Nelson’s office states ideas about war work on Easter
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The Pittsburgh Press (April 1, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. – Marshal Headle, chief test pilot of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, had never been an “indoors” man. Both his work and his hobbies kept him in the open, in a life of great activity.
And so, after his 42,000-foot “fall” in a pressure chamber experiment last June, he knew he was doomed to many months of indoors quiet and solitude. He knew he’d go crazy if he just let time lie on his hands. So the first thing he did, as soon as he was able, was to plan out his days so they would be fully occupied.
It is working out well. He has not become bored or impatient. I have just been to see him in his nice rented house here on the desert, and except for a constant twisting of the cords on his bathrobe he seems perfectly calm and at ease. Yet a violent “shell shock” type of nervousness was the gravest after-effect of his accident.
Every morning Headle calls up the Lockheed plant – 125 miles away – just to see how things are getting along. He doesn’t worry about the work, for his assistant pilots are old-timers and thoroughly capable. But he likes to keep his finger in the pie.
During the day he sits in his living room, with a big north window looking out over the desert valley and down toward Palm Springs. The nurse sits in a nearby chair, sewing.
Headle has two nurses, one for day, one for night. His family could not move out here from Los Angeles to be with him, for he can’t stand the children’s noise. Any sudden or loud noise throws him into a panic.
Catches up on his reading
He reads almost constantly. He says he’s read more books in the last nine months than he had read in all his life before. He reads every type of book imaginable. He says he reads a lot of trash, just to insure a diversion against boredom.
He reads the newspapers, but never listens to the radio.
Another of Headle’s “occupying-time” diversions is figuring out the daily racing charts. He has been to only four races in his life and didn’t bet them, but he loves horse races and loves to dope them out.
He spends about three hours a day doping out the winners at various tracks, and he says his average is mighty high, although he never places any bets.
Now and then a visitor drops in, and on Sundays a bunch of executives and pilots from the Lockheed plant come out to see him. He enjoys them, but they don’t stay too long.
He does not walk around outside very much, for just a little exercise plays havoc with his heart.
Once in a while he takes a short ride in a car. But there are only three people he can bear to ride with. In his life, a plane or an automobile have always been the same as a human being. But most drivers are merely mechanical drivers, with no real “feel” of their machinery, and that kind of driving sends Headle’s nervous system off. Fortunately his doctor (from Palm Springs) is one person he can ride with.
One great diversion – which Headle didn’t expect and which he now laughs about – was his gout. “Imagine a fellow like me having gout,” he says. It was caused by gastric disturbances from taking too much heart medicine. It is gone now, but he says it’s one of the most terrible pains you can imagine.
In his shocked condition, the two things Headle must avoid are noises and physical exertion. And it’s very odd about noises. A noise that he feels is necessary doesn’t bother him.
For instance, there are Army training planes roaring constantly over the desert nowadays. I asked Headle if that didn’t bother him. Oddly enough, it doesn’t.
He knows those planes are necessary, and he can’t do anything about stopping them even if they weren’t necessary – so they don’t bother him.
He expects to resume
What does bother him, for instance, is when he’s trying to get to sleep, and two people are sitting out in the living room talking in low tones. It seems to him they are screaming. He simply has to ask them to stop talking.
He follows the war in the papers, but our reverses haven’t upset him. He says everything that has happened in the Pacific was to be expected. He has been in the East Indies and the Philippines, saw the shape of the defenses, and considers what happened as inevitable. But he says we’ll win in the end.
Headle is philosophical about the fact that he may never fly again. “I’m getting pretty old for flying, anyhow,” he says. “I figured I had 10 more good years in me, but eventually I’d have to go on the ground. So I suppose I can do it now as well as later.”
Headle is, I would say, just upward of 45. He flew in the last war, and has been flying ever since. Only a few of his generation of pilots – such as Dick Merrill – are still at it.
The hardest thing for Headle to contemplate is that the accident will put an end to his lifelong hobby of prospecting in the mountains. For years he has spent his week-ends tramping into the high gulches, looking for ore. He has never found anything that would make him rich, but he just loved to do it.
Marshal Headle is as nice a man as I’ve ever met – quiet, courteous, intelligent, hospitable. He has taken his great tragedy with his chin up. He thinks that in two or three more months now he’ll be back at work, in a ground capacity. “Back annoying everybody,” as he puts it. his return will be the nicest “annoyance” the Lockheed company has had in a long time.