Irving J. Schaffer
B-25 Gunner, Radio Operator, Aerial Photographer
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PREFACE
Why did I keep a day-to-day diary of my war service, when I
was clearly told not to do so? When I knew I could have charges brought
against me, if it was discovered. And here is my answer.
To have someone you love literally drop off the face of the
earth under mysterious circumstances, and no matter what efforts you make to
find out what, why, or when, no one will tell you anything. I watched my
parents change right before my eyes. Their pain was palpable. If they had been
told that my brother Jerome had been killed, even if his body didn’t come
home, they could have grieved through it and moved on with their lives as best
they could. But with quiet desperation they spent each day, each night
waiting, praying for some word, trying to get through one more day. The
unknown was almost more than any of us could take. And my brother’s twin
sister Merriam was especially affected. So was our other sister Geraldine and
my brother Elliott. And then after the Pearl Harbor surprise attack stunned
the nation, Elliott joined the Navy, doing dangerous anti-submarine warfare in
the North Atlantic.
And that is why I made the difficult decision to keep a
diary. If I didn’t come back, there was an even chance that my loose-leaf
notebook would make its way to my parents. They wouldn’t have one more
unbearable unknown. They could hold my writings in their hands and take some
comfort from reading my day-to-day entries, including what I ate, if I slept,
who I bunked with, who my comrades were, and the missions I flew.
And if by the grace of God Jerome were ever found, I could
give him my war history. Jerome was the good looking, muscular brother, the
brain of all the siblings, the artist and poet, the serious high level
thinker, and he intended to do serious writing.
Jerome had expected to go to the United States Military
Academy at West Point, passed all the exams well, but his vision kept him out.
So he joined the Army in February 1934 and, after considerable schooling in
radio communications and secret codes, became an accomplished cryptographer.
Highly capable, he was assigned to as an instructor at West Point, teaching
code and telegraphy. Then as pending war with Japan intensified, he was
transferred to the army base in Panama to decode intercepted secret Japanese
messages. Japan was telling Washington one story, but decoded messages told
quite a different story. With the war in Europe raging, and fear increasing
about Japan entering the war, decoding encrypted messages was our only way to
try and discover their true plans. Jerome couldn’t tell us about his work, but
he always wrote home. Then while traveling in Southern Mexico, carrying secret
information, twenty-nine year-old Jerome was killed or kidnaped. His last
letter was postmarked March 21, 1941.
No one could tell us anything. Two months later in
desperation I drove to Washington D.C. We lived in Amsterdam, New York, and
Congressman Crowder had made an appointment for me with Secretary of State
Cordell Hull. In fact, it was one of Mr. Hull’s assistants that met with me
and after four days of the run around, all he would say is "your brother is
missing." The State Department would say no more.
Like any big brother, Jerome taught me a lot. I admired him
and loved him. My dad had been a good athlete in boxing, ice skating, and bike
riding as a young man, and he liked to involve his sons in sports. I used to
put on 12-ounce boxing gloves and box with both my older brothers. In the
beginning I got pummeled. But thanks to their coaching, I learned to box well
enough that while in the Air Force overseas, I boxed with Hilly Excobar, the
amateur of old Mexico and a member of our squadron.
Another time I remember as if it were yesterday. We
hitchhiked and walked five miles to Healy’s Park to go swimming. I was ten
years old and Jerome and Elliott decided it was time for me to learn to swim.
They walked me out on the six foot diving board and made me jump. The minute I
hit the water, they dove in. I surfaced and they said, "Now keep kicking your
feet and make your arms pull you forward." At first I was scared, then they
guided me back to shore and asked me to try again. After the third time I
found myself swimming. I bet I jumped off that diving board a dozen times that
day.
The fear of losing a child was not new to my parents. They
almost lost Elliott when he was twelve years old. He was playing catch on the
way home from school and the ball landed in the middle of the street. Without
thinking, Elliott ran to grab it and was hit by two cars going in opposite
directions. I was only five, but I remember my mother answering the phone and
being told that Elliott was seriously injured and she must come to the
hospital immediately. I fell to the floor crying. Both his arms and legs were
broken, he had a fractured skull, and many other injuries. The doctors told my
parents to prepare themselves, because he might not make it. It was touch and
go for days, and he was in the hospital for a long time. He lived and
eventually Mother took him to a place called Sharon Springs in upper New York
state for rehabilitation. But none of us ever forgot that we almost lost him.
