Author Archives: Ted Balk

“We started with an outhouse in the yard and a hand pump in the kitchen. The contractor installed indoor plumbing, but the house was still drafty and we had a single wood stove for heat. In the winter, there might be ice in the toilet bowl in the morning and the exposed copper pipes under […]

“This certainly would not be my first pig-cooking, but pit-mastering for this particular couple demanded that I produce the best results possible. I wanted to honor my friends, of course, but there was also the added incentive that I would be serving some people whom I knew to be top notch barbecuers, and others who […]

“We started with an outhouse in the yard and a hand pump in the kitchen. The contractor installed indoor plumbing, but the house was still drafty and we had a single wood stove for heat. In the winter, there might be ice in the toilet bowl in the morning and the exposed copper pipes under […]

“Just before I was slated to start the eye exams, Quinton Lumpkin appeared on the scene and motioned for me to follow him. He found an empty room, then told me he had borrowed the colorblindness tests for a few minutes so that I could memorize the correct numbers on them and not make any […]

“When we were finished for the night, we got ready to fly back to Pearl Harbor. We usually had more pilots than planes and took turns piloting, which meant some had to ride as passengers back to Pearl. That was when we discovered that Jack Chrystal was missing.”—By William A. Balk, Sr. Dispatches from The Esso […]

“Us: ‘Snakeoil, this is Famous 87, do you read me?’ Snakeoil: ‘Roger, Famous, this is Snakeoil. Are you the plane with the diamond on the tail?’ Us: ‘Roger, that’s us. What can we do for you?’ Snakeoil: ‘We’re pinned down by a bunch of Japs about 50 feet in front of us. I just put […]

“When I checked our fuel I realized I had another problem. We usually had enough fuel for about 30 minutes extra flying time after a long-range mission. I knew I was going to be at least 20 minutes late and that I would have to wait for them to re-spot the planes, turn the whole […]

“When I got down to 1,000 feet, I decided we’d had about enough, so I fired the rockets at God-knows-what target, then headed for the deck with the throttle wide open. These Avengers were redlined at about 300 knots, but I’m sure we exceeded that as we streaked across that town at tree level. In […]

“I was flying Hot Shot Charlie’s left wing, but I don’t recall who else was in our division. An Atago class heavy cruiser was our designated target. Since we didn’t have any torpedoes, we had to make a ‘dive’ bombing attack. Charlie rolled over and started down with the right wingman behind him and to […]

“We’ve been hit.”—By William A. Balk, Sr. Dispatches from The Esso Club By Ted Balk   CENTRAL South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—10/13/2014— CHAPTER III The Invasion of Leyte By October 2, the Marines had established their own air support group on Peleliu with a squadron of F4U Corsairs, so we were granted a brief respite with a […]