Roosevelt's secretary of state. Stimson had been Theodore Roosevelt's anti-corruption, trust-busting
US Attorney in New York City during the first years of the FBI, then Taft's secretary of war, acolonel of artillery in World War I, Governor General of the Philippines for Coolidge, secretary of (^)
state for Hoover, and enunciator of the "Stimson doctrine." This last was a piece of hypocritical
posturing directed against Japan, asserting that changes in the international order brought about by
force of arms (and thus in contravention of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928) should not be given
diplomatic recognition. This amounted to a US committment to uphold the Versailles system, thesame policy upheld by Baker, Eagleburger, and Kissinger in the Serbian war on Slovenia and
Croatia during 1991. Stimson, though a Republican, was brought into Roosevelt's war cabinet in
1940 in token of bipartisan intentions.
But in 1942, Busyoung George Bush, World War Two meant exclusively the war in the Pacific, against theh was not buying Stimson's advice. It is doubtless significant that in the mind of
Japanese. In the Bush-approved accounts of this period of his life, there is scarcely a mention of the
European theatre, despite the fact that Roosevelt and the entire Anglo-American establishment had
accorded strategic priority to the "Germany first" scenario. Young George, it would appear, had his
heart set on becoming a navy flier.
Normally the Navy required two years of college from volunteers wishing to become naval aviators.
But, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, young George was exempted from
this requirement. Had father Prescott's crony Artemus Gates, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Air, been instrumental in making the exception, which was the key to allowing George to becomethe youngest of all navy pilots?
On June 12, 1942, his eighteenth birthday, Bush joined the navy in Boston as a seaman second
class. [fn 1] He was ordered to report for active duty as an aviation cadet on August 6, 1942. After a
last date with Barbara, George was taken to Penn Station in New York City by father Prescott toboard a troop train headed for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At Chapel Hill Naval Air Station, one of (^)
Bush's fellow cadets was the well-known Boston Red Sox hitter Ted Williams, who would later join
Bush on the campaign trail in his desperate fight in the New Hampshire primary in February, 1988.
After preflight training at Chapel Hill, Bush moved on to Wold-Chamberlain Naval Airfield inMinneapolis, Minnesota, where he flew solo for the first time in November, 1942. In February, (^)
1943 Bush moved on to Corpus Christi, Texas, for further training. Bush received his commission
as an ensign at Corpus Christi on June 9, 1943.
After this Bush moved through avarious types of advanced training. In m number of naval air bases over a period of almost a year forid-June 1943 he was learning to fly the Grumman TBF (^)
Avenger torpedo-bomber at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In August he made landings on the USS
Sable, a paddle wheel ship that was used as an aircraft carrier for training purposes. During the
summer of 1943 Bush spent a couple of weeks of leave with Barbara at Walker's Point in
Kennebunkport; their engagement was announced in the New York Times of December 12, 1943.
Later in the summer of 1943 Bush moved on to the Naval Air Base at Norfolk, Virginia. In
September, 1943 Bush's new squadron, called VT-51, moved on to the Naval Air Station at
Chincoteague, Virginia, located on the Delmarva peninsula. On December 14, 1943 Bush and his
squadron were brought(CVL30), a light attack carrier built on a cruiser hull. Since the name of the ship recalled Sam to Philadelphia to attend the commissioning of the USS San Jacinto (^)
Houston's defeat of the Mexican leader Santa Anna in 1836, and since the ship flew a Lone Star
flag, Bushman propaganda has made much of these artefacts in an attempt to buttress "carpetbag"
Bush's tenuous connections to the state of Texas. Bush's VF-51 squadron reported on board this
ship for a shakedown cruise on February 6, 1944, and on March 25, 1944 the San Jacinto left for