanic in a service station. At theage of seventeen, he became a jackhammer operator on the GrandCoulee Dam. The dam had been started in 1933 and is an amazingfeat of engineering and sheer hard labor. There is enough concretein the dam to build a three-thousand-mile, four-lane highway clearacross the United States, and the base of the dam is almost four timeslarger than the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza!

Herb's work on the dam ironically produced most of the electricityfor the Boeing Aircraft plant that built the big, beautiful bomber theB-29 Superfortress and prepared him for his next challenge, whichwas to work on building the Dutch Harbor naval, air, and submarinebase in Alaska. So there he was, still a teenager, working on UmnakIsland, eight hundred miles southwest of Anchorage in the Aleutians.It was a tough life, often working ten hours a day, seven days a week,with no overtime until he had worked forty-eight hours straight. Hewrote the following letter to his family on July 16, 1941.

I went to work today, worked ten hours, and boy I didn't standaround either. What I mean, we really worked and I am going towork ten hours seven days a week. Between working, eating,and sleeping, you don't have a lot of time fooling around uphere. I got a big gash in the bottom of my left foot last Mondaymorning July 13th. It hurts like the devil and I can't hardlywalk on the damn foot but I think I'll make it. I worked todayso I think I'll live through it. Got me a pair of breeches, andam buying a pair of rubber boots from my roommate. Boy yousure need them here. Whenever it rains the wind blows likethe devil; if you don't think it isn't wet, just stand in the rainwhen the wind is blowing and see. It's a tough one here, butI'm going to be just a little tougher. Some of the fellows areleaving as soon as they can get enough money saved to leaveon, but not me. Clarence has got a terrible cold, just about gothim down, but he is still kicking. Says he thinks he'll makethe grade, doesn't care much whether he does or not, he says.We are staying in government barracks with about 50 othermen. We eat in a big mess hall which has four big tables andseats about 200 men, darn good eats though. I am going towork driving truck that pays $1.47 and time and half forall overtime over 48 hours. We are staying in "Unalaska," alittle village about two miles from the base. We ride back andforth in a government boat free of charge. How is all the kidsgetting along? Tell Harry hello for me. Tell Don hello and tellhim to write. I sent some post cards when we left Kodiak; theyshould be there by now. How is Betty? How is she behaving,how did she feel about me leaving the night I left? Write andtell me how things are getting along. Tell me about Betty, Ikind of miss the little devil, I don't know whether she wouldspeak to me now after reading that letter I left her. Would yousend me a pair of those house slippers like Harry got Fredfor Christmas? Pop still working, sure is lots of work here,but this is no place for a married man. Most of the men thatare leaving are married. I am sending the Kodak back, littlelater on, can't have one here on the island. It's at the marineheadquarters now along with about 100 more of them. Canget it anytime I want to, if I sent it home. Won't get paid untilSunday 27th, so won't be able to send any money for about amonth. First check will be a small one anyhow. Good-bye now,I'll be seeing you.