The draft board told me to get a job with General Electric
and they would call me when needed. We had lived in Amsterdam for many years
and the draft board knew about both of my brothers and did not want to take
the last son. So I went to work for General Electric in Schenectady, New York.
Because Jerome and Elliott both were in high tech radio communications, I
wanted to follow in their footsteps, so I became an inspector on the TCBY
radio receivers that were used in the navy patrol bombers in the Pacific. I
even won an award for locating a problem in the receivers, a critical issue
that was holding up receiver production.
I was called up in March of 1943 and began service in the
Army Air Force as a Technical Sergeant, and finished as a Staff Sergeant. A
combat gunner, radio operator, and aerial photographer, I completed sixty-five
combat missions in the Rome-Arno and Southern European Campaign, serving in
the 321st Bomb Group, 448th Bomb Squadron.
My basic training was in Miami Beach, Florida. Then in June
I was sent for six months of radio operator training at the Army Air Force
Base at Scott Field in Belleville, Illinois. In January 1944, I was shipped to
Columbia Army Air Base at Columbia, South Carolina, where we were assigned to
crews. Combat air crews are necessarily limited to a certain number of men, so
we were trained to perform more than one job. I trained to be a gunner, a
radio operator, and an aerial photographer. My earlier work with General
Electric had taught me much about communications technology, and I had a knack
for photography. Taking aerial photos during combat and bombing strikes
documents the events, gathers intelligence, and provides critical information
to our superiors who are responsible for planning the next mission.
As training neared completion, we started to match crews
for overseas. Matching crews was considered important as they tried to match
personalities that would work well as a unit. Flying combat is confining,
stressful, and dangerous; men needed to relate to, get along with, and trust
one another. I was trained for high altitude bombing in B-17s and passed all
the physicals, including pressure chambers up to 38,000 feet. When crews were
finally put together for overseas combat, I (like many others) was assigned to
B-25 medium bombers.
In mid-January 1944, I was sent to gunnery school at Myrtle
Beach, South Carolina. There we flew air to air missions (tow target-live
tracers), and air to water (75 mm cannon in left nose of B-25) to disrupt or
destroy freighters or other surface enemy water craft. All members of our crew
took turns operating the cannon. When the cannon was fired, the bomber almost
stood still for a fraction of a second. Every twenty-five flights the B-25 had
to go the repair depot to have the rivets tightened or replaced. When we fired
the 75mm cannon, we were only 50 to 100 feet above the ocean. There was no
room for error. After thirty days, I shipped back to Columbia. We got our act
together and on August 5, 1944, we pushed off for Morrison Field, West Palm
Beach, Florida, from which we would be shipped out to go overseas.
As the years have passed, in quiet moments I continued to
think about Jerome. Was he a prisoner somewhere? Had he been tortured, killed?
Occasionally I’d see someone who looked like Jerome, and I’d do a double take.
But, of course, it was not him. And as I got older I reflected more on my
childhood, the values taught me by my parents, and I came to value more and
more the kind of home I came from and the kind of country I grew up in. All of
that became a big part of who I was during my combat service and who I am
today.
My family was like many others. During the Stock Market
Crash of 1929, my father’s business went under and we lost all our money. I
learned a lot watching my parents deal with all that. I lived with my family
in a two-story home of which the upper story had to be rented out to bring in
money. When my dad’s parents came to live with us, it was really crowded. Nine
people, four bedrooms, and one toilet. Our middle class neighborhood home was
nicely furnished and we even still had the baby grand piano my father had
bought my mother. She played and so did Merriam. I guess you could say we were
a musical family. Some performed and others enjoyed.
I remember the warm summer nights we used to sit on our
front porch with friends and neighbors and listen to Elliott and his friend
Jim McKenny sing western songs and play guitars, mouth organs, and the jews
harp. They went on to do radio broadcasting at WGY, the General Electric
station in Schenectady, New York. After the war Elliott became a full
professor of Audiology at Fredonia State College in Fredonia, New York.
I was one of those kids who never took no for an answer,
who always questioned, who was a risk taker. I guess I got it from both my dad
Benjamin Schaffer, and my mother Jane Belloff Schaffer, and their immigrant
parents, who came from Russia and Germany in the late 1800s. And it was also
the freedom with which my parents raised me. Mother and Dad were always up
front with us. Although we went to Temple Beth Israel, we were not what I
would call religious. We all went to Sunday school, observed all the religious
holidays, and my mother would light candles every Friday evening at sundown.
