personnel and supplies throughout the Western Pacific Fleet. He reluctantly accepted his new life stationed in San Diego but always dreamed of combat adventures in the dangerous corners of the world.
His days were long in the vast nothingness of the Pacific Ocean. Seven was assigned to supply ship service. His first duty assignment, while void of the luster and prestige of his grandfather’s time in service, was challenging nonetheless. Winds, waves, and floating landing zones required the coolest of hands controlling the yoke of the “Big Beverly,” the first aircraft under the command of Seven Andrews. “Big Bev,” as the craft came to be known among the naval supply staff, was decorated in customary haze gray paint. There was nothing special or unique about “Bev”; she looked like every other craft of her model in service. The only feature that set her apart from the others was her stenciled name in bold black letters across the nose of the machine. A similar but much smaller tag adorned the skin of the craft just below the pilot’s window.
It is customary and expected that naval pilots assume a “call sign” or nickname that denotes the personality of the driver and reflects his status among the fraternity of naval pilots. Call signs are assigned by the members of a pilot’s flight squad. They are often chosen as a form of ridicule and embarrassment by the squad and usually derive from an overexaggeration of the pilot’s most demeaning character flaw. Upon entering the supply flight squad, Seven and his copilot, Jimmy Shields, were scrutinized and evaluated until the perfect call signs were documented.
Jimmy Shields was a tiny man by military standards, who spoke with an annoying North Carolina accent. Barely spanning the height of five feet, six inches from the floor. On his best day he weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He was tiny among the tall, lean specimens in flight suits that surrounded him. Jimmy had a round face and a mouth full of brilliant white teeth. With his short-cropped haircut and friendly face he could have easily been the poster boy for the all-American high school quarterback,