WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Off Midway Island, June 4, 1942.  The flight deck of USS Enterprise (CV 6) was crammed with airplanes waiting to launch against the Imperial Japanese Navy task force reported nearly 200 miles distant.  Grumman Comet fighters were first off, requiring less of a deck run than the Douglas Mohave scout-bombers.  Below on the hangar deck, laden Douglas Scorpion torpedo planes awaited their turn.

The carrier aviators had a position report of their target, thanks to long-range reconnaissance by Consolidated Clemente patrol planes.  Meanwhile, Marine Corps land-based Comets and Brewster Twister fighters were engaging a losing battle against more than 100 Japanese aircraft blasting the atoll.  At the same time six Grumman Dragons, the Navy’s newest torpedo planes, were flying outbound to attack the enemy carriers alongside aging Vought Stratford scout-bombers.

Break-break.

The facts of the Battle of Midway are accurately stated, but the aircraft names are anachronisms.  They accurately reflect the original popular names proposed by the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in a document released 12 months before the climactic battle. 

Between June and October 1941, someone drastically changed the names of naval aircraft.  Comets became Wildcats; Mohaves became Dauntlesses; and Scorpions turned into Devastators.   Of the land-based planes, Dragons emerged as Avengers and Stratfords became Vindicators.

Very few of the original names survived the change.  Probably the most notable was Consolidated’s PB2Y Coronado while the PBM Maryland emerged as the Mariner.  As noted, the classic PBY Catalina began as the Clemente.

It’s interesting to note (to me anyway) that the June 1941 document was signed by “Commander Durgin.”  That was Calvin T. Durgin, an aviator since 1920 and owner of a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from M.I.T.  He made a solid reputation during WW II, commanding the carrier Ranger (CV 4) during Operation Torch, the November 1942 invasion of French Morocco, and as an admiral he led escort carrier task groups in the Pacific.  He died in 1965, leaving us to ponder the whimsical names that he or his board original chose for some of the fightingest airplanes in Navy history.

Americans have never been very good at naming or designating airplanes.  Look no farther than the 1980s “F”-117 Nighthawk, a stealth “fighter” without air to air armament or the speed to get out of its own way.  The next generation stealth machine, the eternally-delayed and problem-plagued F-35, skipped 11 numbers, leaping from the prototype Northrop F-23.

Other nations put America to shame in aircraft designations, especially the British.  The RAF’s alliterative naming system made it easy to remember many aircraft, especially the elegant Supermarine Spitfire, but also the Avro Anson, Handley-Page Halifax, and Short Sunderland.  A few exceptions crept in, particularly the Avro Lancaster and the Vickers Wellington bombers.  But on the other hand the Brits outdid themselves with the Blackburn Blackburn, a massively ugly 1920s biplane.

The long-lived, innovative De Havilland company probably remains the prominent exception to British consistency.  While the firm’s prewar lightplanes were a succession of Moths (Fox, Gypsy, Tiger, etc) its military products ran the gamut from Mosquito to Sea Vixen.  Perhaps the company’s naming philosophy was to remain inconsistent.

However, even when the system partially broke down, the RAF lads maintained an internal logic.  Following the Hawker Hurricane were the firm’s next fighters, the Typhoon and Tempest.  We might say that the “light blue” service possessed a breezy sense of humo(u)r in that regard.

One aircraft name that spanned not only nations but cultures was “Thunderbolt.”  Americans are well acquainted with Republic’s hulking P-47, but two other WW II fighters were Italy’s Macchi Castoldi 202 Folgore (also translated as Lightning) and the Japanese Navy’s Mitsubishi J2M Raiden land-based fighter. 

Whatever names they bear, combat aircraft remain a subject of fascination spanning generations.  But how and why some of those names are chosen seems to remain lost in the mists of time.  

A dip of the wingtip to my colleague Rick Morgan for producing the obscure 1941 documents.

WORTH THE WAIT

A 19th century poetess wrote that good things come to he who waits.  In 1880 Violet Fane certainly was not thinking about a flight in a B-29 Superfortress.  But I was.

In 2010 the Commemorative Air Force lured me to Texas to promote Whirlwind, my history of air operations over Japan.  I agreed, provided I could get a ride in Fifi, the only flying B-29. She had recently returned to flight status, otherwise I would’ve tried to finagle an earlier flight as research for the book.

Came the day.  Time passed.  Finally I had to abandon the Midland flight line while somebody finally fetched the fuel truck.  Therefore, my speech about B-29s bombing hell out of the Empire of the Sun had suitable audio as Fifi motored off, a basso accompaniment to my oratory.

