Memories of WW II TrainingBy Captain Matt Portz, USNR (Ret.)

The following is extracted fromSagi Maru, Stearman, Too, amemoir (not yet published) byCaptain Matt Portz, USNR(Ret.).

This account focuses on his daysinstructing at NAS Livermore,Calif. (now the Lawrence LivermoreNational Laboratory), and NASBunker Hill, Ind. (Now GrissomAFB). He was a lieutenant then.

P rotocol demanded that new NASLivermore instructors report to thee x e c u t i v e o f f i c e r , L i e u t e n a n tCommander George Walker. This I did inearly December 1943. Walker brushedaside pleasantries with, “Do you knowhow to guard a control stick so yourstudent won’t kill you?”

He directed me to sit in the chair besidehis desk.

As I searched for an answer to hisquestion, the exec reached behind hisdesk and brought out an old sword. He gotup, weapon in hand, walked to where Isat and plunked the sword — fortunatelysheathed — into a vertical positionbetween my knees.

“Now,” said Walker, “think of thissword as a control stick. Show me howyou would guard it so your studentcouldn’t kill you.”

I tentatively put my hands on my kneesand eyed the ‘control stick.’

“No, no, that’s not good enough,”Walker protested. “Put your right handloosely around the base of the stickwhere you can grab it if you have to. Toomany people are getting killed becausethey’re not quick enough.”

Walker then let me speak.“Yes, sir, I see what you mean,” I

responded weakly. With that, I was

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dismissed with a curt, “And don’t youforget it.”

One didn’t have to guard the stick theexec’s way. On the other hand, aninstructor could never relax in the air. Astudent never got me into trouble, butthat wasn’t always the case.

Lieutenant Jack Stackpool, a seniorinstructor, and his cadet spun in whileslipping to a landing. They slammed intothe ground upside down but happilysurvived with injuries. The disasterhappened because Stackpool wasdemonstrating his confidence in thestudent by hanging both elbows over thecockpit during the approach to a plannedtouchdown within a circle.

The cadet, concentrating on the slipand approach, spotted another StearmanN2S turning toward a second circle onthe same field. The field was designed forsimultaneous landings into two circlesapproached respectively from left andright. Confused by the other plane, thestudent jerked back on the stick. Alreadynear stall and slipping with top rudderheld in, the Stearman whipped onto itsback and crunched.

Livermore was completed in the fall of1942 and in the next two years more than4,000 cadets took primary training there.The station’s 225 planes flew from arec tangu la r 3 ,000 -by -2 ,700 - foo tb l a c k t o p m a t . T h e r e w e r e n oconvent ional runways. Some 225officers and 1,700 enlisted personnelmanned the base. Captain CarletonChampion, Jr., was skipper.

Close to San Francisco and with abenign c l imate , L i v e r m o r e w a ssomething of a Camelot. LieutenantJunior Grade Joe Stein, an instructorlong on words and with a touch morededication then most, voiced his feeling.“The concentrated work schedule, thediscipline of a 10-hour day, 10 days workthen two days off, plus a three-hour stintof night flying about once every threeweeks enables me to hone myproficiency. One month I worked 89flights, over 130 flying hours, and about

twice that much time in ground work withmy students.”

Like Stein, I felt that this was a placewhere each person was a part of a wellorchestrated effort. People played theirroles well, and they knew it. Livermore’sproduction of pilots and the safety recordwere the best in the primary command.Instructors flew two to five 1.5-hoursessions daily. I averaged more than 80tough instructing hours in the air eachmonth, a more normal rate than Stein’s,Many hours teaching on the ground wentunrecorded.

C a d e t l i v e s w e r e o r d e r e d b ydemanding rules.

“Cadets are to form details and returnto barracks following noon chow,” wasone.

“Cadets are required to attend allmusters for meal formations. They mustbe in full uniform and will be marched tothe mess hal l . I t is expected thatgentlemanly conduct will prevail in themess hall at all times. Cadets arerequired to have regulation haircuts,”were among the dozens of rules theylived by.

A contingent of Waves, as women inthe Navy were ca l led , served asmechanics, tower operators, link trainerinstructors and hospital corpsmen. Thealmost 200 women in uniform atLivermore held about every kind ofnonflying job.

Several Hollywood luminaries were atLivermore. The biggest was then reigningmat inee idol Robert Taylor. As alieutenant junior grade and a flightinstructor, he came from NAS NewOrleans a few weeks after me. His arrival,however, caused much larger fanfare:most o f t h e W a v e s , newspaperr e p o r t e r s a n d e v e n t h e s k i p p e rassembled to greet him.

