A Country Kid Joins the Navy

By Gerald Max "Buck" Barnett, VT-4

My First Flying Experience

In the summer of 1941, I was a senior at Indiana State in Terre Haute. I had old Myrt, "the car," and I had completed most of the credits that I needed to graduate. I enrolled in one class, worked the breakfast shift in the Student Union, and probably was still working part time in the filling station. I was also working at some kind of government facility at the Terre Haute airport. I think it was a radio or navigational facility.

For some reason, the government was offering us a chance to learn to fly for free. They probably anticipated the need in the near future for pilots. The planes were little Piper cubs—two seats in tandem.

I had a little trouble getting permission from my parents, but they did sign, reluctantly.

This was a most exciting time for me—a green, twenty-one year old country kid more accustomed to hopping clods than flying airplanes. I enjoyed the experience very much and worked at it diligently. I felt that I had gained a new measure of respectability.

I had about 8 hours of dual instruction, practicing takeoffs and landings, stalls, etc. Then came the most exciting part of all—my first solo. It was the most exciting thing I had ever done in my life up to that time. Taking off was easy, but then there I was up in the air all by myself, and it was entirely up to me to get the thing back on the ground. Fortunately, the landing went great, and now I had arrived and was feeling pretty uppity.

The soloing was the big event, but then there were loops, spins, and flying cross-country by myself.

This was a great time in my life and it turned out to be the forerunner of greater things to come.

Avoiding the Draft

The second military draft occurred on August 1, 1941. They gave all eligible men a number, put the numbers in a little capsule, dumped them all together, stirred them up, and drew out as many as they needed to fill their quota.

The one time in my life that I made headlines in the paper—they drew my name out first!

Being drafted into the foot army didn't appeal to me at all, so I quickly-started the wheels turning to join the Navy. I drove old Myrt to Indianapolis to enlist in Naval aviation. I took the physical and got orders to report to Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri on August 19, 1941. That day, August 19, the day I was in St. Louis taking my oath to join the Navy, was the very day I was scheduled to take my physical for the draft at home. Pretty close!

I was a "naval cadet," which I was to find out later was one step lower than a worm.

It turned out that the flight classes were full, so they sent me home to await orders. On January 28, 1943, I reported for flight training at St. Louis. I had my convertible (Myrt) with me and it came in quite handy.

We flew biwing N3Ns and my instructor was good but very tough. He worked me over every flight and very possibly was responsible for my surviving the war. He was always on me to keep an eye out for other planes, and he swore I would never survive Pensacola. He called me a Chinese pilot, "one wing low."

We were an odd bunch at St. Louis. We really had no official status. We were lower than seamen second. Our uniforms were Marine winter pants and a Navy p-coat. My shoes never did fit properly.

We went from St. Louis to New Orleans, which was really nice. It was spring and the flowers were beautiful. I drove the convertible to New Orleans; it was top-down weather. We were fitted for real uniforms—Navy dress blues and whites and khaki and green work uniforms and blue and tan topcoats. We had class! I ate quite a few raw oysters while in New Orleans. This was a great experience for me.

Pensacola, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Norfolk

On the trip from New Orleans to Pensacola, I stayed overnight at the Edgewater Gulf Hotel. This was April 13, 1942. I don't really recall checking in at Pensacola, but do recall several experiences during my tour there.

We practiced marching daily with guns. We had ground training—navigation, radio, weather. We went on the run most of the time; usually had about 15 minutes to eat lunch. We flew the yellow N3Ns. We did loops, spins, slips to small landing fields, formation takeoffs, and formation flying. On our solo flights, we tried to see how low we could fly over the Everglades. We thought we were hot stuff.

Liberty in Pensacola wasn't very good, but I had my convertible and spent a lot of weekends in Mobile, Alabama. It was real topdown country.

