The Lowly, Unloved (Not So Much Anymore) 914

Lead photo of original 914 brochure whixh hung on my cubicle wall for months waiting for “my” car to show up followed by the finished car

February 22, 2015
Home at Last
and complete

So my Porsche guru Llew and I have both noticed, as you also might have, that prices for 914s are climbing rapidly…and there are lots of reasons, starting with the fact that the car has been under-appreciated by the market for 50 years. Of course, the most desirable remain the six cylinder and early 2.0 liter versions…understandably as these compensate for the most glaring downside of the car…very modest performance of the 1.7, 1.8, and the later 2 liter engines.

So what made me literally “jump the gun” with my tongue hanging our to get on a wait list for the car in the Spring of 1970? I guess the first, foremost, and easiest answer was those seven letters on the engine deck lid…seven I never thought I would ever see on a car I’d own.

But that is over-simplistic. My first intent educationally was to get a degree in some form of engineering. In order to maintain various means to finance my higher education I had to switch to Economics when my math grades threatened the minimum 3.0 GPA I needed to finance my continuation in college. The car's features had great appeal for my still undampened appreciation for good engineering.

And the 914 was so much ahead of its time the early articles about the car in the auto world press really got my blood pumping. From the start these were less than impressed with the car’s acceleration…I could care less. I had a motorcycle which was a literal “pocket rocket” that could leap off tjhe line so quick it was all I could do to hang onto it. At that point in my life cars were for handling. Acceleration was secondary.

What did capture my attention were features that were either so far ahead of their time, or only present on cars costing a minimum of three times the price of the 914, that the “press pannning” of the car's modest straight line performance was so dismissive as well as unimportant I think most of the buying public simply ignored the “modest” straight line performance.

By the time Porsche “killed” the model as too much of a potential threat to the 911, over 40,000 had been built-by an order of magnitude the largest production volume the company had produced in its history uo to the car's demise in 1975.

In fact, some of those features somehow, though as no surprise to me, have now become fairly common across most of the car universe...absent of course arguably the most important one-the mid engined layout...simply the ideal place for the heaviset component of a car and its impact on handling.

Just a quick reminder: aside from the mid engine, there are these features which were pretty unique in 1970 at any price, no less the sub $4000 tag for the 914:

• four wheel disc brakes

• electronic fuel injection

• removable and stowable hard top

• built in crash bar

• five speed transmission

• 30 mpg efficiency and a range of over 400 miles between fillups

• Centralized fuel tank location for safety

• magnesium Porsche transaxle housing and gears straight off the 911 except for the final linkage

• “Hidden” popup headlights

So ok, maybe the idea of a bench seat for the passenger wasn't the best idea, and the seat belts are by far the worst of any car I've owned. The shift linkage is, understandably, a bit vague...after all the rod has to go all the way to the far rear of the driveline as the tranny sits in the car “backwards” relative to its location in the 911. And the performance is indeed...modest, though driven like a race car (foot on the gas pedal to the floor until you reach your desired speed or need to brake) I have no problem staying with modern cars...and its handling makes it easy to do things most people won't attempt even with modern cars that are more than up to the task.

The biggest initial factor in the development of the model was the relationship between two parts of the Porsche family...the Peich's who developed VW, and Ferry and that side of the Porsche line. 

The four cylinder 914 was never intended to be a Porsche...it was a joint Porsche-VW project, and only the 914-6 was to be sold by and badged as Porsche. The four cylinder cars were badged in Europe as “VW-Porsche” and that badge was the only direct reference to Porsche on the car.It was intended to be sold by VW dealers. 

BUT, and this is important...the design, engineering, and construction of the main unibody was done by Karmann and is identical for either version of the model. It was only after that construction that the ones intended for VW were shipped to them for completion, while the ones to become the 914-6 went to Porsche for final assembly. 

Of course the 914-6 also got a two liter, six cylinder Porsche motor and Weber carburation, while the 914-4 got a VW unit also used in some VW models. The rest of the drivetrain...the transaxle, was pure Porsche in both cases, though of course the gearing was different...but it is the identical magnesium housing of the 911 and uses gears that are also 911 units.

And then

• VW backed out of the deal. Porsche was then faced with a dilemma. ¹They could drop the whole idea, market the car as originally intended- a hybrid Porsche/VW, or sell it as a pure Porsche offering. The fear that the 911 design was growing “long of tooth, since it began life as the 356 and had been around since the 1940s,” was part of the rationale for the 914 to begin with. Since Porsche's biggest market had already become the US, the decision was made to market the car in Europe as the “VW-Porsche” as originally intended, with only the -6 as a pure Porsche brand. But in the US it was decided to brand the car only as a Porsche and to sell it only through Porsche dealers, likely to test a “non-Porsche-lookiing” design's acceptance in their largest market. In Europe the -4 got no pure Porsche badging, but in the US both the steering wheel horn rim and the engine deck lid got Porsche graphics. Oddly, neither the -6 nor the -4 got Porsche nose badges; to this day the only Porsche models lacking such ids.

The -4 in Europe was carbureted and had upgraded performance, but due to ever more stingent US pollution abatement laws, the US cars got the then revolutionary EFI designed for the VW 411 series, one of the very first “mass market” fuel injection systems, and (unfortunately) more modest performance, which is what the press focused on almost exclusively, except for intentionally showing how “unattractive” the headlights are when in the “up” position by photographing them from an eye level only a two year old has...and failing to mention both the vsual and aerodynamic advantages of the “pop up” design and that in the dark the profile would hardly be visible.

US law also mandated increased side visibility in the dark, so a last minute “kludge” of “hockey puck” shaped marker lenses in the front fenders were added,, which did little to endear the public to the design of the car.

As for performance, the press also “conveniently” forgot that the history of Porsche road cars prior to the 911 did not exactly emphasize acceleration. In fact, the performance of the -4 was right in line with most of the prior 356 models upon which Porsche built their fame

As you can see, I took possession of my 1970 914 on July 8 (verify)of that year. Photo of original invoice for car. NB-do I want to include the details of the price change due to options I didn't order, etc?Typical of VDO gauges of the era, the odometer broke at xxx,xxx miles... the engine was rebuilt at San Carlos Motors sometime in the early 1980s, and the car has not been a “daily driver” since the late 70s. Still,the basic machine likely has many more miles then show on the odometer. 

