When Neil started college, he had just turned seventeen. For the first time he was living away from his family. He got decent grades, as he had in high school. But he wasn’t focused on his studies, and the science classes were hard. He described his freshman year as “kind of a whirl.”
After two years at Purdue came three years in the Navy. This was when Neil Armstrong became an airman. He was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, where he learned to fly small, single-engine fighter planes.
At Pensacola the training began with twenty short flights called “hops.” The instructor sat up front. Neil sat behind and had to pilot the plane even though it was harder to see from the back. Neil was graded on every hop. After that Neil went on to fly solo. He also took courses in aeronautic engineering as he had at Purdue.
He graduated and earned his “wings” pin from flight training school in August of 1950. Now he was a licensed Navy aviator, and he was only twenty years old. He still had two years left at Purdue. However, Neil did not return to college as planned.
Why?
War had broken out—the Korean War, a war that lasted three years. The war sent Neil Armstrong halfway across the globe.
In Korea, Neil Armstrong belonged to Fighter Squadron 51. He was one of the very youngest pilots. The squadron flew small jets off a giant aircraft carrier called the USS Essex. Neil’s job was to bomb enemy bridges and railroad lines or scout areas where other planes would attack later on. To do this, Neil’s plane had to fly very low and close to the ground. During the Korean War, Neil flew on seventy-eight missions. It was a dangerous and stressful job. But Neil Armstrong never lost his cool.
On one mission, Neil was in his Panther jet plane making a low bombing run in a hilly area of Korea. Suddenly his plane was hit by enemy gunfire. Neil lost control as the craft took a nosedive, hurtling toward the ground. At five hundred feet, part of the right wing was sheared off by a cable strung across the valley as a booby trap. Luckily, Neil regained control of the plane again and flew back to friendly territory. But the plane was too badly damaged to land. Neil had to bail out of the plane. His silk parachute billowed out, and he landed safely in a rice paddy. Two days later he was back aboard the aircraft carrier. Except for a cracked tailbone, Neil was unhurt.
Almost 34,000 Americans were killed in the Korean War, but Neil Armstrong returned home with many medals. Now it was time to finish up college and receive his diploma. |