Taylor flew cadets like the rest of us,and seemed to enjoy the flight and readyroom routine. He was accepted by hispeers, but orders soon moved him fromthe cockpit into movie-making for theNavy.

Military organizations thrive on “beingbest” and work hard at this. The approachthat “I am better than you and we arebetter than they” can inspire esprit decorps. It also can be counterproductive.

Livermore people fit into a well definedorder. Other distinctions sometimes gotout of hand. Officers were “black shoe”or “brown shoe,” according to the shoecolors of nonaviation or aviation types;USN or USNR designated regular orreserve. Officers were Naval Academygraduates or from NROTC, directlycommissioned or “90-day wonders.“ Thewartime mix of people were unconcernedand unaware of such distinctions exceptfor an immature, insecure few whoextended the “being best” syndrome toabsurdity.

Almost everybody at Livermore wasreserve and brown shoe. There were AV-(N) aviators, those commissioned aftercadet training, and AV-(T) aviatorscommissioned by some other route.Some individuals of each kind, wearingthe same uniform and doing the samejob, thought the others inferior andattempted to prove it.

A friendly encounter occurred late inthe war. Jack Stackpool, an AV-(T), wasnow a dive-bomber pilot aboard the newYorktown. During a recreation period at afleet anchorage in the Western Pacific,Stackpool met Al Glassow and FredWinkler, both AV-(N)s and formerLivermore instructors, now assignednonflying duties aboard the light carrierIndependence. While hosting Glassowand Winkler at dinner in Yorktown’swardroom, Stackpool took pleasure inreminding the pair that an occasional AV-(N) at Livermore had boasted that AV-(N)swould fly combat while AV-(T)s, likeStackpool, would stay home instructing.

Precision, the most overworked workin Naval Aviation, was always demandedin flight training. A course of 090 degreesmeant 090 degrees, not 089 or 091; analtitude of 1,500 feet was nothing less,nothing more; and a two-turn spin wasnot two and a quarter. The litany went onand on.

Precision is essential to hook thearresting wire on the flight deck. It was along way from primary training to carrierlandings, b u t a l l s t u d e n t s w e r econsidered potential carrier pilots.Precision landing fundamentals weretaught through S-turns to a 200-footcircle, slips to the same circle, and smallfield procedures using a combination ofthem both.

A pig farm adjacent to one auxiliary

field was designated for circle work. Thestench of the hogs kept use of this facilityto a minimum. Instructors never used itfor goofing off while students practicedsolo as was sometimes done at others ofthe 12 Livermore outlying fields.

One instructor at a field with good airsent his student off with orders to makesix landings, then return for him. Theteacher joined his buddies lolling nearthe circle and lighted a cigarette. In time,the cadet returned, landed and stoppednear the group. His instructor climbed infront, took the controls, and poured onthe coal. Only when airborne did thedauntless instructor realize that therewas insufficient distance to clear thetrees at the edge of the field. Twobattered flyers and one less Stearmanwent into the records.

Another instructor on another dayreturned to the station after a routineflight. He picked up the next cadet, butdidn’t refuel because the gas truckwasn’t handy and the visual read that histank had sufficient fuel for another flight.Instructor and student did their thing.Later, they landed at an auxiliary fieldnear a circle where the instructor got outgiving the student the routine orders to“do six” and return. On the cadet’s fifthtakeoff, h is engine qui t . The N2Sbounced into the fence out of gas. Thegauge had been stuck when viewedearlier. After that, no flight went outwithout a full tank.

Old friend Lieutenant Ralph Nicholswas a practical joker. While teachingslow rolls, Nick would mutter into hisgosport about a faulty seat belt. After aseries of such complaints, he’d order thestudent to do a slow roll. While the cadetconcentrated on the roll, Nick ducked outof sight below the cockpit combing.Finishing the roll, the cadet would misshis instructor and make steep turnslooking for an opened chute. Nicholswould then sit up and demand to knowwhat was going on.

He tried the drill once too often wheninstead of an excited student doing turns,the Stearman rolled, started the expectedturns, then fell into a spiral. Nichols tookcontrol, leveled out, and growled at thecadet. Only then did he notice the empty

Link trainer room at NASLivermore, Calif., in 1944.

Trainer operators were Waves.

rear seat and his student ’s openparachute.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Neal Kayeowed his life to a parachute and toincredible luck. An instructor at NASMemphis, he was scheduled to give astudent check when he picked up his mailin the ready room. Late for his flight, hejammed the mail into the leg pocket of hisflight coveralls and ran to the flight line.