Fast forward many years and many miles later and the car had suffered quite a bit. The odometer breaking (a cmmon thing with VDO units)  unfortunately did not stop the aging. There was so much paint on the car that, among other flaws, the deck behind the back window was a spider web of deep cracks (I had learned the hard way I was no car painter when I clumsily resprayed it back to its original white). Somehow, though I've forgotten the details, there was a long rip in the driver seat cushion.

Kinda sad

There was a tear in the carpet over the side rail where a piece of lomber I was carrying for some project tore through. 

A common flaw in the early serial number cars was twofold: The waffle weave material on the dash peeled and though I tried to recement it in place this was unsuccessful, and ditto the cushioned top padding on the door upholstery.

This was held in place by a metal rod tucked under the material, which was poorly anchored in the cheap door panel foundations, made of some sort of pressed paper product.

And there were other issues. Sitting at the only red  light on the MacArthur Causeway I was rear ended by an out of state driver who never even braked, knocking me out and into the middle of the intersection. The rear end was pretty messed up and, naive as I was, the repair shop did really shlock job of heavy bondo sculpting rather than appropriate and needed metal work. But some of the later paint issues were due to having them repaint the car in silver. This was then refreshed yet again just after we moved to the SF area. NO wonder the paint was so thick!

I don't recall why, but at some point maybe the car would not even run. At any rate, it remained parked even after being trailered to my new workshop in Jackson, a place finally large enough to have allowed me to work on it. 

The car became a dusty and forgotten convenient place to store things on top of in the half of the building I used for that purpose.

Fast fowared about two decades. I had been using my Dodge 2500 longbed pickup as a daily driver...the equivelant of an Amador County universal "car," as such beasts are the predominant form of transport in Amador County. But at about ten miles pre gallon around town, the fuel cost was ridiculous.

Besides, what the heck had I built that shop for, if not to do "car stuff?"

So I contacted my friend and Porsche guru Llew Kinst and reached an agreement with him on helping to restore the car.

 I had the car stripped to bare metal to start the process of putting it back to its correct color. I found a place in the Sacramento area which did this work  using baking soda. When pumped out at high pressure the stuff basically "exploded" and blasted the paint off without distorting or pitting the underlying metal.

Believe it or not, the way it looks here is GOOD news

 I had met a fellow through the Crosely Club who, along with his brother did car restorations as a side hustle to their day jobs, on their property in Northern Nevadaa, I go the body work and painting done for far less than a fullltime shop would have charged.

Work underway in Ernie's old shop
Painted and progressing

Cleaned up trim waiting for return of the car

Powder coated engine sheet metal

  I kept most of the interior original, but needed to refresh the carpets, dash covering, and door panels, as well as the driver's cushion and back pad, and interior carpeting. Firtuatenly there was a very skilled and reasonably priced upholsterer just a bit further up the mountain from me who did the work at a very reasonable cost.

Llew did a mechanical refresh including the addition of upgraded rear springs and a front anti-rollbar, new brake rotors, and installation of a later, “side shifter” transaxle.²  He also  had  the black engine covers, intake manifolds,  and black rocker panels powder coated. Llew had removed the “hocky puck” lights and filled in the holes in the fenders prior to the painting, returning the car to the original intended look, which is also how the European cars were fitted. He also graciously offered to provide, at a reasonable price, rare and lovely Pedrini custom wheels to replace the mundane stock steel wheels with VW hub caps (though lacking the VW embossed logo). These too were sand blastd by him and sent out to be powder coated. Not cuttijng any corners we did five so even the spare is a Pedrini.

Restored and rare
Pedrini Wheel

I replaced the door threshold plates with new, aftermarket units. The front and rear carpets and much of the weatherstripping was fine even after almost half a century, but I did replace the front trunk surround. The weatherstripping around the rear window glass was shot, and replacement of that required also replacing the window. 

There was only one major mechanical glitch that occurred as part of the refresh, though getting the original and revolutionary EFI working was challenging and a bit like alchemy, with all sorts of semi-electronic/semi-mechanical items like an altitude sensing barometer to debug. That glitch was, when first fired up, it only ran on two cylinders. The EFI uses a separate set of points on the unique distributor to fire the fuel injectors. We had put in a new unit, but it was defective. Since electrical parts are not returnable, at least not from where we sourced them (a very secretive and not well known place owned by a reclusive old buddy of Llew's), we simply put back the old ones, which were in "as new" condition despite the years since the engine rebuild.

Boom! Problem solved, though there were lots of other challenges getting this archane and enigmactic system to work properly.

The front turn signal lenses were replaced with European style units. The rear lights are original. All replaced parts were retained. Thus the car is very much a “near orignal” and single-owner-since-new example of a car that is so pleasurable to live with and drive I actually stopped considering buying a Ferrari 308 to replace the Siata (described in other issues of this blog). There is nothing other than power and so-called “status” the 308 would do that the Porsche does not do or have. In fact, one could argue that the 914 was a direct ancestor of and possible inspiration for the large production, comparatively low cost Ferrari. Like that model, it has taken decades to be fully appreciated for the landmark it is.

On Llew's trailer
The day it came home

  

1A similar situation developed later with the 924. Never intended to be a Porsche offering, the car was designed under contract to the company by Audi, and was always intended to be just that...an Audi sports model. Audi backed out and Porsche decided to market the car under their brand...an early and initially equally panned water cooled variant of the product line

2He later returned the original tail shifter to me which had been swapped during the rework 

   

The E Type

Yes, it's a 1/24 sclae model

As I was wondering what model I could next build which had some link to my past, while slow to come to mind, I eventually realized that there have been a number of Jaguars in my car history...though the only one(s) I have actually driven were what Ernie once called “the loveliest used bar of soap” ever sculpted into a car body.

