CHARLIE MINER, R.I.P. | WW2 Bomber Pilot

Charlie Miner (R) enjoying his great-nephew and
 great-great-niece and her (unrelated) Angry Bird.
(Photo by JT Marlin.) 

March 20, 2018 – Charlie Miner, Jr. interrupted his studies at Princeton (Class of 1943) to join the U.S. Army Air Forces.

He was studying  engineering, and that's who they wanted.

After serving as a test pilot, he signed up as a  bomber pilot and saw combat in Europe.

He died yesterday, according to his daughter, and Vero Beach resident, Charmaine Caldwell.

A memorial service in Vero Beach, Fla. is planned for May 3 and possibly another one later in East Hampton, N.Y. 

The following is a slightly edited version of an article I wrote about Miner for The Vero Portfolio, May-June 2015 issue, p. 24. The ending is, of course, updated.

Charlie Miner, Jr. – also called Chas, but rarely Charles – was one of seven grandchildren of his illustrious grandfather, FDR’s first Treasury Secretary, Will Woodin. His mother was Woodin's eldest daughter, Mary, who married an infantry captain, Robert Charles (Charlie) Miner, Sr.

Miner divided his time at the end of his life between Vero Beach and East Hampton. When his beloved cousin Anne Gerli died in 2016, he gave up spending time in East Hampton. 

At Princeton, Miner studied engineering and joined the war effort as pilot of a B-25 Mitchell twin-engine bomber, which had a crew of three or more. Miner flew many of the 17 bombing missions of his Air Force unit over northern Italy. [More about his contribution to the war effort here.]

He was lucky to have survived. Of 16 million American veterans of World War II, fewer than one in 16 survived as of 2015, only 80,000 in Florida. That year Miner was one of only about 250 World War II vets left in Indian River County, and may be Indian River County's oldest surviving European-theater WWII bomber pilot.

Miner told me how much he loves Vero Beach, Fla. Years ago in the 1950s and 1960s, he spent time with his mother (who divorced Charlie Sr. and did not remarry) in the Riomar social life. It  revolved, he said, around rotating dinners and celebrations among the original 12 houses. The 30 residents took turns throwing parties. The Riomar Inn came later. John's Island—where Miner and his late wife Maisie lived now—opened in 1970 and was at first resented because it drew people away from Riomar (and then it became successful and was imitated by the Moorings). 

Charlie Miner’s grandfather, Will Woodin, was the man who dealt with the Wall Street and banking panic that started in 1929 and was not put to rest until FDR came into office in March 1933. FDR's first Treasury Secretary was given wide latitude in addressing the problem. 

Will Woodin was born in Pennsylvania and settled in New York after a successful career as the CEO of a huge business selling railroad rolling stock. He had four children. The eldest and youngest settled in Vero Beach — Mary Woodin Miner and Libby Woodin Rowe. Libby’s husband, Wally Rowe, and a brother bought homes in Riomar. Mary and Libby eventually lived in Vero Beach most of the year. Charlie’s mother lived in John's Island after Riomar and died in 2007 at 102.

Charlie remembers not just the bridge that connected the two sides of the Indian River, "Beachland Boulevard" where Route 60 crosses, before the concrete-arch Barber Bridge.  He remembers the drawbridge that was built earlier, in 1995. Before that, back in the 1930s, there was a bridge made of wooden railroad ties and swung around horizontally to let boats through the Indian River. 

Back in those early days Beachland Boulevard was the northern edge of Vero Beach, and there wasn’t a Riverside Theater. Charlie says the money was raised in several ways. Rosie and Sterling Adams organized a dance every year. He and his cousin, Bill Rowe, used to sell season tickets and organized an auction of donated prizes to raise money for the theater. The Theater is, of course, now a major institution in Vero.

Charlie (R) and me in 2014. Photo by
Alice Tepper Marlin.

What Charlie Miner liked about Vero is that it is quiet. That was one of the original motivations of the developers, along with the availability of rail transportation and ocean beaches. There is no strip with night clubs, no airport. As Charlie says, “I’m not a teenager anymore.”

Charlie’s Advice for a Long and Happy Life:

• For a long life: Every morning a meal of two eggs and tomato juice or V-8 (with or without the hair of the dog). 
• For a happy life: “Enjoy life while you can. If you want to do something, don’t wait. Do it while you can because life goes by quickly. You may never get another chance.” He says his 93 years have “Gone… Boom!”

