âApril is the cruelest month,â wrote T. S. Eliot in his poem âThe Waste Land.â April has certainly seen its share of tragedies through the centuries. But 79 years ago, on April 18, combat aviators training here at Pendleton Field helped lift the spirits of a town and nation in shock from a war they hoped never to see. As the 1940s dawned in America, the world situation was perilous. Nazi Germany had conquered Europe, Mussoliniâs forces threatened North Africa and Japan was creating a colonial empire in the Pacific. Despite these looming threats, the ongoing Great Depression kept Americans preoccupied with domestic affairs. But President Franklin Roosevelt was quietly preparing the country for what he knew would come. It is safe to say few Pendletonians suspected that their town would play a key role in this process.