U.S. Air Force pilot remembers the pioneering days of global airlift

March 25, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Thinking little of the risks of being airborne, Charles L. Chandler decided, nearly 70 years ago, that he would not be a “ground pounder.” The decision sparked two back-to-back, distinguished careers totaling 45 years, as Chandler either fixed or flew an amazing variety of U.S. military aircraft.

“I grew up in the Great Depression, and after Hitler invaded Poland, I decided to not get into it as a foot soldier. So, I joined the Army Air Corps, in December, 1939,” Chandler said. The decision paid off with a long life full of fast friends and vivid memories. “Now, if I live until June, I’ll be 87,” Chandler says with a chuckle.

Chandler’s flying career spanned two wars, with assignments at an astonishing number and variety of air bases. As pilot of several models of Air Force cargo planes, he touched down to pick up or deliver men, weapons, equipment and supplies on five continents in times when mid-air refueling was not commonplace.

But as with many old-timers and pioneers who were sworn to secrecy on details of their careers, Chandler is not given to expatiation about his own. Many pilots of Chandler’s era have been tight-lipped until recently, as they figured out that their secrets were merely matters of history that needs to be recorded.

One perspective on the vast gulf of differences between air combat then and now, Chandler remembers, was his introduction to military service. “They gave me two weeks of close order drill, and I went to work on the flightline. Back then, basic training hadn’t been invented yet.” From that wake-up-and-work encounter at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Chandler helped pilots and student pilots get safely airborne in trainer aircraft, while he remained on the ground.

Chandler was transferred to Hensley Field, Dallas, a Naval Air Station, where he served as flightline crew chief for the base commander. The aircraft was the AT-6 “Texan,” historic predecessor and namesake of the sleek, highly maneuverable T-6 “Texan II” trainer at Laughlin Air Force Base now. But Chandler still wanted to be in the air.

“So, I took the aviation cadet board, and three weeks later I was on my way to pilot training at Santa Ana, California,” Chandler said, adding that he ended up at nearby Hemet Field and the Ryan School of Aeronautics which trained about 6,000 World War II fliers.

There, Chandler fell in love with the PT-22, a branding that indicated “primary trainer.” The single engine, open cockpit two-seater was highly maneuverable. “It was a fun little plane, and just about anything you could get it to do was just fine,” Chandler laughed. To this day, Chandler carries a tiny, worn, color photo of a PT-22 with sunburst orange wings in his wallet.

Additional training came in the BT-13 at Taft, Calif., and the AT-17 at Pecos, Texas before he “graduated” to the C-47 “Gooney Bird” cargo carrier, and troop carrier school near Austin (later Bergstrom Air Force Base, now Austin-Bergstrom International Airport). “Up there, we learned how to drop paratroopers, and how to load and carry cargo and troops,” Chandler said.

Later, he also learned how to snag a CG-4A “Waco” assault glider from the ground with his “Gooney Bird.” The glider was capable of being snatched from a ground position with an overhead cable apparatus by a hook suspended below the airborne C-47. The glider was towed to move warriors behind enemy lines, and if the pilots weren’t considered “expendable,” the glider on its one way trip into a theater of combat was.

In January 1945, Chandler and his C-47 crew of his co-pilot, mechanic and radio operator were sent to Fort Wayne, Ind., where they acquired a navigator and a set of orders to Miami – to receive more orders. “Then they told me to clear for Puerto Rico, and gave me a sealed envelope and told me, ‘Open this when you’re one hour out,’” Chandler said. “I did and that was when I found out we were going to Italy.”

He also learned he was simply ferrying the bird to Naples, but – for refueling reasons – accomplished the mission by navigating first to South America (Belem and Natal, Brazil), then to tiny Ascension Island, a British Territory in the middle of the South Atlantic, then to Liberia, Dakar, Marrakech, Algiers, Tunis, and finally, across the Mediterranean to Naples.

