Oral History: Charles John Schlag

[0:00] every time I was at a station they say what would you like to be in I kept saying fighter pilot right so Barney Godwin who's in the what he call it the sick you have a picture of him Barney Godwin was in another squadron at Cecil Field and he married a girl that worked at the ship service counter uh that's long way after the war but uh he and I were the only two die bummer Pilots sent to Atlantic City NA Air Station to become fighter pilots uh that's my introduction to a Corsair right there so I go up and I said to the skipper of the Squadron Roy I think it was his name that time I said

[0:46] how soon can I get an airplane he said you got to check out in it I said well I never FLW it before he said well you got to read a handbook so I got the handbook I said look I'm not going to come in here I said can I do it in a room check 8:00 in the morning 5:00 at night and you can do it in the room when you're ready let me know so I did that and in the course of uh reading a handbook you have to retract the landing gears to retract the landing gears in F4U 1D you have to do the shoulder harness not the seat belt so you can

[1:19] reach up pull and pull it up and lock it so I go out get the course air first trip I go up hey this is great you know everything's wonderful now in the SBD if you look at any pictures of the SBD the cockpit is always open okay so I didn't close the cockpit and I thought huh I'll Loop a second so I push over had should be 10,000 ft you push over 10,000 five you pull up and so I pull up what the heck's wrong with it this is a firep plane so I try it again right p dog on cheap thing and another cocher comes up he gives me a Wheels upside I

[2:08] didn't lock them and every time I pull the stick back the wheels come down I so okay good he didn't tell me to close the cockpit just said wheels up so I push over oh beautiful now when you do a loop on the as it comes up the Horizon comes the backwards right so when that happens you put your head back on was foot when I put my head back W from my goggles so in Brigantine someplace in New Jersey is Navy Navy goggles I'm tell you all the crazy things that happened oh it's a beautiful blame yeah you ha to fly it the Marines went and took the cor later a for you4 I think

[2:51] and put a second cockpit they took the gun took the armor plate out there's a place back there you used to put your your traveling bags and they put another seat in jump seat if they ever crash the two them and get killed uh but it's a plane you had to fly I didn't know that then I'm just told it from what I learned had a lot more power than you were yeah well uh first off you you couldn't see the couldn't see the runway the nose up here so you had to use peripheral vision to go down straight and you push the stick forward and minut you pick up the tail then you could see the

[3:23] runway yeah it had a lot of power and uh I'm I'm going to go fast forward uh when you come in for a landing aboard a carrier it come in dirty no gasoline at least they don't want you to have any 40° flaps cows and coolers open canopy open and your parachutes uh disconnected from your flight suit there's a buckle back so if you go in you're not don't have a pa okay so I I made 80 Landings and this one time we come around that the deck is fouled and the ruin the Navy if you come in and you panels gives you wave off if you land it you're you're going to get a excuse me Court

[4:10] Marshal well that means you got to remember I tell you about the torque saw full power the PLO this I can remember turn and left you don't cross controls in when you fly by the way at least you're not supposed to I can remember I turn left I got my right foot up for a right turn and my knees just shaking but I'm doing it the guy behind me Dave CO's in the book in the picture he went in he didn't fly the plane the plane flew him one of the experiences I know that you had to fly that plane you just couldn't play with it it was an airplane you're if you're a pilot you fly it if

[4:56] if the plane takes over it's flying you with the course here uh the same thing every time morning noon and night carrier field Carrier Landing practice and we're going to go to gr con Gren Connecticut till we get a carrier signed so they gave us permission to to fly home in the Corsair Skipper can do what he wants his Squadron so Bill Pierce and Tuck Heath and I tuck Heath's mother was the secretary to Eisenhower's brother at the University of Virginia and we landed at at Charlottesville and I think we were there two days and Bill Pierce's home was in Cincinnati Ohio and we went there landed two days and we folded the wings at at the Cincinnati right and the

[5:49] people thought we were going to fly you know crazy and so my home Wheeling West Virginia had an airport but it couldn't handle the plane and it had no gas so we flew from Cincinnati Columbus and I called my mother and I called the guy I used to be my boss at the telephone company and I said I'll fly over and and I figured out about what time I'd be there so he my boss called my mother and she knew I was coming so at St Clairesville which is 20 mil west of Wheeling we're flying 10,000 I I went right over the telephone company rolled it and then I went around way around it's it's hilly okay it's like Rome Three