Our mother did an exceptional job raising the family. She
packed a lunch for each of us to take to school and after school, she always
had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ready with a glass of milk. She
reminded me that my after school chores had to be done before I could play
ball. We were always cared for, and never heard her curse, show malice, or get
violently angry. Our home was always open to all our friends and many times if
it was near supper time, mother would ask if they would like to eat with us.
She always had room for more. Dad was equally as kind. Only one time did he
ever swat my behind and it had to do with a serious safety issue. My parents
never talked down to me and they never demeaned me. They taught us to be
responsible and at age eight my first job was shoveling snow in the immediate
neighborhood, and then I made money running errands for neighbors.
When I was in third grade, my teacher kept insisting I use
my right hand to write even though I was born left handed, as was my mother
and her father. I kept writing with my left hand and one day she took her
pointer and struck the back of my left hand. I had had enough. I grabbed it
away from her and smacked her back. She sent me to the principal’s office and
he sent me home. I explained to my mother what happened and she said, "Irving,
you and I are going back to school right now." We went directly to my
classroom and my mother told the teacher, "Irving was born left handed and you
are not to try to make him right handed." My mother defended me and I learned
early that it was okay to defend myself.
My father bought Elliott a 22-caliber rifle when he was
eighteen. I was thirteen at the time and was clearly told to leave the gun
alone. One day after school, I decided to try it out. I went up to the back
porch of our two story home, slid open the storm window, inserted a 22-long
rifle bullet, and aimed for the stink pipe on various neighbors’ roofs. I
managed to fire off about six rounds. Smugly satisfied, I put it away.
That evening when my father came home, he told us about a
call he had received from his good friend Chief of Police Cline, asking if
anyone in the family had a gun. My dad told him Elliott had a new 22 rifle. So
my father began asking Elliott if he had fired his gun in the neighborhood,
and he said, "No." Dad explained that someone had been firing a 22 rifle in
our neighborhood and a bullet came through a window where Mr. Rothmeyer was
sitting and listening to the radio at his Philco console, and the bullet
lodged in the console, missing Mr. Rothmeyer by about six inches. I was now
listening very intently because this was my doing.
My father had always told me, "If you tell me the truth I
will always defend you even though you may be wrong." Remembering this, I
spoke up. The next day I went to Chief Cline’s office with my father and the
rifle. The chief lectured me and there were no charges. My dad did not punish
me, but I felt I had learned a good lesson. I was really nervous and upset,
but I had told the truth.
Because Elliott was determined to rebuild his body after
his long ordeal of broken bones, he decided to take up weightlifting. My dad
was all in favor. It did not take long until he felt better and looked better.
In a year or so Jerome decided to give it a try, but he didn’t really need
weightlifting because he was born with a great looking body and the strength
to go with it. The next year, I started with the weights and wanted instant
muscles. After a few months, I was certain I was the strongest thing around.
As a matter of fact, Bob McCune lived about a mile from our
home in Carmichael Heights and he used to run past our home every day going to
and from school at St. Mary’s. One day I started to taunt him and after the
third day we got into a fist fight. Yes, I won and from that day on we became
good friends. The next day as Bob was running home from school, my brother
Elliott invited him to join us in the backyard to start lifting weights, and
he did. After 1940 we lost contact with each other.
Why do I tell the story? In 1950 I was living in St. Louis
and received a phone call from Bob and he said he would like to see me. I
asked what he was doing in St. Louis and he told me he was to wrestle Louis
Thez, the world champion wrestler, the next night at Kiel auditorium. I
invited him to meet me at the store and we would drive over to Belleville,
Illinois, meet with my wife Shyrle, and have supper. Wow! After not seeing Bob
for almost ten years, I could not believe my eyes. This guy that I beat in a
fist fight was now 6’2" 245 lbs., with a 54" chest and 34" waist. We talked
about old times and only later did I learn that Bob was Mister Universe,
wrestling under the name of Lord Tarelton.
In the early 1930s we used to play tennis in the street.
