Million Dollar Education
The PV1 crew included the two pilots (my father is on the left), turret gunner, tail gunner, radio operator, and mechanic.
My father first realized that Hitler was a terrible guy in 1939 when he invaded Poland. His parents didn’t follow world events much because they had very little education and were poor and had no money for newspapers or magazines.
In June 1941, he graduated from Central High School in Flint, Michigan and started looking for a job while waiting to be drafted. He had an offer to work for Bell Telephone for $16.50 a week, but turned it down and worked for AC Spark Plug instead. His first job was working nights, running a machine for $22 a week, making 50-caliber machine guns. While working at AC, he attended General Motors Institute during the day and learned to inspect machines and parts using tools like blueprints and micrometers. In early 1942, AC promoted him to lead inspector at a rate of $42 a week.
In his new position, he worked with another inspector named Mitch Matus, who loved airplanes and had a large model collection. He and Mitch talked a lot about the war and airplanes and eventually, Mitch talked my father into going with him to Detroit to enlist in the V-5 Navy aviation program.
At the recruitment center, they learned that two years of college were required, plus perfect physical condition but, if you could pass the physical and mental entrance exams, they would take you. They also had a height restriction, and my father was a fraction below the limit.
“If you really want to qualify, come back in the morning when you are slightly taller.”
He was there when they opened the next morning, and it worked. Also, Mitch had a bent finger and that would have held him back, but he agreed to let them break it and reset it, and that let him continue as well. The mental and physical tests were tough, but they both passed. After that, he and Mitch went their separate ways and later he heard Mitch washed out but never got the details.
My father was only 20 years old when he started training and passed his final flight test using a single engine, Taylor Cub. It was his first experience of piloting or even flying in a plane. He then learned to fly bright yellow N3N biplanes, Vultee BT-13 mid-stage training planes, large twin engine Beechcraft AT-10s and his final assignment to fly five passenger PV-1 patrol bombers. Along the way, he learned and practiced navigation, carrier landings, flying formations, emergency landings, celestial navigation, combat fighter maneuvers, acrobatics, enemy plane identification, various war tactics, etc.
After many adventures flying the PV1 on combat and other missions throughout the Pacific during and after the war, he departed for the U.S. on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga and received his discharge in February 1946. He had proudly served his country, and his Million Dollar Education was complete.