I had, of course, seen (and heard) a number of Jags ijn vintage racing, from XK120s to the more exotic C and D types of the likes of one Stever Earle and the medical professional from Nevada whose name, as many other things, escapes me at the moment (the foounder of Intrepid Racing). 

But I actually experienced two of these wonderful beasts quite personally, though the memory of the first one was dimmed both by the passage of time and the fact that, in my then younger days, somehow the car did not impress me as much as it should have, so it settled into the dusty back storage of my mind.

So...the second one first. John Lewis played an outsized role into my deep dive into the world of sports cars and vintage racing. The first was a reacquaintence as I had gotten bitten hard by the sports car bug in my late teens and early 20s. But the second, as likely recounted elsewhere in these blogs, was an outgrowth of my time in the Ferrari Owners Club, and the entry into track events and vintage racing that group had a big hand in lighting a fire under in the early 1970s. And I was initiated into the drug of exotic cars and their use by the FOC and John's introduction to the club and its members by John.

That story might be told another time...but for this entry suffice it to say that John had a habit in those days of showing up with some new toy from time to time.

And on the occasion in question, it was a Series I E type coupe.¹ While, in all honesty, when the model first came out it was the coupe which caught my eye, the form did not age all that well, and by the time of John's purchase the style looked rather dated. Still, ignore the top and, underneath, it was still that eternally lovely “use bar of soap.”

The car was, IMO, a rather odd color. It was metallic, and the best way I can describe it was silver with just the slightest touch of light blue. A color I have never seen since, nor before, on any Jaguar. John's cars were not, to put it mildly, the “best of the breed,” and I wonder if this odd color was original to the car. I don't want to badmouth one of my best friends ever, but let's just say that showng up for tech inspection with John's AC Bristol (he was held up getting to the track and asked me to help out) was a bit embarrassing, when it glaringly appeared that the front anti-rollbar mount was so rusted through the bar was about to fall off the car.

So I do wonder about that color. 

By this time in my car history I was well into the world of exotic Ferraris and vintage racers, including my own lovely Siata, as detailed in multiple entries in this blog. I was no longer in awe of cars I could only drool over magazine articles about as a kid.

But still. Of course, John being the extremely generous soul he was, offered me a stint behind the wheel. By this time I had years of experience with my Ferrari, which was no slouch in terms of power and acceleration. 0-60 was 7.2 seconds I believe, and the top speed was 144. I had, at numerous times, had it well over 100, and the car just seemed to get more and more alive the faster you went. 

I also had experience in even more lethal cars, including John's own Ferraris...a 275GTS, a 365GT “Queen Mother,” and the most brutal...the 365GT4 “Daytona.” The acceleration of that beast, though “ho hum” by today's electric car standards, took my breath way.

And yet

there was just something about that 4.2 liter inline DOHC six that was in a whole different universe. The motor was designed by Jaguar engineers as they huddled in subway (Tube) stations while London waa being bombed by the Nazis. With nothing to do and lots of time to do it, they dreamed up “the perfect” engine. 

Even in a model
It's pretty impressive

And when the war ended they went ahead and actually built the damn thing. In one form or another it powered Jag street and race cars, including for multiple successful race wins, from post-war days all the way to the latter days of the 20^thCentury. I'm not sure it lasted the longest of any single car m otor, but I'll bet it was right up there in terms of lifespan.

If the Ferrari motor was a specially bred thoroughbred racehorse, and American V8s were the biggest and meanest dogs on the block, the Jag six was...a Jaguar...a motor that you felt as much as you heard...the gut punch of a big American V8 that just roared as it ran. 

Add in that hood, which seemed to go on forever (but then, so did the hood on the “Queen Mother” so I should have been used to it), and punching the go pedal was....exciting. It seemed to have enough torque to flip the car over...and it was happy no matter how you treated it.

IF not the longest
Certainly the second longest hood on a car

Maybe it was the reverb inside the coupe that the convertible lacked, but I swear I don't have anywhere near that memory of my earlier experience with a roaadster. 

Of course time had to strangloe and emasculate the car...firsst went the headlight covers, then the dash paddle switches, then those lovely small taillight and front turn signal lights, and, finally, those monstrous SU carbs. Strangled by growing restrictions on emissions in the era before computer control enabled us to have power AND cleaner burning engines, as well as over-zealous and, in retrospect, at leat partly misplaced insistence on changes of limited safety value (no “ears” on knockoffs?), the last of the breed,m even though V12 engined, were sad shadows of the original, and to this day, achingly lovely originals...a masterpiece of both beauty and engineering in its day which still retains its glory today.

1BTW...the car is officially the “E Type” and not, as it is called in America, the “XKE.” XK refers to the specific frame type of the XK120 and its successors...which laid claim to being the first street car to reach that speed “out of the box.” Sinve the E Type is a partial monocoque and lacks a frame, the “XK” monicker is totally inappropriate for the model 

Even from above its lovely

A bit awkward with the top up

Uncle Hank's Italian Visit

Sherri's Uncle was indeed a very odd cat. But then he was married to her Aunt Dorothy, which might have made that a foregone conclusion, as she too was definitely the one of the three sisters who “marched to a different drummer.”

Of the three daughters of Sherri's Italian grandfather and Jewish grandmother ( a story of its own), Dorothy was definitely the odd duckling. Just for a couple of examples:

• Barbara and Sherri's mom (Lillian) both went to “serious” and well regarded colleges in the Northeast...Lil to Cornell and Barbara to Syracuse. Dorothy went to what was known then as “Suntan U,” the University of Miami (I never did hear the story behinbd that rather odd choice)

• While Barb married the traditional Jewish doctor and Lil was a bit more “out there” by marrying a non-college grad truck driver, Dorothy chose instead Hank. While I don't know what he was doing at the time, by the time I married Sherri he was a retired commercial airline pilot

• Barbara and Lil grew up embracing Judaism. Hank was a Catholic. When he and Dorothy connected, they both became Lutherans as a compromise

I've never asked Sherri if she knows how Dorothy and Hank met, but somehow I suspect it was while she was in school in Coral Gables...maybe Hank was also at UM on the GI Bill. At any rate, I knew he had become a pilot for now long defunct Eastern Airlines. At retirement he was still flying a Boeing 727

 Eastern had, for his last years with the company, been long pestering him to start flying the newer and larger Lockheed L1011 (

 but it did not surprise me to learn Hank consistently refused. I had already learned that he was a poster boy for the term “conservative” and that did not just extend to his politics.

