Adventures of an Airman
By Anthony T. Schimmel
Splasher Six Volume 33, Fall 2002, No. 3
Cindy Goodman, Editor
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Ken Parsons, Jr., has a column in the Pine Bluff
(Arkansas) News "A few weeks ago I proposed a ‘War Story Club’ for
veterans, with dues being one written story about life in the
military service. The Number One membership card goes to my longtime
friend, Anthony T. Schimmel, who sat down and sketched out his
military career in relatively few words. While HIS service life was
unique, it is also somewhat typical of the millions of young men who
were uprooted and sent off to fight a war. Tony is our guest writer
today. He begins as a boy in the 1930s."
Model airplane building was a great way to spend
nights and weekend with neighboring boys of my own age.
Six of us "kids" worked on the
rubber-band-powered flying models from 10 years of age to about 15
or so. The Gypsy Moth, Hell Diver, Falcon, and SE-5 were favorites.
Balsa wood, glue, paper, and wheels were put together . . . and they
flew! Bend the rubber and it would go in a circle and land in
the living room. Release the Hell Diver with a nose cone and it
would power dive onto the floor, then fall to its wheels and take
off!
In 1937, reading about the YB-17 in Seattle, I
kept up with the newer models as Boeing built them.
I tried to enlist . . . Navy submarines, Coast
Guard . . .but failed because of color blindness, so waited until I
was drafted in 1943 and chose Air Corps. After my mechanic’s work
and model building and hunting was on my record, I was sent to
Amarillo after basic at Miami Beach.
I volunteered to unmask at 35,000 feet in a
pressure chamber, counted down to 15, and passed out. Full "oxy"
brought me back still counting. Shot 24 of 25 birds on Clay Pigeon
Road …and had a live shell left. Shot a sleeve AND an AT-6 full of
holes with a camera gun. They told me to "lead" the sleeve.
I had a 15-day Delay En Route furlough from Las
Vegas to Tampa, only I spent FIFTEEN days at home in Wisconsin. My
punishment for being AWOL was to miss the first replacement group
and go with the second group, a big B-17 group.
We got caught in a slip stream taking off right
behind another plane and was looking right at Tampa at sea level.
Co-pilot took the plane to the right, almost dipping a wing into the
water. After climbing, the tail-gunner said, "Get this thing up, my
feet are getting wet!"
Searchlights caught us in Savannah and co-pilot
dove right at them to about 3,000 feet, pulled out to level, and
lost the lights over the sea. We pulled back home, a night flight to
New Orleans, no sweat, only the navigator would NOT get lost so we
could land there.
New York City, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, Elizabeth
City, and then on the Billy Mitchell transport over the North
Atlantic. Submarine drills and as can explosions, cargo ships with
P-38s lashed on deck, all but under the smoke stack. War ship riding
like a cork. Finally the "unsinkable aircraft carrier," England. A
night at Stowe and then assignment to Thorpe Abbotts, the home of
the 100th Bomb Group. We didn’t’ know where to bunk. Sergeant said
wait till 5:00 p.m. There were a lot of vacancies that night.
Practice missions for a week…the milk run on
North Holland coast. Flack was light, but to a B-24 behind and below
it was too much. A burst of flame and it was in four pieces – wings
and body in different directions, the tail section slip-sliding
downward. No chutes.
Number Two was Schweinfurt – flak thick enough to
walk on. Left waist gunner hit in toe. Co-pilot with large piece
stuck into the windshield right in front of him. Number 3 engine hit
and feathered. Flat tire on landing and did a big loop on the grass
without touching a wing to the ground!
On runway running up engines I noticed a white
stream behind Number 1. Pilot slowed 1 and 2, and with my stubby
screwdriver I opened the gas hatch and saw the cap hanging off the
tank. Turned it on tight, relocked the flap, turned loose and slid
off the wing and away we went.
One morning on take off as we left the runway we
felt a shudder. We checked and the tail wheel lock pin was sheared
off. Before landing I crammed a plier handle into the lock pin hole.
On removing found the handle was almost sheared in two.
We got lost in the clouds over Regensburg and
followed a B-24 till he left us behind. Before the Channel came into
view, I transferred several gallons of gas from the outboard to the
inboard engines, trying to keep the tanks even. When we touched down
and rolled to the strip, Number 4 quit. We taxied in with the
inboards. Neither engine would have run another five minutes.
One trip to northern Germany left us with a bomb
after the drop. The front shackle turned loose but the back one
didn’t. My chest pack looked like the bomb would catch it, so it
went to my upper turret. I put in a pin to keep it safe and with my
right arm lifting the nose while leaning over an open bomb bay at
3,000 feet I turned the shackle with my stubby screwdriver and down
it went. Everybody, including me, gave a sigh of relief!
The pilot went to PFF and I was put to ground
crew. After a few weeks of learning the ropes I became crew chief of
the same crew I had flown on.
My pilot said he was sure his plane would be in
A-One shape with me checking it. Lock nuts always needed replacing
on exhaust ports. Gas hose was needing replacement. Supply house was
fresh out. Using the Captain’s jeep for transportation, I visited
the Overhaul Hangar. A four-foot piece of hose and my Jeep went to
my airplane. I never needed to ask supply for any more.
Two more air crews went through my hard stand.
First plane went down in Holland amid the tulips. No injuries, all
men home. Second crew made 35 trips over German and all went home.
Third crew made a few combat trips, then at war’s
end shuttled men to Casablanca, picked up some oil at Oran, then
back to England. I had to go as engineer. Then a trip to Germany
with airplane parts, pick up French prisoners to go to Nice.
Commandeered a truck and went to Marseille. Home again to make a
food to Holland. Then was flight chief of six B-17s to keep them
ready with daily start-ups and check-ups.
One morning, all six were gone. A.T.C. flew them
off. Books and all parts. Turned in my tool kit and waited for the
USS Enterprise to take me west.
The CV-6 was full of brass bands as we boarded
the most decorated carrier in the U. S. fleet. The Galloping
Ghost newspaper I helped mimeograph earned me an associate
membership. I visited one member in Montana in 1992.
So, I was Army Air Corps AND Navy at the same
time. Also, I was air crew man, ground crew chief, and like my
brother said, "He’d give his right arm to be in my shoes."
Sgt. A. T. "Tony" Schimmel
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