Colonel Bill Coombes issued an oral IOU for a makeup flight, valid anytime, anywhere.  So when I learned that Fifi’s 2013 tour included Arizona, I contacted Bill, and he made it happen.  The 100-mile round trip to Deer Valley was small enough price to pay for a B-29 flight.

The briefing was conducted under Fifi’s nose.  Our pilot, Colonel David Oliver, introduced the flight crew including copilot Mark Martin, flight engineer Shad Morris, and the three scanners/observers.  Issuing a cautionary note, Oliver said, “The B-29 was not built for comfort.  It was built for freedom.”

He was right.

With five other hardies I strapped into the compartment aft of the wing, where gunners once controlled remotely operated turrets.   It was a tight fit.  And it was uncomfortable.  But no matter.  When the crew fired up number three, the R3350 belched a wondrous blue-gray cloud that bathed the Boeing in an oil-rich aroma.  The young lady seated next to me fanned the air in front of her face.  I inhaled, held the breath, and savored the moment.

Aaah…airplane.

I was reminded of the Army Air Force summaries I consulted for Whirlwind.  The twin-row Wrights had serious cooling problems for the rear bank of cylinders, causing numerous fires.  Because the cases were magnesium, they tended to keep burning.  As I recall, 87 percent of B-29 in-flight fires resulted in loss of the aircraft.  One CAFer said, “We simply could not keep flying the airplane with the original engines.”

The Wrights required extensive modification--$3 million worth—but Fifi now is fully operational.  Even so, Shad Morris said that the maintenance man hours to flight hour ratio is 100 to one.

After warmup we taxied to the runway amid 8,000 horses of engine noise.  Considerable noise—shoulder to shoulder, we could not easily talk to each other.   When Dave and Shad came up on the power, the lightly-loaded bomber surged forward.  I timed the takeoff run at 25 seconds.

Once level at 5,000 feet, the scanners in the waist blisters signaled we could move around.  Now, I’m 5-foot 8 on a good day, and I had little head clearance.  I climbed into the main fire-control seat, swiveling 360 degrees.  The view forward ended with the muzzles of the top turret’s four .50 calibers.  I grasped the gunner’s handles, imagining my sight reticle framing a Japanese fighter flying a pursuit curve on Fifi. 

Next I crawfished my way aft to the tail gunner’s position.  No easy task—I had to wedge my way through a couple of bulkheads, sliding over boxes that once contained ammunition, and remembered to hold my hat when passing the open hatch with its 200 mph slipstream.

Returning to my seat, I marveled at what B-29ers endured.  Our half-hour flight was, as advertised, cramped, noisy, and uncomfortable.  But imagine spending 14 or 15 hours in that slim aluminum tube—twice a typical ETO mission time.  And except for the brief period over the target, the entire B-29 combat flight was over water.  A round trip of 3,000 miles from the Marianas to Japan and back.

Fifi missed combat.  She rolled out in July 1945, a month before other B-29s ended the war with single bombs on two Japanese cities.  But Fifi fulfills a mission seven decades downstream from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  She not only recalls an historic era, but honors the airmen whose prospects for survival in the water and enemy territory were no better than 50-50.  And Fifi honors the men and women who built her and nearly 4,000 of her sisters.

Debarking from a bomber three years older than I am, I reflected again—good things come to him who waits.

THE MEANING OF VALOR

In the winter of 1944-1945 the Soviets rolled across Poland into Nazi Germany, driving westward.  The ultimate goal was Berlin, but numerous prisoner-of-war camps (Stalags) lay in the path of the Russian juggernaut.  Rather than allowing POWs to be freed by the Soviets, the Germans decided to evacuate most of the Allied personnel.

Among the thousands of men held in Stalag Luft Four near Gross Tychow (now in Poland) was an unheralded hero in an unlikely capacity.  He was Captain Leslie Caplan, a 37-year-old Army Air Forces doctor.

Caplan was a flight surgeon in the 15th Air Force’s 449th Bomb Group based in Italy.  Unlike most flight surgeons, he insisted on flying combat missions, including tough targets such as Ploesti, Romania, and his B-24 had been shot down near Vienna in October.  The camp was incomplete when he arrived, and conditions quickly spun out of control.  The conditions went from bad to worse to terrible: overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate food, and almost no medical supplies.  He described the camp as “a domain of heroes, but from a medical standpoint it was a kingdom of illness.”  Faced with “patients” suffering malnutrition—some ate rats--Caplan worked minor miracles keeping men alive with minimal medicine.  He was one of just five Allied doctors present at “Luft Four” serving some 10,000 POWs. 

There was another, more ominous aspect to Caplan’s captivity.  He was Jewish.  Nazi Germany’s murderous antisemitism was well known, prompting some POWs to obscure the “H” indicator on their dog tags, indicating Hebrew.  Not Leslie Caplan.  He bluntly told his captors of his heritage.  For whatever reason, Caplan incurred no harm on that account.  But things were bad enough for everyone.  The weather turned bitterly cold, compounding the shortages of food, clothing, and heat.