Hank and Dorothy settled down to live in South Florida. Hank eventually wound up piloting the lovely tri-tailed Lockheed Constellation 

 on the run which terminated at one of the New York airports, either the one now called Kennedy but then known as Idelwild, or LaGuardia, named for a well loved former New York City Mayor.

Sherri has two stories from her early youth centered on Hank and the “Connie,” as the plane model was nicknamed. The first was that, since Hank lived in Florida, instead of staying in a hotel near the ariport until he captained a return to MIA (Miami International Airport), he would stay with Sherri's family in Elmont. The approach pattern for the airport he was landing at was normally right over Elmont, and Hank would “announce” his pending arrival by flashing the plane's landing lights as he passed over the house, allowing Lil to start dinner in time for his arfrival. 

The second story Sherri told was of riding on Hank's lap as a young girl while he flew her down to spend part of the summer with Hank, Dorothy, and their numerous (five, I think) kids. When Sherri was quite young (I picture her as about three, wearing a little pinafore and a cute, wide brimmed hat) she could not, of course, fly by herself without an accompanying adult unless the airlines would agree to look after her. In those simpler times First Class was never fully occupied, nor was the door to the flight deck locked. This was almost a decade before hijacking planes to Havana became a”thing.” In those days a flight from New York to Miami took almost the same amount of time as a coast to coast journey does with jets today. So when she wasn't sitting on Hank's lap she was happily treated like a little princess, seated in First Class.

Hank and Dorothy had really good free flight benefits...and took advantage of none of them. I might have made this up but I think not...I believe Hank once said he would not step on a plane he was not piloting. To me at the time this just was another notch in his “totem of weirdness.”

From the way he taunted us I have a good idea that Hank thought little good of California. On every occasion when we got together with Sherri's parents and he and Dorothy and perhaps others in their family for dinner at a restaurant, one question he had became a cliché: “Has California fallen off into the ocean yet?” 

That was, by far, the mildest of his digs. He took great delight in not only touting his rather parochial right wing beliefs, but always seemed to be expressing them in the hopes of getting a rise out of us. 

It was only towards the very end of his life that I got a rather shocking insight as to a possible reason for his weiirdness. I vaguely knew he was a bomber pilot in the Second World War but did not devote any real attention to it. There was a print or painting, along with a number of war artifacts displayed pretty prominently in the condo they moved to, near the now infamous Parkland High School, with things like a uniform unit patch, maybe a folded US flag, and perhaps even a couple of medals. I never even bothered to look closely enough at any of this to learn what the plane in the graphic was, and never asked him anything about the war.

So it was a bit of a shock when on this one occasion, seated next to me, he once again noted, as he often did as part of what seemed to be an attempt to anger us, that we seemed to have affection for Italy, given that by then we had made many extended trips there. I once again acknowledged that...by this time the exchanges seemed stilted and tired out.

And then

He unexpectedly said that he had been to Italy. I don't remember his exact comment, but it certainly got my attention as he had never before said anything like that. He said he had seen a lot of it...from the air. And then the proverbial light bulb lit in what until then had seemed a dusty corner of my brain.

Of course! He was a bomber pilot. Not only was the plane in the painting in his house a B 24, but it was possibly even the one he flew. 

It was like suddenly an ice dam in front of a glacier had broken, and a torrent of thought flooded onto me. In my studies on the war I lhad learned that, while the B 17 is often portrayed as the quintessenal WWII US bomber, the 24 was built in larger numbers and, unlike the 17, was used in every theater of the war. It also had a potentially fatal flaw, a weakness in the way those long wings mated to the fuselage that meant often a single enemy shell could make the wing fold up like that of a plane intended for aircraft carrier use...a total failure from which there was no recovery. In fact, a famous clip from the war which is showed in almost every war film I have seen shows a 24 with exactly that happening, putting the plane into a 90 degree dive straight down. 

Here's an analysis from the maker of the model of the B24 I built as a tribute to Hank which is shown at the end of this piece:

Popular opinion among aircrews and general staffs tended to favor the B-17's rugged qualities above all other considerations in the European Theater. The placement of the B-24's fuel tanks throughout the upper fuselage and its lightweight construction, designed to increase range and optimize assembly line production, made the aircraft vulnerable to battle damage. The B-24 was notorious among American aircrews for its tendency to catch fire. Moreover, its high fuselage-mounted Davis wing also meant it was dangerous to ditch or belly land, since the fuselage tended to break apart. Nevertheless, the B-24 provided excellent service in a variety of roles thanks to its large payload and long range.

So suddenly I'm looking at Hank and starting to think about how old he might have been, in charge of a crew of up to nine, flying over Italy through flak so thick you could almost walk on it. 

How old could this young officer have been? Where was he flying out of? What was the time period? Did he get his training in South Florida and does that explain how he and Dorothy might have met, either during or after the war? 

Sherri's mom was the oldest of the three Cutolo sisters, born in 1924. Dorothy was next, born in 1930. Hank was five years older, so born in 1925. Using 1944 as a reasonable guess at the earliest he would have been flying over Italy, that means at 19 or 20 he was a lieutenant or captain, in charge of eight or nine other kids barely out of their teens, risking their necks in the skies over Italy in a bomber with a potentially fatal weakness.

“Stunned” does not begin to describe my slack-jawed reaction as I noodled this out. Nor does it do justice to the respect, and potential understanding, I quickly began to have for this very odd duck of a man. While I don't of course know for certain, it is is entirely possible that much of his oddness gew out of that war experience. How could it not have? It is difficult to think of any other circumstance with such stressful impact on a human being. His unwillingness to fly and much else that seemed so strange about him suddenly seemed to snap into a much more clear focus, even though it is speculative. 