Kaye and waiting cadet climbed intothe Stearman, whereon the student wasordered to take it up to 5,000 feetallowing plenty of time for Kaye to readhis mail. Engrossed by his reading, Kayneglected to fasten his seat belt.

“Let’s see a slow roll to the left,” heordered after reaching altitude. The cadetentered the roll. Kaye fell out of theStearman. Cursing his neglect, he pulledthe rip cord and the chute popped open.For reasons unknown, the cadet did asplit-S out of the roll to bring theStearman roaring back at the fallinginstructor. A wing entangled the openedchute canopy jerking Kaye partially out ofhis only partially hooked-up harness.

Kaye’s time hadn’t come. The chuteslipped of f the wing, the canopybillowed open for a second time. Kayedangled by his knees from the harnessuntil dumped into a soft, plowed field.Unhurt, he bundled up the silk, walked toa nearby road and hitched a ride back tothe base. There are days when a guy can’tlose.

After some months, instructing couldget boring, but the Stearman was fun tofly upside down. Unfortunately, after afew seconds inverted, the engine would

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Vultee SNV-1 “Vibrator” near NAS Bunker Hill, Ind., winter 1944-45. Lt. Matthew H. Portz,USNR, is at the controls.

quit when gas flowing from the tank inthe upper wing obeyed the law of gravityto starve the carburetor. A half roll orsplit-S into upright position would makethe fuel flow again and restore the engineto life. A favorite spot for the upside downgame was at the east end of theLivermore Valley above U.S. 50, whereair traffic was sparse. One half rolledonto his back while dropping the nose tomaintain speed. Life seemed brighterlooking up rather than down at theCalifornia countryside.

An unforgivable sin was “flat-hatting,”whether by cadets or bored instructors.“Hot pilots” liked to be seen, not caught.Those with bad luck, or stupid enough tomake a second low pass, frequently hadtheir numbers reported. Those with noluck became fatalities after encounterswith wires, trees and box canyons.

In an attempt to control flat-hatting,some training stations placed stories innearby newspapers asking citizens toreport in writing the time, place andnumber of any sighting where the largenumber of planes could be read from theground. Presumably, the time and placeinformation would separate legitimateflyers from flat-hatters. I don’t know ifthis system worked, but it did generatemore circumspection and fewer passes.

In 1944, the Douglas SBD Dauntlessdive-bomber was being replaced by theCurtiss SB2C Helldiver in the fleet. SomeSBDs were sent to L ivermore forinstructors to fly to help relieve theroutine. The Dauntless, hero of the Battleof Midway, had flown from the decks ofEnterprise and Yorktown on June 4,1941, to bomb and sink the Japanesecarriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu. Noplane could have been better suited tomake primary instructors feel like fleetaviators.

Checkout procedure was simple. First,one read the handbook, then sat in the

cockpit with the book until he felt familiarwith instrument and control locations. Hethen scheduled himself to fly.

Powered by a 1,000-horsepowerWright Cyclone engine, the SBD was alow-wing monoplane with cockpits forpilot and gunner. A wide landing gearmade the SBD easy to set down.Dauntless checkoff lists were typical ofsingle-engine operational aircraft of theperiod. The pilot concerned himself withthe propeller pitch control, fuel mixtureand fuel tank selection, trim tabs, wheelposition up or down, tail wheel lock, cowlflaps, oil cooler scoop, blower speed, andcarburetor air.

Also available was the Curtiss SNC-1Falcon, a handsome little airplane withthe trim lines of a combat trainer. Its 450-horsepower Wright Whirlwind engineand weight, only 3,200 pounds, providedperformance which made the SNCpopular with instructors.

Each primary training base had itsshare of seamen awaiting cadet status.Called “tarmacs,” these eager beaversflew as passengers whenever possible. Atarmac was in the seat behind me in anSNC when we taxied from the flight line,performed the usual run-up and magnetocheck, and moved into takeoff position.When cleared by the tower, I poured thecoal to the Whirlwind, took off and raisedthe wheels. Easing back the throttle andprop pitch control to normal climb, theFalcon performed normally until about400 feet where things turned sour.Engine power dropped and white smokebillowed through the cockpit.