During these four years that I have been studying and writing about FDR's forgotten first Treasury Secretary, Charlie's grandfather, I and my wife Alice have been amused and impressed by Charlie's joie-de-vivre and his sharp recollections from his long life. Learning of his death at 96 years old was a sad moment.

R.I.P. | Edward B. McMenamin (1912-1994), Economist, Columbia Provost

Edward B. McMenamin was born in 1912 in Portland, Me., and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1933 with a degree in economics. [He started his career in the FDR administration in the same office as Spike Marlin, who was born three years earlier than McMenamin and died eight months later in 1994.]

During World War II, he served with the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater, and later was in government service in Washington and abroad as an administrator with international economic cooperation programs such as the Marshall Plan, the Mutual Security Agency in Paris and the International Cooperation Administration.

After he retired from civil service and came to Columbia University as associate provost 1957-61 and then director of personnel from 1959 on, and secretary of the University from 1961 until his retirement in 1972.  After retiring from Columbia, he continued to work as a consultant to the federal government, the city of Boston, the Aspen Institute and several environmental agencies. He also worked for St Bernard's School.

He died Apr. 18, 1994 at a Manhattan apartment where he and his wife were staying. He had been in declining health for three years. He lived in Bridgehampton, L.I.  He is survived by his wife, Joan Stitt McMenamin, who at the time was Head Mistress of the Nightingale-Bamford School.

I attended his 1994 memorial service, which was well attended thanks in part to the participation of many Nightingale students. Mrs. McMenamin died in 2004. Sources include Columbia University Record (19:26), April 29, 1994; New York Times obit.

May 28 - Birthday of Ian Fleming

Bond... James Bond. (As first played
by [Sir Thomas] Sean Connery.)

This day was born Ian Fleming in London in 1908. His father, Valentine, was a Member of Parliament, whose obituary when he died in World War I was written by Winston Churchill. Ian worked as a foreign journalist, banker, stockbroker, and assistant to the director of British naval intelligence, then as foreign manager of London's Sunday Times.

In 1953 he published his first book, Casino Royale, about a character who would make him famous, James Bond. The playboy spy — code name "007" — was accompanied by "M" at headquarters, Miss Moneypenny as his awed secretary, and a host of fast cars and gadgets prepared by "Q" at "Q branch" of MI6. Not to mention a series of sexy women, many of whom pay for their dalliance by being slaughtered in gruesome ways (e.g., pursued by two Dobermans trained to kill).

The first of many successful movies featuring several incarnations of James Bond as Dr. No in 1962. Fleming went along with the idea (from the casting of Bond by Sean Connery in the first movies) that Bond was Scottish, since in his last books he talked about Bond's Scottish ancestry.

The Wikipedia entry on James Bond and his knockoffs and parodies is astonishingly thorough, showing how and why the character now ranks among the top ten or even five of the best-known heroes of all time. The introductory line, when Bond introduces himself - "Bond... James Bond" - has been called the most famous line in movie history, apparently now out-ranking the many oft-repeated-by-me sayings of Rick and friends in Casablanca.

Fleming's fictional character was a composite of spies and "commando types" he came across in the Naval Intelligence Division in World War II. Among them were, says Wikipedia:

...his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war, ... Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale.

Cover of new book on Roger
Moore at BookExpo America.

Not mentioned in Wikipedia is Sir William Stephenson, the wartime intelligence liaison between Winston Churchill and FDR. His code name was "Intrepid".  A plaque in honor of "Intrepid" has been posted on the 36th Floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City where Sir William had his office. I am advised by a reliable source that Stephenson "informed" the character of James Bond.

Update, May 29, 2014: A new book is coming out in 2014 on the man who succeeded [Sir] Sean Connery as James Bond - [Sir] Roger Moore, starting in 1973, for a string of seven movies. The cover shown at the BookExpo America has the title One Lucky Bastard.

A TV miniseries called "Fleming" is also out in 2014.

VET STORY 3 | Pilot Charlie Miner, Jr.

John Tepper Marlin (L) and Charlie Miner, Jr., John's
Island, Vero Beach, Fla., 2014.

March 8, 2014 – I have been writing about the life of Will Woodin, FDR’s first Treasury Secretary.

Woodin's major role in ending the panic caused by bank failures has been neglected by history. 