I began to pay much more attention to the B-24. I would like to know a lot more about his participation in the war, but of course it is too late to ask him as he died in 2012. Sherri suggests I contact Dorothy but the only way I would be comfortable suddenly popping up with questions about such a deeply personal experience would be in person. I hope to be able to do so soon as she is in her 90s and she (and I) are on borrowed time.

From what I know at this point, Hank and his plane would have been part of the 15^th Air Force, stationed at one of a number of bases clustered near Bari, in the heel of the Italian boot. 

Established on 1 November 1943, Fifteenth AF was a United States Army Air Forces combat air forcedeployed to the European Theater of World War II, bombing Europe from bases in southern Italy and engaging in air-to-air fighter combat against enemy aircraft.

Courtesy Wikipedia

The model photographed for this piece is one I built in tribute to Hank. It is a loose tribute as I do not know things like whether this “J” version is the model of the 24 he flew, though it does appear to be the version in every 15h Air Force plane photo I have found. Nor do I know the exact unit he was in nor what station or stations he flew from. Of the three paint and decal schemes provided with the large Hobby Boss model of the 24, only the plane with the name “My Akin ?” was part of the 15^th, specifically the 732^nd Bomber Squadron, 450^th Bomb Group, 47^th Bomb Wing (the question mark is accompanied by a kicking donkey graphic). It appears there were at least two planes with a similar name and graphic, though only one is correct for the above squadron: http://www.b24bestweb.com/myakin3.htm. The other plane, whose crew was more daring and called it “My Akin Ass” was in the 8^th Air Force: http://www.b24bestweb.com/miakinas1.htm

Note that the 15h Air Force plane was a “J” version, thus providing more evidence that Hank's plane also was a J. But note that, though “My Akin ?” was in the 450^th BG, and thus logically would have been stationed in Italy, the 450th does not show on the above map! According to the following chart, the plane would have been stationed at Manduria, far to the south of the map's coverage: http://www.2ndbombgroup.org/15thAirForce.htm. I do not, at this point, know Hank's unit nor where it was stationed.

If I find more details and answers if I do get to speak with Dorothy and she can fill in some blanks, I will revise this piece. But really, the point is clear even without those details. I simply cannot fathom what young people like Hank did and endured and what debt is owed to them, perhaps more deepely felt by this Jewish boy who very likely would never have been born or lived without the efforts of these “kids.” I am just staggered by the juxtiposed thoughts of Hank as I knew him and this 19 or 20 year old flying this four engined bomber with the lives of nine other kids in his crew and those of thousands on the ground in his very young hands.

My 1:32 scale model of a B24J
15th Air Force
450th Bomber Group
47th Bomber Wing
722nd Bomber Squadron

This plane was named "My Akin ?"
Another, bolder plane was named "My Akin Ass" with a similar graphic
This one was part of the Italian Campaign
May have been graphically similar to Uncle Hank's Plane

 

I Flew a USAF F 80

Ok, so it wasn't precisely an F80, but rather the T33 trainer version. But to the best of my knowledge the only differences are the lack of armaments or hard point mounts for them, and the dual seat and dual control cockpit.

I had joined the USAF ROTC Officer “training” program during college. Until the post-Vietnam era, public universities, which had been granted land by the Federal government upon which to build their campuses, were required to have all male students participate in two years of Reserve Officer Training, forming a Corps of cadets (ROTC), with some hopefully going on to an additional two years in the program followed by commissioning as an officer for at least four years of service.

In theory this could have been a wonderful way to have young people participate in public service, though there were a few things less than stellar about the actual program. The first was that it was for men only...true public service to the country and community should not be based on sex. The second was that it was only for military service rather than a broader based way to help build and further the American experiment, particulary for those without interest or capacity to join organizations whose primary purpose was to kill people. 

But the biggest weakness in the program was that it didn't even provide any real value in terms of military training...no classes on strategy, tactics, war history or battles to study, no academic aspect at all. The program consisted totally, as best I can recall, in marching around an athletic field under the “command” of those cadets who had signed up for the second two years of the program and eventual commissioning into the military. The rest of the students were basically just fodder for these future officers to drill.

The University of Florida offered only a choice between the Army and the Air Force...there was no Navy or Coast Guard component. I really don't have any idea of why I did so, since at the time I had zero intention to do more than the required two years, but I chose the Air Force ROTC. So in Sepetember of 1963 I picked up my black shoes, khaki normal wear, blue “dress” uniform, and the kind of cap worn by ice cream scoopers in Baskin and Robbins, though in both khaki and blue variations, and prepared for two years of boredom marching around an open field, mostly, except for winter, in the Florida heat and humidity.

Thus my surprise when the Air Force offered me an enticing financial incentive to enter the second two years of the program and a stint as a USAF officer. The fact that I have no recollection of how that occurred probably is a pretty succinct comment on the impression it did or did not make on me. But it did solve a rapidly escalating and serious financial bind for me.

My dad had expectations for me built, I think in part on the lack of educational opportunities he had in his own life. Though I never learned the details, he had to end his formal education after the 8^th grade, likely to provide financial support by going to work and helping his family's economic survival. I believe he was probably a good student, and thus was deeply motivated for me to achieve what he we unable to...thus his extreme anger and disappointment when I turned down multiple scholarship offers to instead attend the UF in Gainesville, at the northern end of the Florida peninsula.

I really lacked the independence, self confidence, and maturity to be away from home. While my relationship with my then girlfriend Cheryl was a good part of my reluctance to be far from home, there was more to it then that even if Dad did not think so. I clearly remember crying a good part of the way as Mom and Dad drove me up to Gainesville from Miami. 

That choice by me contributed in a major way to my desire to be as financially independent of Dad as possible. Summer jobs and government “National Defense” (NDEA) loans were my main source of financial “freedom,” but by the end of my sophmore year it was apparent that I either needed to ask for more from my poarents, or somehow garner more resources on my own.