Instinctively, I lowered the nose, addedthrottle, and looked for a way to getaround the eucalyptus trees ahead andinto the hayfield beyond should theengine stop. The open cockpit canopykept the smoke moving outside. I shouted“Mayday,” my shaking feet beating atattoo on the rudder pedals. The engine

continued to pour smoke, running rough,but running. I elected to try a landing backon the field. On the downwind leg, Idropped the wheels and cranked downthe flaps. Fire trucks and an ambulancestreaked toward the landing mat witht h e i r l i g h t s b l i n k i n g a n d s i r e n sscreaming.

The engine kept going. I turned baseleg and onto final approach, made asmooth landing, and cut the switch. Atthe end of rollout, the tarmac and Iscampered out to the ground while thefiremen smothered the fire. The tarmac, acool model of correctness, stepped upand with no attempt at humor said, “Sir,that was a great flight, but too short. Willwe be able to go up again soon?”

“With guys like this, we’re bound towin the war,” I thought, sitting down tostop shaking.

Livermore’s sister base at Grosse Ile,Mich., on the Detroit River had aGrumman J4F Widgeon on its flight line.This light, twin-engine amphibian wasflown by instructors as a relief fromteaching chores. The Widgeon w a snever, repeat never, to be landed onwater.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Jim Gibbonshad other ideas and had a Celtic distastefor rules. After enough flights to feelconfident, he headed over Lake Eriebeyond where anyone would see him. Hedid what he came to do; he landed on thelake.

His was a beautiful demonstration offlying skill, but water came squirting intothe hul l through loose r ivets andcoun t l ess o t h e r h o l e s . P r o m p tapplication of full power to both enginesgot Gibbons airborne. Had he taken onmuch more water, he and the Widgeoncould have established permanentresidence in Lake Erie.

Lieutenant Jim West, the operationsofficer at Livermore, headed a committeewh ich se lec ted me to a t tend theInstrument Flight Instructors School(IFIS) at NAS Atlanta. This was awelcome change. After four weeks inGeorgia, I would return to Livermore toteach ins t rumen t f l y i ng to o the rinstructors. I reported at Atlanta a weekafter D-Day in Europe.

Theory and practice of instrumentflight, daily workouts in the Link trainerflight simulator, and accumulation of airtime in the Howard NH-l and the NorthAmerican SNJ Texan left no time forother activities in Georgia. The three-place, 4,350-pound Howard, built as aninstrument trainer, had the feel of a

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Cadets at flight assignment board, NAS Memphis, 1943.

heav ie r a i r c ra f t . Th is h igh -w ingmonoplane was a derivative of the“Mister Mulligan” which before the warhad won both the Thompson and BendixTrophies. The SNJ was a two-place, low-wing monoplane powered by a 550-horsepower Pratt and Whitney Waspengine. Gross weight was 5,300 pounds.Like the Stearman, this was anotherplane that was enjoyable to fly with fewrestrictions on what a pilot could do withit.

W i t h a n I F I S d i p l o m a a n d a ninstrument card in my wallet, I departedAtlanta for Livermore in a commercialDouglas DC-3 airliner. In Birmingham, Iwas bumped from the flight by otherswith higher priority, but was soon on myw a y a g a i n w i t h h e l p f r o m t h eBirmingham Army Air Base. At Armyflight operations I hitched a ride toWichita with a pilot flying a twin-engineDouglas B-18 bomber, very much like theDC-3 but built for bombing. The pilot, aLieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets,enthusiastically told me about the BoeingB-29 Superfortress he regularly flew.Remembering him was easy more than ayear l a te r when the newspapersannounced his delivery of the atomicbomb at Hiroshima.

I hitched another ride aboard a NorthAmerican B-25 Mitchell bomber andenjoyed helping fly it to the West Coast.Back at Livermore, my business wasinstructing instructors. Howards and theVultee SNV-1 Valiant, better known asthe “Vibrator,” were my tools.

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The SNV-1 was a single-engine, two-place, low-wing monoplane equippedwith fixed landing gear, and manuallyoperated wing flaps. The Vibrator waspowered by a 450-horsepower Pratt andWhitney engine. Gross weight was 4,600pounds. It was a “blah” airplane.

M y i n s t r u m e n t i n s t r u c t i n g a tLivermore lasted but two months andlittle more than 100 hours in the air.During those months another 100 hourswere flown fl ight checking primarycadets and making two aircraft deliveryflights to Oklahoma. Livermore was toclose as a primary base in October 1944because of lowered quotas for new pilots.Instructors over age 30 would beassigned other duties. Younger ones whohadn’t completed a Year and a half ofinstructing would be transferred to otherprimary stations.