Our next station was Opa Locka at Miami. This was great duty. We flew SNJs—a single wing with retractable landing gear and a variable pitch prop. We did loops, split ess's, immelmans, formation takeoffs, and formation flying. It was a beautiful plane—my favorite.

We had lots of ground training, link training, and instrument flying. I never learned to enjoy instrument flying. We also flew several vintage planes no longer being used in the fleet, but they were fun to fly. We flew an old SB2C biwing that had hand-cranked flaps and wheels. 27 turns on the flaps, 52 turns on the wheels. Lord help you if you let go the wheel crank while letting down the wheels.

I was commissioned an Ensign at Miami on November 2, 1942, probably my proudest moment. Having earned the right to wear those Navy wings of gold is without a doubt the proudest accomplishment of my life. I really worked hard and put up with a lot for that honor.

After receiving my commission, I had to make a choice of military plane. The choices were: fighters, bombers, or torpedo planes. I narrowed it down to fighters or torpedoes. I didn't think I was the fighter-hero type, so I chose the torpedo planes knowing full well that all the torpedo planes were wiped out in the battle of Midway. However, there was a new torpedo plane made by Grumman called the TBF or Grumman Avenger.

When I arrived at Ft. Lauderdale, I was checked out in the new Grumman Avenger. When I walked up to this plane, I was amazed at how huge it was. It could carry a 2,000-pound torpedo, four 500-pound bombs, or twelve 100-pound bombs. It had a 50-caliber gun in the gun turret, a 30-caliber gun in the tail, and a 50-caliber gun in each wing forward. It carried two crewmen, a gunner and a radioman. My first flight in this beast was fantastic. It flew beautifully, very stable. It gave me a great sense of power to be in control of such an awesome machine.

We practiced carrier landings on the runway with a landing signal officer. We practiced bombing runs (without bombs), torpedo runs, and gunnery. We also flew many navigational hops out over the "Bermuda Triangle." We flew low over the Everglades and up and down Miami Beach.

Being an officer gave me many advantages and privileges. We had our own room, good beds, and maid service. We could come and go pretty much as we pleased, and we ate well. I had my convertible, new officer uniforms, plenty of friends, and I never lacked for something to do. The people in Ft. Lauderdale were great to us.

Of course, this country club experience must come to an end. My next step was to Norfolk to qualify aboard a carrier. I drove to Norfolk from Ft. Lauderdale. Norfolk was a beehive of naval activity. When I checked in for carrier quals, they had a big backlog of pilots waiting, so I had to "stand by." There was not much to do but sleep and party.

After a few days of this, I began to wonder if they were ever going to get to me. But, one morning (after a night on the town and very little sleep), they called my name. The rest is a little foggy, but I did manage to make the necessary landings aboard the "little" carrier and was considered "qualified" to fly off of and onto carriers.

Assigned to Torpedo 4

After a few days leave, I reported to Quonset Point, Rhode Island to the old USS Ranger and Torpedo Squadron 4. The Ranger and Air Group 4 was just back from the operation in North Africa helping Montgomery drive Rommel out of Africa. This was the beginning of my carrier operations and war experiences.

Even though I was attached to the Ranger, I lived in the BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters) at Quonset. We practiced bombing, gunnery, and torpedo tactics. We actually dropped torpedoes on Bar Island off the coast of Maine.

Somebody decided that we should see if we could fly off the carrier at night. This turned out to be one of my scariest escapades. Immediately after takeoff, I had to go on instruments. It was so dark I couldn't tell up from down, direction, or height. All the lights were out on the ship, except for one red light on the mask and a few deck lights that you could see only when you were aft of the deck. At night you have no conception of depth, so you have to depend on instruments for altitude and attitude. I couldn't tell which direction the ship was going until I got aft of it.

One of the pilots ahead of me flew into the ship's island and caught fire, so the rest of us flew back to Quonset Point and landed ashore—for which I was very glad.