The offer from (I suppose) the commander of the Air Force ROTC program was to pay for tuition, books, plus a modest living allowance until graduation. The repayment was four years as an Air Force officer. The Gulf of Tonkin phony “attack” on a US warship occurred during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year (1964). Though in retrospect it is possible that I would not have been drafted, at least not prior to my graduation, or could at least have deferred conscription until I got my degree, the odds are probably even that I would indeed have been drafted at some point, and the last thing I wanted to contemplate was facing life as a “dogface” foot soldier. I was never a great physical specimen and it is possible I would have failed Basic Training, but I believe I felt it was not worth taking a chance, and if I had to go into the military, going in as a junior officer in the Air Force, with the side benefit of them paying much of the cost of my last two plus years of college, seemed by far the best way to go. 

But by the time I got my time piloting the T, a lot had changed, and in many ways for me and the nation, not positively. Although at the time I did not think much about what the consequences might be, in retrospect my “bravery” in taking on the entire US Air Force about Vietnam would more correctly be called bravado. I was aware that they might send this trouble maker to some freezing outpost for four years (Thule, Greenland was much on my personal radar). They could have done a lot more to make an example of me and my life a living hell.

Sometime during my Junior year of 1964-65 I and others became aware that the Vietnam military incursion was both futile, and a crock of bullshit. I don't recall exactly when the Pentagon Papers were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg but it was well after I, and one other ROTC cadet, a Philosophy Major, began to openly question the lines we were being fed by fairly senior USAF officers. In particular, I vividly recall the visit of an Air Force Chaplain, who was lecturing us on having confidence in the legality of orders issued to us. 

As a Jew I had become acutely aware of the Nazi era in Germany. In fact, for my Bar Mitzvah birthday, rather than the joking tradition of a fountain pen, I asked my parents for a copy of William Shirer's “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and, at 13, had read it cover to cover, and was well aware of Adolph Eichmann's 1961 trial defense of “just following orders.”

So when the Chaplain made the statement that, were the class ordered to drop nuclear weapons on Moscow we could be confident that the “dirty Russkies” were, at the same moment, destroying DC,iIn front of the whole class I asked him about the Eichmann defense and how to reconcile that statement and the trial.

I actually don't recall his answer, but I'm pretty sure it was logically inconsistent nonsense, because shortly after the lecture I was called into the Commandant's office and told I had “embarrassed” the Chaplain. Aw, poor guy!

Needless to say, by the time I got to the mandatory six week summer training at Eglin AFB in Northwestern Florida, my reputation preceded me.

In fact, at one point, though I don't recall whether it was before or after my jet flight, I was told by the officer overseeing our group that I had a very low rating by my “peers.” I was not told why nor how to improve that rating. So my only response was that these beer swilling braggarts of sexual conquests that were largely made up, were not my “peers.” 

The day ot my T 33 flight I was issued a parachute and given a brief explanation of how it worked...so brief I recall nothing about the details, but in fairness I was probably experiencing most things that day as somlewhat surreal and thus erased this from my memory. Nor do I recall how I actually got into the cockpit, though I suspect walking with the parachute pack slung beneath my butt, even in the short distance from the vehicle transporting me to the flight line, was probably pretty uncomfortable.

I do remember, once I sat down on that chute, being strapped in by an enlisted crewman. And I certainly remember quite vividly watching him pull the “Remove Before Flight” red banners and their attached “keys” from the two ejection seat arm rests. I needed no warning about not touching these until and unless instructed by the pilot.

My preception of him is pretty dim...I think he was a Major, and my memory tells me he had short and receding grey hair...but I also might be mixing him up with my first girlfriend Candy's father, also a Major at the time I dated her, but in the Marines. At any rate it was the pilot who told me that, if he deemed it necessary to bail out, once that decision was made, within less time then it takes to write this he would jettison the canopy and be gone, leaving me to figure out if I thought I could fly a plane he no longer thought he could (not bloody likely). I also remain acutely aware that what I recall as chisel points on the top of my seat, designed to punch through the canopy in the event it failed to eject. That memory is quite vivid because it seemed to me that the top of my “loaner” helmet was above those same chisel points and I kept reminding myself to duck “just in case.”

The taxi out and takeoff didn't make any impression on me. I do remember feeling a bit uneasy when the canopy closed...there's not a lot of room overhead and it is clear why military pilots are not too tall nor too wide. The amount of space around you, for those familiar with it, is rather similar to that of a mocern Lotus sports car. Snug doesn't begin to describe it. The takeoff was not memorably aggressive...certainly the Major was not trying to show off or scare me and just as clearly the plane is capable of a much grater takeoff angle. Nor do I remember the climb to whatever cruising angle he chose...I'm guessing it was under 10,000 feet but that is indeed a guess. I don't recall using an oxygen mask on the flight. 

The Major did a number of fairly gentle “S” turns as well as a “Split S” climb. Looking down we were well under the cruising altitude of a commercial jet liner. Still, on a very clear day the visibility was extensive. I don't recall seeing any big cities such as Apalachicola or Tallahassee but Eglin is such a huge base it seems to go on forever. 

At one point the Major did a wing roll and flew inverted, asking me to notice that it was “just like sitting in your living room” and to also note I was not hanging from the shoulder straps. I disagreed, saying my ceiling did not look like the ground view above the canopy. 

The view forward from the rear seat is largely blocked by the lead pilot's seat back, so when I was instructed to take over control I was bit concerned that it would be basically instrument flying from the “get go.” I suspect, but don't know for sure, that in actual pilot training the student is in the front seat. Fortunately I had always been fascinated by planes and had once even made a cardboard instrument panel for some plane, done from a photo in a book. I used Mom's canned goods to draw circles for the various instrument sizes. I cut out the pointer needles from cardboard, pinning them to the center of the dials and moving them manually of course.

The Major had me fly “straight and level” for a bit, and I used the “Turn and Bank” indicator gauge to ensure that the wings were level and the Horizon indicator and altimeter to ensure I was neither climbing nor descending. The plane was quite stable. I watched the dual throttle control to be sure the officer was not going to play tricks on me by increasing the setting and causing the plane to climb. The cockpit was surprisingly, though not totally, quiet, and with headphones on I could not hear any change in engine sounds very well. 

I was then told to institute a number of gentle turns and changes of heading, relying on my now “co-pilot” to watch for other traffic in the area. I was allowed to so some horizontal “S” turns but there was no suggestion of anything in a vertical direction. There was no particular sensation of speed, though the rate at which the ground was passing below us was pretty impressive. It is normal to fly most planes at about 75% throttle, so assuming this was the case I would guess we were moving at roughly 500MPH. 