Autumn leaves in farmland woodlotswere past their peak when I checked intomy new station, NAS Bunker Hill, Ind.Thousands of miles away near thePhilippines the greatest sea battle inhistory was being fought. At the Battle ofLeyte Gulf, we traded six warships for 34,including three battleships and fouraircraft carriers, lost by the Japanese.

In contrast, life in Indiana was almostserene and presented a resemblance tonormalcy punctuated by not infrequentStearman crashes into the cornfields.The base, until the war, had been 2,158acres of prime agriculture land, five milessouth of the Wabash River.

Bunker Hill was larger than Livermore

with four 5,000-foot concrete runways inaddition to a mat and 19 auxiliary fields,Three hundred planes, 350 officers and2,300 enlisted men and women wereassigned. There were 1,000 cadets, 400from the British Royal Navy.

British cadets had nine months ofprel iminary training in the UnitedKingdom before arriving at Bunker Hill.The English selection process after fouryears of war was not as discriminating asours. The British students washed out ata l m o s t t h r e e t i m e s t h e r a t e o fAmericans and twice as many as ourswere killed in accidents during my tour.

Statistics about training accidentscompared to those in the fleet areunavailable. My guess is that there weremore of the former. The sheer size ofoverall Navy flight statistics for 1945 isimpressive. That year, 15.5 million hourswere flown. More than 13,000 majoraccidents occurred; half resulted indestroyed aircraft. The more than 3,000fatalities were at the rate of 20.5 per100,000 hours flown. In the jet age 40years later, Navy flying is much safer. Asof December 1, 1985, during more thantwo million flight hours, there were 75major accidents with 75 aircraft lost and88 fatalities — a rate of only 3.75 perper 100,000 hours.

During the frigid 1944-45 winter, Iaveraged only 41 hours instrumentinstructing monthly. There was timeto check out in the Beech GB-2,officially the Traveler, but always calledthe GB or Staggerwing. This clean littlefive-place biplane, with upper wing aft ofthe lower, climbed 500 feet with choppedthrottle from cruising speed of about 150knots before a glide attitude had to beassumed.

Indiana’s winter demanded all possibleattempts to keep warm. Some new N2S-5s were winter ized wi thout muchsuccess with pexiglass canopies. Pilotsand students dressed in boots, wool-lined gloves, “iron pants and jacket,“ andhelmet — all heavy sheepskin with thewool inside. The combination restrictedthe wearer’s movement much as thearmor on the knight of old.

In spite of precautions, winter addedhazards to flight. Frost, snow, sleet, iceand rain made accidents happen, and theinstructors curse the politicians that put aprimary base in Indiana. Carburetor icingcould cause engines to quit and ice onwings destroyed airfoils. At least oneN2S crashed after takeoff because frosthad not been removed from its wings.

In February, the base was inspected bythe Assistant Secretary of the Navy for

Air, Artemus Gates, and Vice AdmiralAubrey Fitch, Deputy Chief of NavalO p e r a t i o n s ( A i r ) . P e r h a p s a s aconsequence of this visit, I was assignedfour initial A-stage cadets, my first sincereporting to Bunker Hill. I put on cold-weather gear and was back in aStearman cockpit. Instructor trainingwas deemphasized to make up for lostflying time. Spring more than doubledJanuary’s flight hours to almost 31,000in March and to 26,000 each in April andMay.

The closing o f L i ve rmore andsubsequent events at Bunker Hi l lsignaled that the war was winding down.Those of us at my level didn’t read thesigns. We could be excused. At thistime, fighting in Europe and the Pacificwas at its bloodiest.

March 1945 saw Japanese resistanceon Iwo Jima crushed. U.S. fighter planesfrom the island and fast carrier taskforces operated at Japan’s front door.Tokyo was incinerated by B-29s and, atmonth’s end, the invasion of Okinawahad begun. In Europe, U.S. Army troopscrossed the Rhine at Remagen to swarminto Hit ler ’s dis integrat ing Reich.President Roosevelt died in April.

The shortage of pilots for the war hadnow been eliminated. Attrition amongstudents had been increasing by plan fora year. With the end of the war in sight,cadet washout rates climbed. Thegranting of extra instructional time tothose who f lew downchecks wasseverely restricted. Extra instruction tosmooth out flight deficiencies formerlyhad been routine. This had changeddrastically; many who earlier would havecompleted the course no longer made it.

In April, I flew to Patterson Field nearDayton, Ohio, and took a bus to WrightField a few miles away.

