Hamilton High School - Hamiltonian Yearbook (South Hamilton, MA)

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The HAMILTONIAN 3 in for a normal landing, landing over a mark, which I shall designate upon the field, and within three hundred feet of it. “The second time around, climb to one thousand feet and make a left hand turn. “Cutting the gun” over the field, perform a 180 turn and land as I des- ignated for the previous time. Then take- off and climb to one thousand feet, and over fixed pylons make three shallow and three steep figure eights. When you have completed those, climb to two thousand feet, fly into the wind and “cutting the spiral gun” over the field make two of a turns and land as in the previous quirements. That’s all.” The applicants were divided inte groups of two. One taking off, while tho other was flying around for landing. When my turn came, I was a little anxious and my flying was not as good as usual. I was the most surprised when I was doing my figure eights. A person usually loses altitude while doing them, I started with one thousand and ended up with nearly three thousand feet. It was blowing so hard up there that I was literally toss- ed upwards. Luck was with us for we are all Private Pilots now, which means, as most of you know, that the Private pilot is allowed to fly any licensed aircraft anywhere in the United States. He is also allowed to carry passengers, but not for hire. It certainly seems good to be a real pilot for you realize that you have entered the realm where only the brave dare enter and where battles are fought with the chivalry of the Middle Ages —0. P.Lee, ’31. © A Battle, Ten Thousand Feet Above the Earth ' Y ith a grim smile on h is face, the German Ace, Von Shenider, bank- ed his scarlet plane and headed towards his lines, his patrol following. Why shouldn’t he smile He had destroyed an American airdrome and sent three Amer- ican aviators to their deaths. Why shouldn’t he smile? He hadn’t lost a man and had accomplished his mission! Now the scarlet plane, leading five more, was over its own airdrone. It circled the field twice, nosed downward, and lightly touched the ground, the other five planes following. Bragging over their victory, the six men reported to their commander and received orders for the following day. At four o’clock the next morning. Von Shenider and his four comrades were in their planes ready to take off. Finally the German ace started down the field, quick- ly gained speed, and rose into the air. The other planes followed and at 10,000 feet they got into formation, left the field, and headed for American ter- ritory. While the German planes flew toward enemy lines, actions were also taking place at the American Airdrome. Jack Johnson, a young American Commander, was in his plane ready to take to the air. Signaling to his men, he opened the throt- tle, sped toward the end of the field, lifted his plane into the air, followed by four more speeds. The five planes, climb- ing at a dangerous angle, soon reached 12,- 000 feet, leveled off, circled the field twice and turned their noses toward German territory. On sped the planes, just above the fleecy white clouds, they flew for hours but saw no enemy planes. At last Jack, signaled his patrol and dropped out of the clouds. One moment before, there were no German machines in sight.

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2 The HAMILTONIAN lent gaze on him. Under the diamond- shaped head was a scaly, yellow and black mottled body as fat around as Jim’s arm. The reptile that lay poised and coiled before him had evidently witnessed the death of her young, and vengefully drew back her sinuous coils in preparation to strike. Jim backed up against one of the rocks, his face a chalky white; cold, clammy perspiration was trickling over his face. Suddenly the wicked head shot forward with the speed of light, but it was a fraction of a second late. A white thunderbolt whizzed by Jim and launch ed itself straight at the fat coils of the rep- tile. A cloud of dust and leaves obscured Jim’s vision, but after several minutes of vigorous combat, Jerry appeared, holding the limp body of a very dead king snake between his teeth. While Jerry stood in front of him, his tail proudly wagging at his achievements, Jim heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A tall, raw boned, spect acled individual bearing a case containing sev- eral butterfly-nets strode through a tangle of bushes and stopped in front of Jim. “Hello! How ’’ and then his eyes fell on the rope like object between Jerry’s ja ws. “What’s this! Why it can’t be! Why its a king snake, all of five feet long, the the longest I’ve ever seen. Where did you get that, my boy. ” Jim told the whole story of being attacked by the snake, and when he had finished, the man promptly offered him ten dollars for the reptile. “A king snake of that size and length, found in this part of the country is a very rare object, my boy. I have been waiting for years for somthing like this,” he said, after explaining about his position as curator of the Smithtown Institute of Natural History. The curator drew forth a bulging wal- let, selected a ten dollar bill from the roll dealing in large denomination, and passed it to Jim. After a few farewell salutations, the curator strode off with the reptile Jerry had so valorously conquered, leaving Jim dazedly staring at the ten dollar bill in his hand. Several days later, Jerry was to be seen proudly wearing a magnificent collar, and his usupJly lean sides were filled out to an abnormal degree, which testified to the con- sumption of five dollars worth of the choicest steaks and bones which Jim had purchased for him from the local butch- er. — George Magnan, ’33 Private Pilots J ' HE day of the examination for pri- vate pilot licenses by the Department of Com.merce Inspector had at last arrived. We students were at the Beverly Air- port shortly after seven A.M. and many of us gave our Air Commerce Regulations the well known once-over, for as you pro- bably know’, the written test for Private Pilot is as important as the flying one. Mr. Hoyt, the Dej)artment of Com- merce examiner, arrived shortly after eight, and at once set himself to the task at hand with the efficiency usually noted in a government man. We w ' ere soon in the midst of the w ' ritten examination, chewing our pencils while W’e tried to pull from a remote corner of our mind the answ’ers to some of the elus- ive questions. After finishing our paper, w e anxiously w’aited for Mr. Hoyt to cor- rect our “Masterpieces.” At last he fin- ished them, and having found them satis- factory, he gave us the instructions for the flying test. “You are to take-off, climb to about three hundred feet, make a left turn and come

