The transatlantic crossing was pretty uneventful, but off the coast of Ireland, the convoy split, those merchant ships going to Liverpool, Bristol or Tilbury, but some headed for the Firth of Clyde and Glasgow, this was where the HMS Orion was now headed, Scotland.
2nd Lieutenant "Butterbars" Gibbs, as he was affectionately called by his fellow pilots, wondered if this place was going to be friendly. As they approached the Clyde estuary, he saw that the merchant vessels were steaming on, they were headed elsewhere.
"Where we headed?" he asked a fellow GI.
"Heard some place called Goorack (Gourock) the guy replied with a New York twang.
"That anywhere near where we are headed?" as Jack looked out over the Scottish hills which, in the autumn September sun gave the heather on the hills a beautiful purple haze, it was really warming after the grey sea crossing.
"Nope we still got a train journey," as the soldier now turned and walked away.
All Jackson could do, was gaze out over the landscape; it didn't look too bad a country. So different from his own flat prairie farmland, but young 2nd Lieutenant Gibbs would soon feel at home when they did eventually arrive at their destination, in the meantime, on the 15th September 1943 they docked in Gourock and were immediately put on a train for Glasgow Central, where they changed on to another, for the journey to Nuthampstead. The train, the carriages, 8 men to a compartment, their personal belongings slung overhead, it was going to be a long night. The aircraft? Flown south by experienced pilots, the Air Force didn't want to lose any, well not quite yet.
As Jack dosed, he thought of the past few weeks. Lying about his age, but almost 17yrs old he was a Commissioned Officer, just. He had 40hrs basic military flying training behind him, but more if he counted the plane back home, yes he had the makings of a good pilot. Bombers he hadn't wanted, he was young, a dare-devil, a fighter pilot he was his own Boss, well as much as you can be in the services but it was his own destiny, in his own hands. Next morning they pulled into Bishop's Stortford and then the troop trucks to the base.
The construction of the camp, had just been recently completed, and what with the rains, mud was in abundance so it had promptly been named Mudhampstead, but at least it was a base and he could get on with the job in hand. The accommodation, Nissen huts, corrugated semi-circular tubes, Quonset huts back home, freezing in the winter stifling in the summer, but being Officers there was more space, less crowded. But for now the 55th Fighter Group had arrived in England and was part of the 8th Air Force