Chapter 1

The Lives: One, Davy.

My father called me Davy. I was rightfully, David James Austin III, second son of Charles William Austin, Attorney at Law and County Prosecutor.

My brother called me Squirt. Charles Beckwith Austin, first to spring forth from the loins of my father and variously a year older but sometimes two. He never let me forget it.

My mother called me Trouble. Vera Elizabeth Austin, first and only wife to Charles William, mother was pure Finlander. I guess that makes me half.

I was born in the Delivery Room of Clinton County Memorial Hospital on the Eighth of May, 1942.

During the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Aircraft Carrier USS Lexington was sunk by the dastardly Jap on May 8, 1942.

"Two National Disasters on the same day," my mother would lament.

One event made the front page of the local paper, the Clinton County Republican News ... the other event ... the one near and dear to my heart ... was misplaced from the Birth Records to the Obituaries.

"We can only hope," my mother was heard to say.

The retraction and proper placement of the announcement of my momentous birth was attended to the very next day but some people never forget. In my teen years, as I was being presented to parents as a possible suitor, I often heard, "Oh, you're the dead boy. What's it like?" accompanied by riotous laughter, followed by, "please, (insert girls name here) I know his mother, No, you can not go to the movies with him."

Thanks, Mom.

But we're not concerned with my afterlife ... we are concerned with the series of events that caused my mother to exclaim, "the WAR is over, Harry can come home," and burst into tears.

My mother was first in an extremely tedious succession of beautiful babies, all of whom were female.

"You failed me again," my grandfather was heard to pronounce eight times to my grandmother..."maybe next year."

Finally, on the ninth try, Harry junior was born. "Gladys," my grandfather proclaimed, "had you got it right the first time we wouldn't have this monumental drain on our resources. Girls are beyond expensive."

Harry junior, grew apace. He was as handsome as the girls were beautiful.

Six feet three inches tall and one hundred eighty-five pounds of stalwart first string High School Football quarterback, Harry was a picture. Blond with startling blue eyes, a dimpled chin and eight inches of swinging meat, Harry screwed his way through secondary school and devastated the Sororities at MSC. (Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science)

Harry wanted to fly. He joined the College Civilian Pilot Training program, soloed in eight and passed flight school with flying colors. (bad pun). He signed up for the Army Air Corps in 1939, graduated in primary in 1940 and seduced one of his sisters in August and/or September of 1941. Posted to multi engine training, Harry was learning the trade. By the time war was declared Harry was in the fourth group of pilots training in the operation of B-17's.

The first Eighth Air Force units arrived in England, on May 12th, 1942, to form the 97th Bomb Group. On 17 August 1942, 12 B-17Es of the 97th were escorted by RAF Spitfires on the first USAAF raid over Europe. Harry was in England by mid 1943, flying first as right seat copilot and then as left seat pilot. Daylight bombing by the USAAF followed by night bomber RAF attacks soon had Harry busy.