“I saw my first helicopters,” I wrotehome, excited about the new machines.“These things look like dragonflies inflight. Most amazingly they can hover inthe air and land right in their parkings p o t ! I a l s o s a w a c a p t u r e dMesserschmitt 109 fighter plane whichI’d love to fly.” As an afterthought, Iadded, “Flying weather was beautiful,but a bit windy.” The instructor in merevealed itself again.

Events continued to overtake evenflight instructors. In early May, the baseshifted to a work schedule of six days onwith Sundays off, rather than the morestrenuous 10 and two.

On May 7, 1945, the Germanssurrendered to General Eisenhower atRheims. A week later, the last group of

British cadets entered Bunker Hill. Thewar was running down.

At 0830, May 8, the executive officer,Lieutenant Commander Roscoe White,called all hands together to observe VEDay. He read expressions of gratitudefrom our national leaders for the victoryin Europe and of their determination toquickly defeat the Japanese in thePacific. I flew as usual with Cadets Harrisand Dupuis that day, and joined the manytoasts to victory that evening at theofficers club.

A few days later, after 17 months ofinstructing, I received orders to a“refresher” course for my return to thefleet, this time as an aviator. I thoughtthis was as promised when I left my oldship Elliot. But, with others such as me, Iwas put into a holding pattern at NASDallas until it was clear whether or notwe would be needed against Japan.Those of us on hold were experienced,young and eager.

Years later when top secret war planswere declassified, I understood what theholding pattern was about. The JointChiefs of Staff in Washington had plansto invade southern Japan the first ofNovember 1945, and four months later,the Tokyo Plain was to be occupied. Some2,700 ships would have participated,more than 100 of them aircraft carriers.Young flight instructors could easily andquickly have been trained as replacementpilots to meet the invasion schedule.

At Dallas we were assigned to busywork flying 10 to 15 hours a month in themiserable Vultee SNV “Vibrator!” I hadtime to watch an impromptu dogfightbe tween a No r th Amer i can P -51Mustang and a Ryan FR-1 Fireball overHensley Field. The heretofore secretFireball was powered by a reciprocatingengine w i t h p r o p e l l e r u p f r o n tsupplemented by a jet engine in its tail.The Ryan introduced itself to onlookerswith a high-speed, low-altitude pass, itsprop dramatically feathered. It took awhile to comprehend my first look at a jet.

By now, I too realized that the war wasnearing an end. Hiroshima was struckwith the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945,by the Enola Gay piloted by the sameColonel Tibbets I had hitched a ride withfrom Birmingham to Wichita in July1944. Nagasaki was hit on August 9;most hostilities against Japan ceasedAugust 14; and Japan s igned thesurrender September 2. I celebrated VJDay, August 14, by sharing a bottle ofSouthern Comfort with friends. We didnot go downtown where four years ofrepressed joy neared riot proportions.

Captain Leonard Dow, Dallas skipper,called people on base together August 15for an official announcement of war’send and to pay tribute to the dead. NorthAmerican Aviation closed its plant atDallas that same day. Since June 1941,4,500 SNJs had been delivered to theNavy from this plant. Between countrymusic tunes, local radio stat ionsinstructed employees where to pick upfinal paychecks. The Bomber Cafe, acrossthe street from the plant, was packedwith happy ex-plane builders. Peace wasdelightful, possibilities unlimited.

Like the airplane builders, thousandsof Naval Aviators would soon makecareer changes. The U.S. Navy trained64,770 of its own and Allied aviatorsduring the 1941-1945 war years, Fewwould be needed now that the fightingwas over. Unemployed Naval Aviatorswere introduced to a system in whichpoints were assigned for age, service andtime at sea. Those with a specifiedaccumulation were expected to go intothe inactive Naval Reserve at once. Someapplied for regular Navy commissionsand kept on with their flying until theirapplications were processed. Aviationcadets in the preflight stage of the systemwere offered the options of continuingtraining or going to inactive duty. Thosein primary or intermediate training couldcontinue, take immediate inactive duty,or complete the course and then goinactive.

I went home with 73 days’ accumulatedleave wearing my “ruptured duck,” abrass lapel badge displaying a stylizede a g l e w h i c h w a s i s s u e d t o a l ldemobilized U.S. servicemen. Soon afterarrival, I received a personalized letter asd id a l l demob i l i zed o f f i ce rs f romSecretary of the Navy James Forrestal.His letter summarized the satisfactionsand beliefs of most about his or herparticipation in the war.

