Dem
47
GOP
53
Our remembrance for today comes from R.A.K. in Alford, MA:
We have seen a series of war memoirs, which have been deeply affecting, and have emphasized the sacrifice, suffering, and occasional heroism of war. However, my family story relates to the other face of military service: the absurdity, silliness, and occasional inadvertent humor. First, a disclaimer. This is my recollection of stories told to me 50 years ago, which were even then memories of events from 30 years before. Further, my father was an honest man, but loved to tell a good story, and might not have allowed every little fact to interfere with that story. If any readers have expertise that contradicts the story, my apologies, and I hope the effect on your blood pressure is not too severe.
My father turned 17 in 1943, at the end of his sophomore year as a physics major at CCNY. It was the custom in the New York City schools to rush bright kids along. Unsurprisingly, he found himself intellectually but not emotionally prepared for college. It occurred to him that joining the army would be a great way to avoid having to study. The army had other ideas. They thought that training physicists was a great idea, and assigned him to continue classwork at Princeton under military discipline.
Since the idea had been to get away from books, he then responded to an air corps recruiting poster. In huge boldface type it said, "Join the Air Corps. Be a PILOT, BOMBARDIER, or NAVIGATOR." And in tiny little type at the bottom, "or gunner." At the time, the combat life of a gunner was measured in seconds, and the training programs for the skilled flight positions were filled for the foreseeable future. Those who responded to the recruitment ad were given a test that virtually everyone would fail and then became gunners. My father did eventually pass the test and became one of a small group of people that the army had no idea what to do with.
His first Air Corps assignment was to work on tests that would predict who would pass flight school. There were both physical and paper and pencil components. The army felt that it was critical that everyone who entered flight school should pass and become a pilot. Keeping a wand pointed at a spot on a turntable while being spun upside down in a gimballed chair, for example, would seem to be a useful test. No correlation with passing, as it turns out. The only consistent predictor was the question of how many books were in the candidate's library at home. Those who answered "seven" passed flight school. No one ever figured out whether they were selecting for candidates who actually owned exactly seven books or who just thought that the army would like that answer.
Eventually, the army decided that as a physicist, my father would understand weights, levers, and torque. They then sent him to Bakersfield to teach pilot candidates how to balance an airplane. For an hour a day he was a temporary captain so as to outrank the students. For the rest of the day he was a private, and the army assigned the New York kid who never owned a car to drive the radio van through winding mountain roads. This was clearly the most dangerous part of his entire military service.
This story was related to me as a series of stupid choices that almost got my father killed. There is a somewhat ironic coda, however. The university assignment appears to have been a program called ASTP. In Citizen Soldiers, Stephen Ambrose describes the army's decision in 1944 that they needed cannon fodder more than future leaders. ASTP was suddenly closed down, and these inexperienced and almost untrained kids were sent to the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge, where they were slaughtered. So, the decision to join the Air Corps, which my father considered the stupidest, most dangerous decision of all, probably saved his life. Good-bye Dad, may your memory always be a blessing.
Thank you, R.A.K. (Z)