Growing Up

Baker begins at Johns Hopkins in the summer of 1942, seven months into World War II. Baker notes he was fourteen when Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939. While Lucy insisted it was England’s war to fight, Herb predicted U.S. involvement. When the U.S. enters the war, Baker is sixteen and assumes the war will be over before he is old enough to enlist. His mother tells him the invasion news is a good opportunity to sell his leftover newspapers. Despite his lackluster sales pitch, Baker sells out in fifteen minutes.

In “the blue-collar world” of Baker’s 1930s childhood, the pressing concern is the Depression rather than debates about political and economic systems (176). At City College, his classmates express concerns about politics. Jewish classmates are informed about and concerned by Hitler’s Germany. Another classmate identifies as a communist, which shocks Baker. During his senior year of high school, Baker is nominated for the Honor Society, but his ignorance of politics appalls his interviewer. Despite being at the top of his class, he is rejected.

In Baker’s segregated neighborhood, black people are expected to “know their place” (179). Though his mother taught him “contempt for bigotry,” she now expresses the “place” view, leading Baker to theorize that racism “seemed to be contagious” (179). In 1938, heavyweight champion Joe Louis defends his title against the one man who had previously beaten him, Max Schmeling. Baker says whites wonder why God let a black man beat a white man. Elated black residents celebrate by spontaneously marching quietly down Baker’s street. He calls the five-minute march the first Civil Rights demonstration he witnesses.

The Nazis occupation of Paris, the London blitz, and especially the bombing of Pearl Harbor shock Baker. He had expected the war to be over in weeks. By his seventeenth birthday in August 1941, he realizes the war will last. He is excited by the prospect of joining up as a pilot, having nursed romantic fantasies of flight since first hearing of Charles Lindbergh and other pilots famed for their daredevil achievements.

Struggling academically at Johns Hopkins, Baker decides to enlist in the spring of 1943, months before his eighteenth birthday. He chooses the Navy Air Corp over the Army Air Corp because he believes the Navy to be more dangerous and wants his chance at glory. His mother reminds him he can’t swim, but he says the Navy will teach him. His mother is happy his fifteen months of training will keep him out of the war, at least temporarily. A few days after his eighteenth birthday, Baker reports for basic training. After a repressed goodbye with his mother, he sets out feeling free and excited. Within twelve hours, he is homesick.

While the war rages on, Baker spends eighteen months training in the South. Training slows “to a crawl” after the Navy overestimates the number of fighters they need for the planned Japanese invasion (188). In summer 1945, Baker is enjoying “a chaste romance” with Karen, a nursing student (188). They hold hands and share their dreams. Baker finds the romance a relief from the anxiety of trying to lose his “accursed virginity,” which has been harder than learning to fly or swim (188).

The Navy ignored his fear of swimming, ordering him to jump into a pool from a 20-25-foot platform. Baker jumps and swims. Learning to fly is more challenging. His flight instructor is a nervous civilian who does not let Baker operate the controls until he is in the air alone. A timid flyer, he struggles to control the plane. Baker moves to the Naval Air Force Station in Memphis, where Navy pilots conduct training. During an hour-long check flight, Baker is asked to return to the ground after 20 minutes and deemed unfit to fly. To stay in the program, he must pass two back-to-back check flights with different instructors.

He is assigned a Monday check flight with “Total Loss Smith,” a “celebrated perfectionist” whose claim to fame is failing cadets for minor errors (192). To cheer Baker up, his friends take him to Memphis for a farewell binge weekend, which turns into “an incoherent jumble of dreamlike episodes,” including passing out in a woman’s room (192). On the heels of his terrible hangover, Baker is so relaxed that he passes his check flight with Total Loss, who calls it the best he has ever seen.

Baker’s success with swimming and flying does not follow with women. His Navy buddies’ boasts of their conquests leave Baker feeling embarrassed by his innocence, but every attempt to lose his virginity fails. One encounter ends with a mosquito attack, another when Baker realizes the girl’s parents are in the house. Baker rejects a married woman’s advances, wanting to preserve his image of the “good woman,” though he later is torn between feeling noble and suspecting he has “acted like a childish idiot” (200). He is relieved to meet Karen. His mother would approve of her, Baker believes, though Lucy is alarmed when he writes that Karen is “the kind of girl I’d like to marry someday” (201). His mother wants him to return to college and focus on his future career.

The invasion of Japan is scheduled for 1946. Baker hopes to be involved and is sorry when the war ends, following the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Letters between Baker and his mother are filled with “homey chitchat” (202). They do not realize the bomb has changed the world. The war ends on August 14, Baker’s 20th birthday.