On February 6 the Germans began evacuating Luft Four on a forced march to prevent thousands of airmen from being liberated.  Caplan could have accompanied those too sick to walk being moved to Luft One by train.  Instead he insisted on joining a group of some 2,500 sergeants, knowing the risks that lay ahead.

The Germans handed out Red Cross food parcels to the prisoners—presumably enough to last one man a week.  However, in the harsh climate, food went fast among perennially hungry men.  A B-17 gunner, teenaged Sergeant Bill Hess, said, “We went through the food in three or four days.  After that we lived on boiled potatoes and whatever we could scrounge.  I made a sugar beet last three days.”

Thus began a meandering forced march of nearly 500 miles to escape oncoming Russians.  Men subsisted on fewer than 800 calories per day—one fourth the American average.  Seven Americans in Caplan’s group died en route or in German hands but none died under his care.

Dr. Caplan was an innovator.  To reduce the effects of dysentery he burned wood into blackened remnants, pulverized the charcoal, and mixed it with a potable liquid.  The brew was ghastly to the taste but it worked—some men later said that it probably saved their lives.

Caplan’s group arrived at Stalag Eleven-B in northwestern Germany on March 30, remaining for a week.  Then on April 6 the men were forced back on their trek, trudging another three weeks—in almost the opposite direction.  The advancing Anglo-American armies convinced the captors to turn back eastward.  Said one POW, “We covered a good bit of the same territory we just come over a month before. We doubled back for over 200 kilometers and it took 26 days.”  

Dr. Caplan could have remained at Luft Eleven where his medical skills were needed, and he was offered decent quarters.  But he chose to march on with his men.

While on the road the prisoners generally were held in barns.  The conditions inevitably were crowded—sometimes there wasn’t enough room to lie down to sleep.  But Doc Caplan continued advocating for his men, and on at least one occasion he convinced a German army doctor to tend a flier’s feet.  The German, a captain who spoke fluent English, lacked anesthetics but lanced the sergeant’s suppurating sole, swabbed it out with alcohol, and bandaged it.  The Eighth Air Force radioman, Sergeant Aldon Dryer, kept his foot and his life.

On May 2 the prisoners were liberated by the British near Hamburg.  Leslie Caplan’s war was over.

Or so it seemed.  Upon return “Stateside” Caplan was promoted to major but required treatment for tuberculosis.  He recovered at Fitzsimons Hospital in Colorado, was decorated with the Legion of Merit, then left the Army to resumed his career.  He underwent a residency in psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, where his future wife Arline was on her way to a psychology PhD.  They married in 1947 and had two daughters.  Leslie died in 1969 and Arline in 2002.

Caplan’s youngest daughter, Laura, is justly proud of her father.  She has been active in POW organizations and compiled a stack of testimonials from prisoners who credited “Doc” with saving their lives.  Her 2004 privately-published account, Domain of Heroes, contains dozens of those letters.  Laura also maintains a web site with the daughter of another ex-POW, Barbed Wire Sister, http://barbedwiresister.blogspot.com/.

Caplan’s Legion of Merit was awarded in recognition of his exceptional work under harsh conditions, at risk of his life, lasting for months.  Because his deeds were not considered in combat, the decoration was “for merit” rather than “for valor,” in keeping with regulations at the time.  However, higher decorations had been presented to military personnel for actions in captivity.  The army’s Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross—ranking only below the Medal of Honor—went to half a dozen men who escaped Japanese captivity.  And two navy officers received the Medal of Honor for actions in enemy hands, one each in World War I and II.  Additionally, four POWs received Medals of Honor for actions while held in Hanoi during the long Vietnam War.

Two Minnesota senators nominated Caplan for an upgrade of his Legion of Merit to a Medal of Honor, without success.  The medal process is so politicized that high-level advocates are required, as when the late Senator Daniel Inoue and 19 other WW II veterans’ DSCs and Silver Stars were upgraded to “the big one” in 2000.  The regulations limiting retroactive awards are routinely ignored, never moreso than when President Clinton presented the Medal of Honor for Teddy Roosevelt in 2001, 103 years after the Spanish-American War.  In 1977 Jimmy Carter approved the Civil War MoH for Dr. Mary Walker, a contract surgeon who was not a member of the U.S. Army.

Leslie Caplan demonstrated far more than “merit” in the hands of the Germans.  He consistently went above and beyond his duty, flying combat missions, voluntarily remaining with enlisted men, tending to them, advocating on their behalf with his captors at risk of his life, and saving lives against incredible odds.

If that isn’t valor, please tell me what is.