We’d put one person on each side of the street to hold the net, and we took
turns playing. A Judge lived two houses down from mine and would get furious
if the tennis ball ever landed on his front lawn. One day I hit a ball that
landed on his lawn. It just so happened that the Judge was sitting in his
rocking chair on his front porch. I went to retrieve the ball and the moment I
put my tennis shoes on his lawn, he got out of his chair and really lambasted
me. I listened for a moment, then picked up the ball, looked directly at his
face and told him "Go to hell." He immediately called my father at his
business and gave dad a full report. That evening when my father related the
call from the Judge, he asked me if it was true. I said, "Yes, and did he also
tell you that he lambasted me in front of my friends?" My dad was most
gracious in gently reprimanding me that I should not talk that way to the
Judge. But I could see my dad had his tongue in cheek and a little twinkle in
his eye.
In high school I was asked to join the fraternity Alpha
Beta Gamma along with Isadore Demskey (Kirk Douglas). I truly enjoyed the
comradeship and friends that I made in ABG. You know the Douglas story. My
last visit with him was in1959 in St. Louis when he was barnstorming the
country promoting his movie "The Indian Fighter." He was a natural all through
high school. I was most impressed with his success. I called him "Izzy"(short
for Isadore) and he and his family lived in a poor part of Amsterdam alongside
the railroad tracks. His father was a peddler with a horse and wagon. Of the
six children, Izzy was the youngest and the only son. Izzy was well liked and
served on many committees in high school. Because he was an excellent debater,
actor and student, the Rotary Club provided finances for his college
education.
I probably gave my parents the most headaches of all their
children. After graduating high school at sixteen, I was thrilled to be away
from a structured environment. It was like a bird leaving the nest. I camped
out and played most of the summer. After turning seventeen in August and
feeling very empowered, I made contact with a magazine crew in the fall that
was soliciting in Amsterdam and looking for recruits. I decided to join them.
When I came home and told my parents, I was asked all kinds of questions. I
said it was time to support myself. The crew manager, Jack Grimes, trained me
for a couple of days, then I packed my suitcase and said goodbye. My mother
was clearly upset and asked me not to do this. But my father understood me and
knew once I made up my mind, I would take the job.
Our first city was Syracuse, New York. The crew manager
would drop us off at various residential streets and we would go door to door
selling The Ladies Home Journal, Colliers, The Pathfinder,
Saturday Evening Post, etc. We would only be in a city for five days
and had to meet quotas. I didn’t write to my parents for about a week, so they
didn’t know where I was. My first day I made $10.00, and knew I was expected
to make at least $36.00 per week. We took care of our own expenses, food,
lodging, and I got along well with the other crew members. I was the youngest
and the most energetic and was always well received by people who came to the
door. And they often invited me to come into their home. We worked in New
York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky. In early December
my sales started to slip and I could not recover, and was let go.
We had just arrived in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, and there I
was without a job and only $30.00 in my pocket. It was cold and lonely, and it
took me two days to get to Buffalo, New York. I was just about broke. "Eating
Crow" is not easy, but I finally wired home for bus fare. I arrived on
Christmas day, sick, tired, and embarrassed. The first thing I did before I
entered our home was to bend down and kiss the snowy ground. I was welcomed
with open arms, and not one single member of my family chided me about my
adventure.
The many experiences I had growing up in a free country,
and in a home where I felt safe and loved and defended, shaped who I was and
who I would become, and how I would serve my country. Everyone in America knew
that World War ll would decide if Germany and Japan would rule the world – or
not.
The entire country was engaged in a war effort. Fathers,
sons, brothers, sisters, and others were out there fighting for their lives
and for the lives of everyone at home. And at home, people from all walks of
life were working in war-production industries that provided necessary
materials and equipment to those so far away.
What surprised me after the war was that not only could I
not show the diary to the very people I had written it for, my parents, I
could not even read the entries I had made. I could not attend war movies or
read books about war. And I could not fly in an airplane for many years. I
kept making entries for a few months after I was discharged, then I put it
away. And then the first year I was married, my wife gave premature birth to
twin boys, and both died. She was very ill, so I alone took care of the
burials. Fighting an internal whirlwind that nothing seemed to make better, I
tried to forget anything and everything connected with the war. My wife seemed
intrinsically to understand what I was going through, did not probe, and stood
by my side. Years passed, then decades. There was the Korean War, then
Vietnam, and others. Still I couldn’t talk about war.
The tragedy of 9/11 plunged me back in time and brought it
all back. I knew down deep that it was time for me to open the diary and read
it, face it, remember it. And maybe, just maybe, share it with my wife and two
daughters. So I began reading.
