When the first light went out at 6:45, the Texas sun had just poked its nose over the horizon and the hundreds of Navy training planes nestling on the ramp looked like gray ghosts in the dim morning light. Mounting the steps to the squadron control tower a few minutes earlier, I had noticed, far off to the north in the dew-infested haze, a lowering bank of black clouds. I remember feeling relieved that I wasn't flying that day. I had, instead, drawn the assignment as tower duty officer. Later, I would have been happy to trade places with almost anyone in the squadron.

In the glass-encased towel atop the hangar, all the disconnected threads of the complex operations of a wartime naval-air-training squadron were fathered and loosely held. Here, we were in direct radio contact with hundreds of practicing pilots. This day one would survive an experience that dozens of others would never forget.

Q. Underline a sentence which clearly fixes the time and place of this selection.