[6:36] Hills or seven hills and I went around I come down I went right over my house my mother his tablecloth coming out and she fell flat on her face so then we went from there we flew to Atlantic City and landed right so I called my mother to see as she saw me she said where are you in Pittsburgh she had no concept of of distance and time and we went flew to gr Connecticut now we're going we had to take our planes up and uh monuk point on on on Long Island has a Airfield call MacArthur and in those days they had p47 there right so I'm flying about 8,000 ft that D and happy

[7:22] going along but we have mirrors on either side and one at the top I glance to the mirror I say P4 s makeing a run on me right ah this guy's he's Duck Soup he don't know it yet but we have our 40 degree flaps are combat flaps so he's and I pum on his tail I guess he want what the hell happened so that was one of the crazy things going up there we landed the GR in Connecticut and that's where we lost four polish I think and then we were on a nigh hop up to Banger M we were delivering corsairs that another thing I did I delivered corsairs to the Canadian Air

[8:08] Force and they come over from Canada and we flew up well it's a new new field we don't know and snows real deep on the ground and so one of the guys landed on the river which you he didn't go through he realized on the river because he sees a bridge up there it fires up and takes off again just crazy things that happened and we were allowed to wear flight boots and fleece jackets all the time simply because of the cold and uh a lot of people don't know it but the tip tip of the wing oh the tip of the wing of a of a coair this much of it is fabric like an old U

[8:48] cafeteria tray you know and the reason for that is so the British could put them up more in their hanger deck so when they put them this way they take the tips off and they can so we we deliver those planes up there oh that's unusual the carrier know his radar okay uh KAG Commander uh Highland was leading the group and the carrier said there's a boogie in the area and they said whereabouts they said on your on your Port Port side anybody see it I see it remember the eyes he okay go get him Charlie so off I go I don't know what he was but I get on him he's going to Loop we knew they could turn inside

[9:48] us we knew that so he starts to Loop so I put the pickle on him I'm right behind his tail so I pull back on the stick and let him have it again then I drop my nose I got he's firing going over right well my gun camera field film never showed me hitting him because I'm shooting at the sky but the bullets are doing this that was number one I went back aboard to carrier they wouldn't give me credit son of a again you guys hit him on radar had two of us what happened to the other one H but we're coming you know and so the next time I got I I don't remember what

[10:26] I how I got him but I got him and I I'm not going to fool me I just fall in just before he hit the drink I took a picture of him and then somehow I I was in combat when you when you're actually involved if you get one you so where's the next one you know what I mean and and I don't even remember the others I really honestly gosh I don't I tried I tried tried and uh the WR up on that picture said we did something with a Betty I don't remember the Betty but uh then as I told you five years later I get this in a in a Chester newspaper Lieutenant Commander I mean

[11:10] Lieutenant JG I was an in then Lieutenant JG another air medal so they did something so I know I got five and they gave me credit five but they're supposed to give you another award when you get five I don't know what and we were going in and they said we want to find out or try to find out out these guys are using radar to find out where the ships are so I'm flying with a guy by the name Williams be Willams they call him and his father was a captain in Anapolis and his father designed the weam system of navigation that we use in our plotting boards I'm flying with the sun and he was before he went into the

[11:51] aircore nav aircore he was a a what they call can skimmer okay binocular eight power binoculars everywhere we go he's got the damn binoculars on so we're flying in formation and he leaves the group starts going down I I'm I'm an inocent I said and he's Lieutenant Napolis man right you get the hell up here you're going to get yourself killed take a look around you it's a Halo a fire and he's right in the middle of it so we go up and so we're take we're running mam is this right yeah mam oshim is the north island of Okinawa and messing boats to come down for to go to attack all right well we strafe

[12:36] them fired him it was a lot of fun I I like to fly see makes a difference and so I when we got down there I'm I don't know where they went and and I see this thing big tree there's no trees in NOA gave him a Salo a 5 in rocket it was a radar station I blew the thing to Kingdom Come