In Italy, Chandler was assigned to the 18th Troop Carrier Squadron at Rosignano, Italy, where he stayed until the war in Europe was over. At Rosignano, Chandler dropped supplies behind enemy lines to the partisans of the Italian Resistance. “The partizini didn’t like Mussolini and they didn’t like Hitler, either,” Chandler said, but they needed drops from American cargo carriers – capable of carrying 6,000 pounds of supplies – to support their guerilla tactics.

Chandler and his crew also delivered bombs and other ammunitions to American forces racing across the Po River Valley in northern Italy, chasing fast-retreating Germans into the Italian Alps. “They were moving so fast that, at one air base, a German plane came in and landed, not knowing that the base had already changed hands,” Chandler said.

On one sortie, Chandler’s crew was assigned to carry an artilleryman and his 75mm cannon behind German lines, but he accidentally flew into a box canyon from which there seemed no escape, but up. Too tight to turn within the canyon, the only route was a steep climb to the topmost ridge. “We pulled full throttle, and made the top just barely, and then down the other side,” Chandler said.

Then, the shaken gunner refused to jump, and another crew member told Chandler, “Go back there and shoot that son-of-a-bitch!” Chandler drew his weapon, made an appearance in the bay. “He saw me standing there, and when that jump light went on, out he went,” Chandler said.

Weeks later, delivering supplies to Americans in Milan, Chandler landed on a racetrack infield. “While we were there, we were told they’d strung up Mussolini, his paramour, and another guy there.” Indeed, the bodies were suspended upside down, hanging from meat hooks in a Milan piazza. Chandler said he knew they’d have no time to go see for themselves, so, upon takeoff, they swooped down on the packed piazza.

“It was wall-to-wall with people, so we buzzed the plaza a couple of times, about 30 feet off the ground, and got a pretty good look at him. You couldn’t mistake that big domed head of his,” Chandler said.

In October, 1945, he returned to the United States, and began ferrying returning troops between Brazil and Miami, Fla. “One day, I was an hour out of Miami, enroute to Puerto Rico, when I heard the news on our radio that they’d dropped a bomb on Nagasaki, and the war was over!”

Five years later, Chandler was in Korea and the so-called “conflict” there with the only C-47 squadron in the Far East at that time, and two years later he was assigned to the maintenance directorate at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. But that career stop was interrupted, too.

Chandler had met Gen. William H. Tunner, commander of the Air Transport Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base while both men were in the Far East. “He wanted to develop a global delivery system with the C-124 ‘Globemaster II’ with world wide logistical support to deliver ‘special’ weapons, so he gathered up a bunch of us who had experience in the ‘heavies,’ and we began flying the Globemaster for him.

Chandler remained a “Globemaster” pilot until his first career wound down, after being promoted from 1st lieutenant, to captain, then major, before his retirement in 1961. He then went into civil service with the U.S. Army at the Red River Army Depot, and finally came to Laughlin in 1967. He served in the maintenance directorate here for 18 years, finally retiring again – and for the last time – in 1985.

Chandler’s wife, Polly, taught at Del Rio High School, and was a lifelong musician, teaching violin here for many years. “She died in 1999 on New Year’s Day,” said Chandler. Later, Chandler and Bess Bradley, former head librarian at the Val Verde County Library, became close friends, until her death in 2005. Bradley’s reputation for graciousness and staunch support for literacy and the arts will always be part of Chandler’s Del Rio reminiscences of life in Del Rio. “If there ever was an angel on earth, it was Bess,” Chandler said.

Chandler also befriended many of the men who founded the Laughlin Heritage Foundation in which he serves as president. Del Rio Realtor® James Long created the foundation, surrounding himself with retired fliers to help found the Laughlin Heritage Museum, 309 S. Main St. Now, Chandler, Long, and Col. Vic Milam (retired), a former U-2 reconnaissance jet pilot, spend their Saturdays at the museum, available to share the rich history of flight and their own life experiences if guests show a little interest.

But with characteristic modesty found among these men who risked their lives for America every time they left the ground, Chandler demures from accolades. “In the World War II days, many men were doing the same things I did. I did not, and do not, think of myself as a hero,” Chandler asserted.