After spoiling us at Quonset Point with the comfortable BOQ and officer's club, they moved the Ranger to Argentia, Newfoundland. The Ranger tied up to the dock and we were moved ashore into a dormitory. They had an officer's club, but nothing like the one at Quonset. One of the steaks I had there was the reddest, fat-free meat I ever ate. Later I found out that it was horse meat.

Newfoundland weather was very tricky. The weather could be beautiful when you took off and closed in when you got back.

Another one of my scary experiences occurred here. I was flying formation on another plane when we started up through the overcast. I was flying as close as I dared until finally the soup got so thick that I couldn't even see the plane I was flying on. I had to pull away and fly my own instruments not knowing where he was. Vertigo is the scariest experience of flying. You can feel that you are flying OK, when in reality you may be in a steep dive or climbing or turning. Your body tells you one thing, but the instruments tell you something entirely different. The only positive thing about this experience is that you feel so good when it's over.

While in Argentia, we did navigation hops, field carrier landings, bombing practice, etc. Anther interesting thing about Argentia is that the compass variation is about 15 degrees.

After our stay in Argentia, the Ranger put in at New York and we proceeded to "do the town." We had accumulated some money since there was nothing to spend it on in Argentia. We hit as many spots as time would allow, including the Stork Club and the Diamond Horseshoe. Money was no object and the civilians were always anxious to buy drinks or do whatever they could.

Our next duty was escort for Winston Churchill on the HMS Queen Mary crossing the Atlantic. The Queen was much faster than the Ranger and we had trouble keeping up. We flew anti-sub patrol when weather permitted, which didn't seem to be very often. The old Ranger creaked and groaned under the heavy seas and some pilots got pretty seasick.

After the Atlantic crossing, the Ranger tied up at Scapa Flow North of England. We flew ashore and operated off land.

The only town nearby was Kirkwall, Scotland, and it wasn't much. I imagine we aggravated the natives. We disturbed the angus cattle and sheep since we spent a lot of time flat hatting over the islands. There were blimps tied to long cables to discourage enemy planes and some of us had a pretty scary experience by getting caught among them in bad weather. We were lucky to get out of that experience without a major tragedy.

We were able to visit Edinburgh and Inverness in Scotland and we had 3 days in London.

After England, the Ranger went to sea to try to protect the shipping lanes. We went North of the Arctic Circle and around Bear Island. We flew a lot of anti-sub patrols in very bad weather. We almost lost Will Souza and his crew. He got lost and decided to head for land, which was very unwise since he would never have made it. The ship broke radio silence and vectored 2 fighter planes to go get him.

We tied up at Reykjavik, Iceland. It was very cold and icy. We lost a plane with the plane captain in it. The wind blew him off the flight deck. The ship didn't attempt a rescue due to high seas and cold. The water was so cold that they claimed a person could not survive longer than 30 seconds. One bomber pilot went in the water and the destroyer picket lost 2 men trying to rescue him.

After Iceland, we made the Bodø, Norway strike. My flight in the Bodø strike went pretty much as planned. My plane received no damage and I think I got a pretty good hit on a ship.

After the Bodø strike, we went back to Scapa Flow, then back to the States.

I'm not sure I have the proper sequence of these events, but we spent time at Ayer, Massachusetts and at Hyannis on Cape Code. While at Ayer, Betty and I and 2 other couples rented a 26-room house near Fitchburg, Massachusetts. We had to move out for a few days while they treated it with cyanide gas.

On December 28, 1943, Betty and I were married in the Presbyterian parsonage in Providence, Rhode Island. In early 1944, Air Group 4 was removed from the Ranger and we proceeded to the West Coast and then to the South Pacific.

Transfer to Night Fighters

I have to tell this story of my night fighter squadron experience. When I returned from leave while we were stationed at Quonset, I found that I had been assigned to night flying group. It seems that Butch O'Hare (after whom O'Hare field is named) decided that you could put radar on a TBF to seek out enemy planes and fighter planes would accompany the TBF at night and shoot down the enemy. The TBF had a big radar bulb about the size of a small barrel on the leading edge of the starboard wing. A radar man (an officer) would ride with the pilot behind the pilot where the gun turret was.

