Science: Bill & the Little Beast

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"Good attitude, Bill," he said. "You've got eight feet [off the runway]. Let her down a little more. You've still got eight feet." Slowly the speeding X-3 sank down toward the speeding ground. "Five feet," said Yeager. ". . . One. Now hold her right there. Nice job. The runway is clear for seven miles ahead."

The wheels touched at howling speed, throwing the rubber off their nylon tires and the X-3 shot for miles across the level lake.

"Thank you, Chuck," said Bill as he rolled out and slowed. "Thank you very much."

He was back on the ground. He would be safe for a while—until the next and faster flight, and the faster one after that.

Impressive Calm. The man who does this sort of job over & over again is 36 and bald. Bill Bridgeman has bright blue eyes, which seem more intent because of deep little airman's creases spraying out from them across his bronzed cheeks. He stands 6 ft. 1½ in. tall, and has the big-shouldered build of a lifeguard. (During his college vacations he did serve as a lifeguard at Santa Monica beach, where lifeguarding is ranked among the decorative arts.)

Bill's most impressive characteristic is his calm. He moves with accurate grace, and his nerves work like a telephone exchange that never gets a wrong number. He never gets excited, never blows up. He almost never uses even the milder cuss words.

These rock-steady traits did not grow out of a conventional childhood. Bill was born in Ottumwa, Iowa (present pop. 33,631), of English-Dutch ancestry. His parents (his father was an airman too) separated when he was a baby, leaving him to be raised by his paternal grandmother. When he got pneumonia, she took him to California to build up his health.

As a high-school boy, he was a laggard student, liked most to swim and tramp in the mountains. He played football fairly well, but he gave up field sports when he was accidentally hit on the head by a South Pasadena shotputter.

Only when Bill got interested in flying did he begin to shine. To enter a military flying school he had to have college credits, which he earned without much trouble at

Pasadena Junior College and U.C.L.A. At the Navy's school at Pensacola, Fla., he learned to fly with the greatest of ease. When he made a perfect score in a landing test, the school's toughest instructor sourly remarked: "I've never given anybody a perfect rating, and I'm not going to start with you."

Bill got his Navy wings and commission in October 1941, and was shipped to Pearl Harbor. His skipper made him officer of the day for Sunday, Dec. 7, with the remark that "nothing happens here on Sunday." The something that happened that Sunday—the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—allowed Ensign Bridgeman to distinguish himself in the only possible way that day by not getting wounded.

For 18 months of war, Bill thirsted for action and got none. He flew seaplanes—lumbering Catalinas—from Australia but much of the time he waited for airplanes that did not arrive or would not fly. At last his frustration stirred up stomach ulcers, and he was shipped back to Treasure Island Naval Hospital near San Francisco.