In late 2003, as the war in Iraq raged on, deep feelings of
empathy welled up in me for our troops, both in combat and what they faced
when they returned home. I wanted their families to know the important role
they needed to play when their soldier returned home. Maybe my story would be
helpful to them. So I began looking for a publisher and found one whose father
had served with the ground forces in Italy at the very same time and in the
very places where I few combat missions.
Many of the physical evidences of World War ll are long
gone, but my combat missions and all the tragedy I saw and experienced are
burned into my very being. In combat, the luxury of acknowledging your
feelings is not available. Instead of mentally and emotionally handling and
processing a traumatic event right after it occurs, the combat soldier must
store and store and store, one on top of another, stuffing them deeper and
deeper into a dark and inaccessible place. Until it feels as if it will all
explode. Even today, if I go deep enough, I find the humbling, terrifying,
deep grief of sixty years ago.
I remember well the young man in my squadron who committed
suicide. He just couldn’t take it any more. And coming back from a bombing
mission, there was the gunner who suddenly let loose on a bunch of civilians
down below. He was angry, and out of control in his rage.
During and after World War 11, little was known about the
ongoing effects of combat on a returning soldier. No one talked about it.
Returning soldiers had to get back to earning a living right away, for
themselves or for a family. The country was in the midst of a major
transition. Ceiling prices were still in effect, war effort jobs were no
longer needed, and thousands of men were returning and they all needed a job.
When I returned to the U.S., I was a wreck and knew it. But
I needed to maintain and present to others that I was okay, that I was ready
to get back to work and create a life. And I had Shyrle waiting for me, I
hoped.
In the Arizona Republic on March 27, 2004, Robert
Burns of the Associated Press, did an article entitled "Soldiers in Irac short
mental health support." Excerpts of the article follow:
Washington – The Army’s first-ever survey of mental health
in a combat zone showed that soldiers in Iraq last year suffered from low
morale, high stress and holes in the Army’s support system. . . .
Seventeen percent of soldiers were assessed as suffering
traumatic stress, depression or anxiety and were deemed to be "functionally
impaired." Of that group, about three-quarters said they had received no help
at any time in Iraq from a mental health professional, a doctor or a chaplain.
. . .
The point I wish to make is this. When fighting a war, the
first goal is to win, and everyone knows to expect casualties. Dead or broken
bodies are understood. But those soldiers who can walk and talk receive little
or no help. Yes, it is a difficult thing to try and set up mental health
assistance for hundreds or thousands of men and women, and each one having
different problems. But the fallout that can occur when people return from war
is real. In untold ways, it affects the individual, their family, their
community, and their country. The ability to hold a job, to succeed in raising
healthy children, and keeping families together all are affected. Not to
mention the ongoing health care costs.
Where these returning soldiers can get help is from their
families, if the family members understand what is needed: the emotional
wounds of war, how the person is likely feeling whether he or she can express
it or not, what to do to help and what not to do, and how long it may take.
Our country is now familiar with and accepts the positive
results that can come from support groups, where a person can talk among
others who have had similar experiences. To go to one is no longer considered
a sign of weakness.
If we lived in a perfect world, we would have a required
phasing out period after war of support type classes, before and after
discharge, so that the soldier can be taught how to express what he or she is
feeling and why it is important to do so. Basic training when inducted into
the military is designed to give the soldier the training needed to fight and
to survive. Back home, they need similar training on how to physically,
mentally, and emotionally re-enter family life and society. They need to
understand that it won’t ever all go away and that inappropriate words or
actions can slip out. All this takes time.
And family members need similar training. What to expect,
when to recognize that the soldier needs reassurance and understanding, how to
just let them talk when they need to, and to know when to use words and when
to remain silent.
Having said all this, I realize we don’t live in a perfect
world and the government does not have an endless supply of money, and neither
do taxpayers. So funding may never become available except in crisis
situations. But this kind of re-entry training would likely would save
taxpayers a ton of money in the long run. And here is an incentive for local,
state, or national government: Productive members of society pay taxes and
keep the country economically strong. Non-productive members necessarily do
not.
At the end of my diary I talk about some of what I
experienced when I came home. And anyone who has returned from war will also
read between the lines. I share what my wife did for me and how she did it.
Without her, I’m not sure I could ever have gone forward in life and
succeeded.
Now, my diary.
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