On my first trip in this thing, I flew up and down the coast at Quonset Point and the radar was great. You could see the outline of the coast, the bridge, and it looked like a good idea. When I was landing, I was holding the plane off with a little power to let it settle down to the runway. You can't judge depth at night. While I was holding if off waiting to touch down, the right wing lost lift because of the radar bulb and the plane went to the right into the water along the runway.

You can imagine that this created quite a stir with fire trucks, sirens, ambulances, etc. The plane floated a while and the other officer and I climbed out on the wing and barely got our feet wet.

Back to Torpedo 4

The next day the captain of the night group called me in and told me that if I really didn't want to fly in the outfit to say so. I said so, and was transferred back to VT-4! I never knew for sure who recommended me for that night duty. I never did care for night flying.

After we were detached from the Ranger, we were sent to San Diego. We did quite a bit of routine practicing in and around San Diego. I got to have some liberty experiences in Diego, Los Angeles, and Tijuana.

Our next duty was in Hilo, Hawaii. This was real country club duty. Flying was beautiful in and around the islands. I loved to fly around the coast of the island of Hawaii and watch the waterfalls. We also flew over the volcano craters quite a bit. The sad part was, we lost 3 planes and 9 men in a night flying tragedy. This accident is discussed in Tragedy Strikes Night Operations in Torpedo Squadron Four: A Cockpit View of World War II.

I loved the weather. It was always in the low 70s and rained a little every morning about the time to get up. Our BOQ maid left a gardenia in our room every day. We had an excellent officer's club and ate well.

But all good things have an end; we were transported by the jeep carrier the USS Long Island to Saipan and assigned carrier duty. This sea duty turned out to be an excellent weight-loss program. After all the "good life," my uniforms kept getting smaller and smaller. After a week or two at sea, we ran out of the good food and ate a lot of beans, spam, dried eggs, and dried milk. We had fried spam, and spam and eggs. Spam and eggs is not a delicacy. The good part—I lost all that extra weight!

When we were on the Ranger in the Atlantic, we spent a lot of time playing quarter- limit poker. On the USS Essex in the Pacific, we spent our standby time playing contract bridge. I also read The Robe and some other books which was quite an accomplishment for me.

I'll try to relate some of the strike experiences that stand out in my memory. These will not be in the order in which they occurred.

I guess my worst experience was the time my plane got hit. Actually, it was the only hit I took in the whole war. I think I was living under Divine guidance.

We were flying along the West coast of the Philippines. I was overcome with a slight hero complex and decided to strafe these little boogers with my 50-caliber wing guns. They seemed to take a dim view of that and proceeded to shoot back. We took a hit near the tail gunner. It made a hole in the fuselage, and some shrapnel hit my radioman, Joseph C. Cohen, behind his ear. Of course, it bled profusely and he thought he was dying, and I didn't know, but figured we had a problem. Many things started to run through my mind. But the plane was still flying, so I decided we would stick with it and see if we could make it back to the ship. Sure enough, we made it and the ship gave me permission to land aboard immediately. It turned out that Cohen wasn't badly hurt, but he got a purple heart. That was the last "hero complex" I experienced.

Another strike that stands out was in the China Sea. We were looking for the Japanese fleet, but we got kinda lost and over extended our fuel supply. We were in the air for over 5 hours and we thought that 4 hours was maximum for the TBF. I leaned her back and reduced RPM. I made it back aboard with a gallon of gas to spare (a gallon normally lasts about 1 minute). However, my wingman, Willy F. Walker, landed in the water as did Gerald Thomas and Ed S. Binder. They were all picked up, fortunately, but I have always felt a little guilty about leaving Willie to land in the water. My debate with myself was whether to stay with him and risk 3 more lives (of which 1 was mine) or to try to make it back to the carrier. I guess my Divine guidance worked again.