And then

He asked if I could see a fighter which had just taken off from the field and was climbing rapidly. I think it was an F102 or 104...though they do not at all resemble each other I really don't recall which it was and have no real reason to think that. Since I have worn glasses my entire life perhaps he wsa concerned about my visual acuity or depth perception.

At any rate I acknowledged that I could indeed see the plane, and he ordered me to set what I judged to be an intercept course with the fighter, moving the throttle to 100%, the accelration resulting pushing me deeply into the seat and generating a noticeable increase in G force.

Without experience judging distances in a plane I can't really say how far from the fighter we were...I was successful in setting an intercept course that would have resulted in us crossing just behind him...if we had more power. As it was I never really got close, but the Major told me the course I had set wsa appropriate.

And then two things happened almost in unison, which cut short the flight. Both the radio and the air conditioner failed. Had I known more, the first would have caused as much concern for me as the second, but I really was unaware of the risk of being unable to communicate with other aircraft, either military or civilian, nor the tower about returning to the field and laanding. As it was my focus instantly became the AC, as the plane rapidly became a “pheasant under glass” situation when the temperature in the cockpit shot up to well over 100, and both the Major and I rapidly became covered in perspiration, interfering with both concentration and vision. He took over control, increased the throttle setting again, and banked us sharply to return to the field.

I have no memory of how he made the field aware of our predicament...I don't recall any “wing waggling,” but I suspect he turned on the landing lights and, perhaps, there were lights on the wing tips he could use for signaling, as I know they have such lights on the US Navy F18 model I built. At any rate we quickly descended and landed, and he opened the cockpit as soon as the airbrakes slowed us down enough to ensure the wind woould not rip it off the plane. Even the hot and humid Florida air felt cool compared to the suddenly clasutrophobic cockpit, and my legs were wobbly as I climbed from my seat onto the wing once we parked, assisted by a ground crewman.

Still, it ws a pretty amazing experience.

My brief Air Force “career” ended sometime thereafter, in my Senior year in college. With my diploma in hand and my request for deferment for Grad School denied, I reported to some officer somewhere I don't recall for my pre-commisioning physical exam.

I sat around waiting for the result, and then the examining doctor told me I was rejected...for three conditions I have had my entire life. I was and remain “color deficient,” I was born with “flat feet,” and I was underweight for my height. 

I was completely baffled. I wondered if my “punishment” for questioning the war was to be shunted in as a non-officer, but the doctor told me the Air Force would not take me at all. 

Now what? I wondered. Were they going to REALLY screw me over and get me drafted as an Army grunt and send me to Vietnam? All I could do was go ahead and enter Grad School and wait. After a term at Florida I was selected for a Fellowship at the University of Georgia. It was there, several weeks or a couple of months later, that I reccieved a DD214 Honorable Discharge from the USAF. There were, of course, no listings of the places I “served” on the back of the document, and the accompanying form said, I think, something about me being released for the convenience of the service for “failure to keep myself physically fit,” which was a real laugher. 

Sometime after that I got the dreaded “where are you and what are you doing?” questionairre from the local Brevard County draft board, since, though married, my parents' home was still my official permanent address. The form had two questions to which my answers, though accurate, looked very odd together. The first was whether I had every been honorably discharged from military service. With my DD214 and certificate, the answer had to be “Yes.” But the second asked whether I had ever been rejected for military service for any reason (I think the form might have stated reasons such as physical or others)...and of course that answer also had to be “Yes.' Very odd.

I waited with more than a bit of concern until the small envelope containing my new draft card arrived. I no longer recall what the letter code was on it, but it basically meant I could not be drafted.

For years I wondered whether I was just extremely lucky, had confused the local Draft Board to the point they did not know what to do, or if there were something else going on. In retrospect I think that there might actually have been intervention by the Air Force to wash their hands of me and ensure I would not continue to haunt them, obviously being an early trouble maker in regards to the stupid, illegal, and immoral war. The findings in the pre-commisioning physical were items that any non-medical idiot could have known prior to offering me a scholarship...so perhaps the doctor was told to use them to wash me out. And it was even possible the Air Force contacted my Draft Board and told them to stay away from me, hopefully reducing the likelihood I would “go public” with my story in a way that would be embrassing for them, to say the least. Remember this was at the early stages of opposition to the war...later the noise and clamor would have overwhlemed those early day concerns and would have been much less likely to “make any waves.” But how were they to explain funneling money to such a trouble maker when they should have known up front he was “unfit” (in the words of Arlo Guthrie) to “see the world and kill the people there.?”

I know this is significantly longer than my usual posts, but it was important to me to put my brief time piloting a military jet into the context of my life at the time. The lead photo on this piece is a model of the T I just completed. Below are some other views of the completed kit.

 