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The HAMILTONIAN 4 Now, 2,000 feet below were six, led by — a grin spread over Jack’s face — led by Von Shenider! For months and months Jack had wanted to meet ’on Shenider. Yesterday three of his best friends were shot down by him. Now was his chance. Either Von Shenider or Jack Johnson would crash! The American patrol dropped down like an arrow, their machine guns spurting bullets. The Germans separated. These were the two forces. Six German Aces against an ordinary American patrol In less time then Jack knew, two of his men had crashed to their dtaths, but he was on Von Sheniders’ tail, his machine guns were at work and his face wore a grim expression. Suddenly the red plane burst into flames, turned over, and fell into a tailspin. Four minutes later it crashed, carrying the great German Ace. While taking his last look at Von Shenider’s plane. Jack’s mind wandered. When he turned and look again, he was surrounded by the enemy. A bullet struck the instrument board, suddenly oil burst into his face, the gas t ink exploded, and his plane burst into flames. Well, this was the end, but inyway, he plunged to his death with a grim smile on his face- — he had rid the air of Von Shenider. — Harold McDonald, ’32. ' ey ' ey The Cuttlefish Y A ST Friday my Uncle Aloysius finally relented and let me get into a diving suit to explore the ocean bed. The pre- cious day he had allowed me to stay on his submarine, the “Crusader” to locate a missing yacht which had sunk in a re- cent storm. The submarine was resting on ocean bed about a mile from the surface, and I grabbed my golden opportunity be- fore my uncle had a chance to change his mind. When at length I finally managed to struggle into my metal diving-suit which was built for use under gr;at pressure, I looked like an autom aton . Every joint of the suit was operated by the ball and socket system, and I found that by exerting pressure on wires inside the metal hand, I could control the metal fingers. Screwed on to the neck of my diving suit was a globular helmet with glass panes rein- forced by wire netting through which I could .see. My uncle had done away with the peril of carrying an air linewhichcould kink and foul and suffocate the diver. In its place was a rounded .steel box which contained the necessary oxygen-manu- facturing chemicals. I stiffly stepped out between two slid- ing steel doors which automatically closed as I stepped knee-deep into the slime at the bottom of the ocean. Strange sickly, green plants waved to and fro, in- fluenced by the ocean current, and, by means of the portable searchlight attach- ed to my helmet, I saw fleeting glimpes of hideous, horny, eels, multi-colored and weird-shaped fish as they swam by much attracted by the light. I waded with difficulty through the slimy ooze that covered the ocean bed. Finally an out- jutting rock shut off my view of the sub- marine. A black deep hole loomed up in front of me, amd tw ' O green, luminous eyes set widely apart, fixed their hideous, unwinking, stare directly upon me. A long, rope like object snaked out of the hole, and, under the glare of my search- light, I saw an object resembling a suc- tion cup writhing at the end of the ten- tacle. Several other snakelike tentacles emanated from the pit. I slowly and clum- sily turned to flee, but was hampered by my heavy suit, as well as the great pres- sure at that depth. With a feeling of hor- ror, I felt the steel plates around me