I thought that the Manila Bay strike was an exercise in futility. It looked as if the odds were stacked against us, but I got in, dropped my torpedo, and got out without a scratch. They claimed that we sunk a dry dock.

Another scary strike was the Iwo Jima strike. Turned out, the enemy was us. We took off in very bad weather with 18 anti-personnel bombs. The ceiling was so low that we could barely get above 100 feet, and several air groups were launched. At one time, the groups were circling on a collision course. It was only by the Grace of God that we didn't collide. All we could see of Iwo Jima was the top of Mount Seribachi and the landing craft grounded on the beach. We jettisoned our bombs in the water and managed to get back aboard. I still wonder about that one.

I missed the strike on Tokyo proper, but my group struck an airfield North of Tokyo. My run turned out to be for naught, since my bombs didn't release.

The fleet was tied up in Ulithi Lagoon. We were detached from the Essex and went aboard the Long Island waiting to go home. All the fleet was lit up thinking they were far enough away from the enemy to be safe. I was on the hanger deck waiting for the movie to start and a plane flew along beside us at about 100 feet altitude. I thought, "What damn fool would be flat hatting over the fleet at night?" Then the plane circled around and flew into the carrier tied up right beside us. Turned out to be a kamikaze. Turned out there were two of them, and one flew into the island of Falalop. I guess he thought he was getting a big one.

Lt(jg) Gerald Max "Buck" Barnett (center) with his crewmen, ARM3c Joseph C. Cohen and ARM3c C. Christopher. Ulithi Lagoon, 1945.

We started home aboard the Long Island on March 10, 1945, the ultimate birthday present for me. We were in Hawaii by March 20, 1945, the day my first daughter, Margaret Charlene ("Peggy"), was born. I didn't know that, however, until I arrived in the States.

I was detached from Torpedo 4 and separated from the men that I had come to care about so much. We were together throughout our war experience, and we felt that we had grown up together and became very close friends, much like family. I was given 30 days leave and finally got to come home to Betty and Peggy, being a little surprised that I had survived the war.

My next duty was as flight instructor and assistant ground training officer at Ft. Lauderdale. This was real good duty. I had my own office. I made out the schedule for the ground training, which took about 30 minutes, and the rest of the day was mine. Occasionally, I had to teach a class. We bought a house in Hallandale, South of Hollywood, and life was great. That's where we were when Barbara Lynn was born, August 19, 1946.

It's interesting that I was a flight instructor at Ft. Lauderdale when those 5 torpedo planes were lost in the so-called Bermuda Triangle. It happened that Lt. Taylor came to me just before this navigation flight and asked me what he was supposed to do. He was a new instructor just back from the fleet. I explained the flight to him and couldn't image how anyone could ever get lost on it. I think that if he had paid more attention to his students, they might have been all right. Many people have tried to explain this tragedy, but I blame it on stupidity. They now think they have found one of the planes not far from the Eastern coast. Probably, one of them at least almost made it back to land.

I was released to inactive duty on September 20, 1946, having served 5 years, 1 month, and 1 day.

Actually, this experience wasted 5 of my best years. I figured that my chances of surviving the war were not very good. But I did survive and it was a fantastic experience. We faced death many times and saw it take many of our friends. In the military, you experience friends being transferred to other activities and you never see them again. Death seemed very similar to me.

Being an officer in the Navy and wearing those gold Navy wings is an accomplishment that meant more to this country kid from Hazleton than I can explain. My life has been truly blessed.

Photo: N3N "Yellow Peril" Biwing Trainer. 
Photo: SNJ (AT-6) Trainer.
Photo: Grumman "Avenger" Torpedo Bomber. 
Photo: Robert Ruth, Buck Barnett, and Gerald Thomas. 

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