Remembering a cReW CHIeF

Air Classics, Nov 2004 by Greene, Vaughn M

IT TOOK SOMETHING SPECIAL TO BE A SUPERFORTRESS CREW CHIEF

To be a crew chief among aviation mechanics was something special. To be a crew chief on Boeing B-29 Superfortresses was more than that - you were of the elite. How then did an overage business executive end up flying combat missions as a crew chief on B-29s? My friend Arthur Peterson recently passed away, and I'd like to recount how his odd career began.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, 7 December 1941, the government immediately began sending out thousands of draft notices. Art, who was an executive with Bell Telephone Co. in San Francisco, got his. At the draft board he was curtly told by the examining doctor to get lost. "Not only are you overage, you're exempt because of a high priority job." Several months later, the government, in its infinite wisdom, sent Art a second draft notice. This time he was determined to go in the Army, and talked the board into drafting him. After all, as he mentioned later, here was the chance of a lifetime to get away from paper pushing for a while and see some real action.

After basic training, the Army asked Art what he wanted to do and he replied, "be an auto mechanic." Somewhat skeptical, his officers sent him to take the appropriate testing. Art said he would never have passed the tough exam except for one thing. The main test consisted of matching wooden gears to pegs driven in the wall. "I would never have figured that out," he recalled, "but the test had been done so many times, there were scratches outlining each gear. I just matched the scratches to the various diameter gears and completed the test in record time." The Army was so impressed, they sent him instead to Aviation Mechanics' School. Art also had two things going for him. he was a ham radio operator and had his own short-wave radio set. second, he had a tremendous knowledge of engines. During the Great Depression, big expensive cars were a drag on the market. Art said you could go down to Hollywood and buy ex-movie star cars off the lots for $100. Nobody wanted the gas-guzzling Iscotta-Franchinis, the Delahayes, and other exotic foreign cars. With little money Art had been buying, selling, and horsetrading such cars as a hobby. He had driven, or owned, such cars as Marmon, Auburn, Duesenburg, Rolls, Lincoln, etc.

Upon graduation, Art was sent to Burbank, California, to pick up his new airplane. It was customary at that time to send mechanics directly to the factory where the plane they would service was actually being built. Art was sent to the Lockheed factory as he was assigned to a C-56 Lodestar transport. His evenings were happily spent at the Hollywood USO where he rubbed shoulders with female starlets and met his future wife. While at Burbank, he asked one of the P-38 test pilots to take him for a ride. Art had, by this time, begun to think he might make a pretty good fighter pilot. "After a few loops and dives in that P-38," Arthur laughed later, "I gave up all thoughts of being a pilot. It's a young man's game."

When the C-56 was completed and signed off, Art and his two pilots started flying all over the country, delivering cargo and VIPs. "It was great, except for one thing," said Art. "When ever we would land at a strange city, the pilots would go 'ashore' to get drunk and I stayed behind to refuel the plane and guard it." As a result, Art saw a lot of airports, but not many cities. Years after the war he decided to criss-cross the States and visit those cities he never got to check out. he bought a Jag XK-140 for the purpose but, unfortunately, it was a semi-race Le Mans model, which too often aroused the interest of the gendarmes. As a result, he rarely drove it - or the two Chrysler 300-Hs, or the Packard Limousine he owned.

About this time, the government was spending a big percentage of the Federal Budget on a top secret project called Operation Matterhom - the B-29. This was the largest aircraft project in history, to develop the most radical, advanced airplane of the second World War. While the Boeing B-17 had a dozen manually-operated .50-cal machine guns, the B-29 turrets were remotely controlled, using a fire control center that automatically compensated for wind, speed, deflection, etc. While crew members in the B-17 had to wear oxygen masks and heated suits; at 35,000-ft, the B-29 was fully pressurized. Its crew members could work in short sleeve comfort. The B-29 used radar mapping and bombing, with a navigation systern that eventually led to the system used in the Apollo space flights. Each B-29 engine turned out 1000 more horsepower than those of the B-17. The B-29 was over 100 mph faster, and could fly 2000 miles farther than the B-17. With a gross weight of 141,000-lb, the B-29 made the current B-17s look like something out of the Stone Age.

To get the B-29 project going, the best pilots and mechanics in the Army Air Force were siphoned off. Art was one of them. In the early days, the B-29s had dozens of faults. In particular, the 2200-hp double row radial Wright Cyclone R-3350 engines caused much trouble. According to Art, they had to change all four engines after 25-hrs or every fourth combat flight. "It was back-breaking work, but gradually the safe working hours went up," Arthur recalled. From their later bases in the Marianas, 100s of B-29 engines would be shipped back to the maintenance base at Guam. Here they lay in the coral dust with thousands of other engines, awaiting overhaul.