For those who grew up with the near recollections of World War II, mystery often surrounded the men around them. They might be pictured in uniforms, but stories about life in uniform were sparse. I recall pictures on the pianos in friends’ homes. Deep-set eyes looked out from handsome, airbrushed faces of formal portraits in uniform. They were as silent as was the lack of conversation about them.
For Jane Gardner Birch, her father’s life during the war years was somewhat of a mystery. She knew he wore a uniform, but he had returned to civilian life. He was a bricklayer – an important job in her hometown, a steel town. He didn’t build houses. He lined blast furnaces. It was a dirty, dangerous job.
What did you do in the war, Daddy? was not a topic of conversation. For her brothers and sisters, though, it really wasn’t an issue. She remembers him managing the Grove City, Pennsylvania airport until 1948. The money wasn’t that good so he returned to his job in the steel mill. He provided well for them and for their mother as a bricklayer at the blast furnace. After 1962, whatever residual war curiosity she might have had would go unsatisfied, at least by her father.
That year the biggest industrial accident to date took his life He was relining a blast furnace with brick when a large crane lost its load of steel. He was killed where he stood. With him went all the stories of those war years.
Fast-forward forty-five years to the Atlanta convention center. Jane,on stage with Eugene Cernan, Apollo 10 and 15, was receiving the National Aviation Hall of Fame 2007 Coombs Gates Award from the National Business Aviation Association for her first book, They Flew Proud. She had written an historical account of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP).
The honor included a $20,000 prize, but for Jean the journey was the real reward. It began with a single photo of her father in uniform.
She knew he wasn’t regular military so she began to investigate. In this age of the Internet, she went on-line. She found the story of a life that touched thousands in the war effort. She couldn’t remember her father from those days, but, just in time, she found others who could.
The FAA, the CAA of the 1940′s, keeps files on everyone who has ever had a pilot’s license. With her father’s death certificate, she proved her relationship to him and requested his file. For $5.96 she found facts she never new.
His uniform was that of the Civilian Pilot Training Program of the U.S. Army Air Force. The little known program trained over 430,000 for World War II. She only found one book about the program, but Domenic Pisano, curator of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum authored it. It was dry but useful.
She continued her search. She found the University of New Hampshire archives. The University had been part of the CPTP, and someone had saved five boxes of documents. She ordered some generic government documents with little factual content.
The mother lode of facts came after she began writing. She discoveed an Internet site for the Air Force Historic Office. Two days after her inquiry, a librarian emailed her. about a report with the name Gardner Birch, Jane’s father.
Thanks to Army red tape requiring end of year reports in the 1940′s, Jane got a roll of microfilm. She nearly lost heart as she scrolled through the film until the last report – Grove City. She got two hundred pages of goodies.
She found boards at the Grove City airport listing his students. Thirty-five were still alive though in their eighties. She found yearbooks at Grove City College with pictures and information. Now she had an imperative, get this project done while these students were still alive to enjoy it.
The project, three years old this month, took on a life of its own with Jean as its coordinator. She spent time researching, collecting information and doing interviews. The interviews were a joy. Over one hundred veterans, widows, sons and daughters contributed pictures, memories, articles, and expertise.
Jean is no pilot and doesn’t know much about airplanes, but she wanted her book to be technically accurate. Writing went quickly once she got going, and with the help of two pilots and more email it was accurate. Fred “Posie” Thompson, a veteran, a flower business owner, and an incredible writer had the terminology and nuances of the times. Dick Double using a war time logbook found the registration number of the plane he flew at Grove City. Her father’s name was in the book.
She even tracked down her father’s secretary. She was part of a secretarial training program that gave her a discount on flying lessons. At age 79, the woman still had a paper she’d written in her class.
Through it all, Jean was overwhelmed by the caliber of people she met. Some were college grads. All were accomplished. They took flying lessons under the GI Bill that could lead to an aviation career, but they did it for fun.
The project has been the delight of Jean’s life. She had never written before, but it led her to the award. Along the way interviews and pictures introduced her father. She met Dick Bailey who sent a picture of the five Bailey brothers each in a different military uniform. They were her Sullivan bothers. At 85, Dick still services Cooper Bessemer engines, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
And then she found the one picture of the Grove City airport. She wanted all her pictures to be authentic, and here was a picture of the trainers lined up on the tarmac. It became the book cover for a near-forgotten story.
Jane will be signing her book at the Maryland Federation of Art, 18 State Circle, on Veterans Day, Sunday, November 11 from 2:00 until 4:00 p.m. She is offering a discount to any veteran who purchases the book that day. For more information visit www.theyflewproud.com.