“You have served in the greatest Navyin the wor ld,” wrote Forrestal. “Itcrushed two enemy fleets at once,receiving their surrenders only fourmonths apart. It brought our land-basedair power within bombing range of theenemy, and set our ground armies on thebeachheads of final victory.... No otherNavy at any time has done so much. Foryour part in these achievements, youdeserve to be proud as long as you live.”

We were proud indeed. I was to flymany more hours and to wear the Navyuniform for more years, which broughtadventures at sea with the fleet and inthe air, but never again as a flightinstructor. n

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A new chapter in Naval Aviationhistory was wri t ten in 1973 whenSecretary of the Navy John W. Warnerannounced a test program to train femalestudent Naval Aviators.

The program was initiated to test awoman’s performance as a Naval Aviatoronce assigned to a helicopter or transportsquadron in a noncombat flying billet.The eight women selected completed 18months of training and served six monthsin flying billets,

Four of the women were already Navyofficers on active duty and began flighttraining on March 2, 1973, at NASPensacola, Fla. Four civilian collegegraduates were also identified. Theywere commissioned on May 16 afterattending Navy Officer Candidate School(OCS) in Newport, R.I., and reported toPensacola on June 4 for flight training.

Six of the eight women received theirWings of Gold. They were LieutenantJunior Grade Barbara Ann Allen Raineyoriginally of Bethesda, Md.; LieutenantJunior Grade Judi th Ann Neuf fer ,Wooster, Ohio; Ensign Jane M. SkilesO’Dea, Ames, Iowa; Ensign Joellen DragCastro Valley, Calif.; Ensign Anna MarieFuqua, Williamsport, Pa.; and EnsignRosemary B. Conatser, San Diego, Calif.

Barbara Ann Al len entered theprogram as a Navy officer. She hadserved on the staff of the Supreme AlliedCommand, Atlantic in Norfolk. Her fatherwas a Navy commander and she was ag r a d u a t e o f W h i t t i e r C o l l e g e i nCalifornia. She was the first of her classto win her Wings of Gold, becoming thefirst female Naval Aviator.

Judith Ann Neuffer came to the Navyby way of Ohio State University. She wasalso a Navy officer on active duty whenaccepted for flight training. Her fatherhad been an Army Air Corps combat pilotin WW II and taught her to fly a Piper Cubwhen she was 16. After becoming a pilot,Neuffer was the Navy’s first womanmember of the Hurricane Hunters atJacksonville and the first woman to flyinto the eye of a hurricane.

Jane M. Skiles was recruited fromcivilian life after graduation from IowaState University with a degree in politicalscience. Her father was a Naval Aviator inWorld War II and her mother was areserve Navy Supply Corps officer duringthe war.

Joellen Drag’s father was a Navycommander. She came into the programas a civilian, a graduate of California

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Women inthe TrainingC o m m a n dBy JOC Bill W. Love

State College with a degree in politicalscience.

Anna Marie Fuqua came from a strictlycivilian background. Her father was a civilengineer. She had graduated from theUniversity of California and already had aprivate pilot’s license when a Navyrecrui ter i n t e r e s t e d h e r i n t h eopportunity to become one of the Navy’sfirst female aviators.

Rosemary B. Conatser’s father hadbeen in the Air Force and her mother inthe Navy Nurse Corps during WW Il.Rosemary earned her private pilot’slicense at 17 and graduated from PurdueUniversity with a degree in aviationtechnology. She had FAA flight engineerand pilot ratings.

After the original group, flight trainingwas discontinued for female studentNaval Aviators until the success of theprogram could be evaluated.

In 1975, the Chief of Naval Operationsauthorized a second class of fl ighttraining for women. Out of this class ofeight, one student dropped out and onecontinued in flight training. The six whoearned their wings were Catherine C.Mills Gehri, Mary C. Giza, Mary L.Jorgensen, Jean F. McCaig Rummel,Donna L. Spruill and Linda E. Vaught.

These women and the others whofollowed came from varied backgrounds,as did the first group. But background andcollege education do not transformcivilians into capable officers. Military

and specialized training, and experience,are the tools which make the transition areality. What the women had in commonwere motivation, character, competenceplus adaptability, dedication, and lots ofperseverance.

The third class of women in flighttraining was different. It was the firstclass at the Aviation Officer CandidateSchool (AOCS) in Pensacola to includewomen. The school had previously beenopen only to male candidates. Instead ofmaking the transition from civilian life tobasic aviation at Officer CandidateSchool in Newport and then progressingto Pensacola for flight training, as in thepast, the women candidates reporteddirectly to the Naval Aviation SchoolsCommand, Pensacola for 16 weeks ofaviation officer candidate training.