Coronado NAS Vintage Races and the USS Ronald Reagan

For several years I participated in a vintage race weekend associated with the Holiday Bowl celebrations in San Diego...during which the Coroonado North Island Naval Air Station across the bay from downtown opened their gates to the public for an open house and various events including those races. These were not the most successful events for me...the original course was so rough and inhospitable that one bump in particular broke a rear axle during the first practice and left me stranded “on course” as the Marshalls decided it was safer to leave me where I was til the end of the session rather than trying to tow me out into the race traffic. The Navy did listen about the issues with the course (some cars had their paint and windshields pitted by sand thrown off from the deteriorating concrete) and moved the location to a better part of the field. But that didn't help me with a second major issue that meant a thousand mile roundtrip tow for only a few minutes of on track driving. At an event at Sears Point earlier in the season I had noted that lubricant in the rear end was leaking onto the left brake drum and wheel. Correct, exact size seals were not available for the axles, and thus this was not uncommon to see with the closest substitutes available, though the amount seeemed unusually high. I sprayed the area with copious amounts of Brakekleen and figured that was the best that could be done. The issue did not seem to negatively impact handling nor stopping power. Sears is a clockwise course. Most turns there are thus right handers, and any fluid would naturally be thrown outwwards towards the left side of the vehicle. Coronado, though also clockwise, as an airport course had limitations set by the layout of runways and taxiways, and was a bit more balanced, so leaking fluid could be thrown to either side of the car. Being aware of a potential issue I checked under the car after the first practice run, only to discover that the rear end lubricant was now slung from the left rear all the way to the differential housing at the very center of the car. It was thus apparent that this was not simply a leaking left seal. A bit of a digression here is needed...the reason will become apparent in a moment. Bob Graham had “adopted” stewardship of me and the Siata...he was a “shade tree” mechanic in the most positive connotation of that term...capable of solving virtually any mechanical problem in a cost effective manner, usually with whatever materials he had on hand, though sometimes with questionable attention to some details or structural durability. Bob had decided, during some other work he had done on the car, and without asking me, that it needed lowering. Though this also resulted in tires scraping the rear fenders under hard cornering which has plagued the car ever since, the main issues were his methodology as well as the materials he used. The method included cutting and shortening the factory original struts holding the body to the front subrame...the materials issue was, rather then having correct length U-bolts made to attach the rear axle housing to the subframes he bent new ones out of hardware store threaded rods. These cheap rods are made by cutting the threads rather than rolling them...the result basically turns the U bolts into very effeective chisels, which had cut their way through the housing. Needless to say that, despite “advice” from at least one “expert” who should have known better, telling me to run the car, I thought it best to not risk either my safety nor further damage and chose to sit out the rest of the weekend. Sherri and Catherine had flown down to see Gary and me race, and though disappointed, once I explainied that I did not think they wanted to see me die or be injured if the whole thing failed totally, they accepted that possible reality and we at least were able to enjoy the rest of the Navy's hospitality for the weekend. That included a welcome dinner party at the Admiral's residence, served by formally uniformed Navy personnel and includied entertainment by a Naval orchestra. As with all these weekends, they ended with an Awards Ceremony held in one of the two “hangars” onboard one of the aircraft carriers home berthed at the base. The final event, for those interested, was a guided tour of the carrier under the supervision of navy staff trained for that purpose. Though I had been on more than one of these, starting with the non-nuclear and now retired USS Constellation and including the USS John C Stennis and others I've likely forgotten, the most notable tour by far was on the USS Ronald Reagan, at the time the newest nuclear carrier in the inventory. Thus it was easy to decide which carrier to model for my “personal history with” collection. After the Awards Ceremony ended we decided to take advantage of the Navy's offer for a guided tour of the carrier. We joined in with the next group to leave the hangar deck area, under the shepherding of an NCO who was both so far ahead of us at the tail of the group, so softspoken, and (apparently) so bored we could not hear a single thing he was saying. One of us in this “rear guard” noticed that there was a much smaller group following ours, and we could hear the enthusiastic speech of the sailor esccorting the group more clearly than our own guide, so we and a few other couples detached from our group and attached ourselves to his. Obviously the Navy was trusting of us as there was no “headcounting” or any other tracking of who went with which escort. What a lucky switch that turned out to be! The guide was a last minute sub and had not been briefed on where he could or should not take visitors...and thus we were quite literally “all over the boat” with him. I no longer remember the exact order so I'll talk about the tour in a “top to bottom” fashion. We would have started at the top of the command “island” (the Bridge), lterally standing at the captain's work station as well as the Commander of the Air Group” “office,” the CAG. We also looked over the navigator's work station before moving on to the flight crew ready room, with its very comfotable lounge chairs for the pilots. We also walked through both the officers', and then the enlisted staff's cafeterias. Meals are served 24/7 as the carrier, even while in port, is a 24/7 operation, though the Air Wing had, as is normal, been flown off before entering the harbor, and was either housed on one of Coronado's airfields or at nearby Miramar. We spoke with a number of sailors who assured us the food being served was as tasty and well prepared as it looked. We spent a bit of time on the flight deck and heard some interesting stories from our guide. He told us it was not uncommon for someone to get accidently washed overboard from the backwash from a jet engine. All deck crew wear buoyancy suits which automatically inflate when hit with salt water. They can also be triggered manually and it is apparently a common “newbie” ritual to pull the cord on some unsuspecting crewperson, turning them into an instant version of “Mr. Bibendium”...the Michelin Man. We were assured that in a true “man overboard” situation, though never achieved in pratice, all 5400 sailors could be acounted for, the boat turned in virtuallly its own length, and the survivor plucked from the water in well under 15 minutes. We walked through both the officers' bedrooms and the enlisted bunk areas...oseparate cabins for male and female flight crew...no coed facilities. At at the latter, a couple of the women in our group asked if they could see into the cabin and speak with some of the women. Our guide saw no reason not to accommodate this, and after politely knocking and announcing his presence, our wives stepped into and spoke with several of the crew...despite our new sexist Secretary of Defense these ladies were totally professional and capable, though as the Captain had told us earlier in the evening, he had always to keep in mind that he was in command of five thousand four hundred young people who were still in, or barely out of, their teens. The near final two stops I recall were the anchor room, with chain links for each of the two anchors made of metal as big around as my arm and weigh several hundred pounds each, and the arresting hook cabin. We learned that each arresting cable is attached to a hevy metal sled riding in a huge tank of thick oil. The tension is adjustable somehow for the weight of each type of plane to be landed...possibly by opening or closing bypass valves in the oil though I don't recall being told the exact process. We also might have toured the catapault launch cabin and perhaps I am mixing the story up a bit. The last stop was a sort of combination trophy and video room, where there is a movie recording of Ronald Reagan speaking about America's role in the world and how carriers like #76 supported his vision of that. There were photos of him on the walls, along with some banners representing the ship. We were, by a couple of houres, by far the last civilians to be waaved goodbye to by our young escort at the gangplank. In fact, the Shore Police guarding the gangway wre stunned that we were still onboard, having thought all civilians had been gone for some time. Though there are many stories I recall about Coronado and the racing weekends as guests of the Navy, our evening on the USS Ronald Reegan is well up there among my fondest memories.

1:720 Model I built of the USS Ronald Reagan