The first six women to graduate fromAOCS received their commissions onFebruary 18, 1975. Barbara C. Habedank,Sue Ann Mason and Patricia Wellingremained in Pensacola to begin flighttraining; Cecilia Frau and Denise Ackleybecame air intelligence officers afterattending a 20-week course at the ArmedForces Air Intelligence Training Center atLowry AFB, Colo.; Marlene Simmonsattended the Naval Air Technical TrainingCenter, Memphis, Tenn., and NavalSupply Corps School, Savannah, Ga.,prior to her first assignment at NASWhidbey Island, Wash.

Women successfully completing flight

Above, Ltjg. Joellen Drag sits in the cockpit of a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter. Oppositepage: left, Ltjg. Barbara Ann Allen, the first woman to be designated a Naval Aviator,receives part of her flight equipment; right, Lt. Colleen Nevius, the first woman graduate ofthe U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

training are assigned a 131X designatorand are required, as are all aviators, toserve four and one-half years on activeduty after designation.

Opportunities are limited by Section6015 of Title 10, U.S. Code — WomenMembers, which states that “TheSecretary of the Navy may prescribe themanner in which women of f icersappointed under section 5590 of thistitle, women warrant of f icers andenlisted members of the Regular Navyand the Regular Marine Corps shall betrained and qualified for military duty.The Secretary may prescribe the kind ofmilitary duty which women membersmay be assigned and the mi l i taryauthority which they may exercise.However, women may not be assigned toduty in aircraft that are engaged incombat missions or assigned to duty on

Navy vessels except for hospital shipsand transports. August 10, 1956, C .1041, 70A, Stat. 375.”

Recently, Congress changed the codeto al low women to deploy aboardcombatant ships temporarily for up to sixmonths. Nevertheless, female aviatorsare generally assigned to noncombatantfleet logistics support squadrons and totraining squadrons as flight instructors.

Though the restrictions remained,other opportunities became available. In1973, for example, the Air Traffic ControlOfficer School at NAS Glynco, Ga.,admit ted i ts f i rs t woman student,L ieu tenan t Jun io r Grade She l l eyRobinson.

In 1976, Lieutenant Sharon McCuebecame the first woman designated anAviation Maintenance Duty Officer(AMDO). It took three tries and three

years’ effort to change her 1100 surfacewarfare designation to the 1520 AMDO.Her third application was approved afterthe maintenance designator and severalother restricted line specialties wereopened to women.

When Janna Lambine, a geologygraduate and daughter of a retired Navycommander, was admit ted to thepreviously all-male Coast Guard OfficerCandidate School, in Yorktown, Va., shehad no idea that she would become theCoast Guard’s first female pilot. While atOCS, she applied for flight training andwas accepted. On March 4, 1977, shewas designated a Naval Aviator at NASWhiting Field, Fla., and was assigned tofly helicopters for the Coast Guard.

Brenda E. Robinson was anotherwoman who attained “first” status inNaval Aviat ion. She received hercommission through the Aviation OfficerCandidate program and on June 5, 1980,became the first black female NavalAviator.

In 1983, Lieutenant Colleen Nevius,became the first woman to graduate fromthe U.S. Naval Test Pilot School atPatuxent River, Md., and afterwardsspent two years as a rotary-wing testpilot.

The daughter of Captain William B.Nevius, USN (Ret.), Colleen attendedPurdue Un ive rs i t y on the ROTCScholarship Program (which had thenrecently opened its membership towomen). She graduated with a degree inmanagement i n 1 9 7 7 a n d w a scommissioned an ensign.

Ensign Nevius went on to CorpusChristi, Texas, for flight training. She didher primary and advanced training in theT-28 Trojan and later went through thehelicopter pipeline. Her first tour wasw i th He l i cop te r Comba t Suppo r tSquadron 6 at NAS Norfolk, Va. Whilethere, Nevius applied for TPS because it“sounded like a challenging tour.”

She added that graduation from TPSrequires “time, perseverance, desire tosurvive, talent, dedication and dozens ofother qualities and intangibles much toocomplex to list.

“TPS was very difficult, especiallywhen patience was required,” saidNevius, “but it was most satisfying tocomplete.”

Whatever the future holds, women willcontinue to prove their ability to train andperform just as well as men. And, whenthe laws are changed, female NavalAviators will be ready to fly with theirmale counterparts in the world’s finestNavy. n

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