Along the way, I have gotten to know several more members of the Greatest Generation, who experienced the Great Depression and World War II. One of them is one of Woodin's three surviving grandsons,  Charlie Miner Jr.  

Miner's reminiscences about his grandfather are quoted in my articles in the East Hampton Star about the Treasury Secretary and his boat, the "Nanin".  As we approach the 70th anniversary of D-Day this June, I recently talked with Charlie in Vero Beach, Fla., where he lives between September and June, asking him about his wartime experience.

The number of surviving veterans of World War II is tiny.  Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, only 27,560 were still alive in 2010 – excluding the 2,812 who also served in Korea and the 961 who also served in both Korea and Vietnam. One year later, in 2011, the number fell to 19,641, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

That is a loss of 28.7 percent. At that rate of loss, the number of living U.S. veterans from World War 2 fell below 10,000 in 2013 and will be down to barely 7,000 by the end of 2014 - i.e., 0.04 percent of all those who served. The median age of World War II active-duty survivors was 92 in 2011. Miner is one of those survivors and turned 92 a few months ago. 

Miner studied engineering with the Princeton Class of 1943. Before he graduated, he enlisted in the US Army Air Force and graduated from single-engine flying school in March 1943. He says:

Because I had an engineering background, I was assigned immediately to a sub-depot in Charlotte, N.C., where they rebuilt planes that had crashed within 500 miles of Charlotte. My job was to test-fly the rebuilt planes before they were returned to their home bases. A variety of planes were being rebuilt, so I got flying time in many types of aircraft.

Charlie was married in October 1944 and two weeks later reported for combat training in two-engine B-25 planes at the Greenville, N.C.  Army Air Base. The North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, named after General Billy Mitchell, an advocate of greater air power, is described on the Boeing website as the “most versatile” bomber in World War II. It had a crew of five — a pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, radio operator and gunner. Nearly 10,000 of the bombers were built between 1941 and 1945. According to official data, the B-25 was:

the most heavily armed airplane in the world, ... used for high- and low-level bombing, strafing, photoreconnaissance, submarine patrol and even as a fighter, and was distinguished as the aircraft that completed the historic raid over Tokyo in 1942. 

After his training, Miner was shipped off to Europe, and started flying missions out of Corsica, where he was instructed by RAF and RCAF pilots who had been assigned the B-25. While the B-25 was versatile, it could be delicate if flown above the maximum speed, which was 518 km/hour for the earliest model. Charlie still wonders about the risk-taking propensity of a few of his instructors:

Some of those RAF and Italian pilots were daredevils. They didn't seem to care if they lived or died. The Mosquito was a laminated-wood plane that could remain undetected by radar and yet break the sound barrier, and the pilots loved it. They would dive from 5,000 feet. In one case, the wing just came off. The pilot, of course, went straight down with the rest of the plane and was killed.

As later models of the Mitchell bomber (B-25A through B-25J) were developed, the armaments were increased to allow the bombers to shoot back at targets, and the maximum speed was lowered.

When the German army was pushed north in the Italian boot, Charlie's squadron relocated to Fano on the Adriatic, about 150 miles south of Venice. From here they flew about 17 missions at about 15,000 feet over the Brenner Pass in the Alps between Italy and Austria. Charlie can't remember exactly how many of these he was on, but enough to remember his friends going down into the snow below while he tried to stay in formation.

The war in Europe ended in May 1945. In July 1945, Charlie was assigned the task of flying a B-25 back across the Atlantic. He had to fly an indirect route because of the medium range of the planes. They could only go up to the theoretical 3,000-mile maximum by adding droppable fuel tanks. These extra tanks were utilized in the previously cited Doolittle (Tokyo) Raid in April 1942. According to official records:

The B-25B bombers could take off fast enough to be launched from an aircraft carrier, but they could not land safely on their return. They were supposed to find an airport in China. A combination of unexpected discovery and bad weather resulted in all 16 of the B-25Bs being lost in the raid, but Doolittle and his squadron got out of Japan and most of the crew members survived. Col. James ("Jimmy") Doolittle feared he would be court-martialed for the lost planes. Instead, he received the Medal of Honor from FDR and was raised two grades in rank to Lt.-General.

Charlie had to bring one of these B-25s back. He had to fly down the West African coast to avoid the North Atlantic squalls and provide for frequent refueling. He flew over to the Ascension Islands, then on to Natal, Brazil, then to San Juan, P.R. and to Savannah, Ga., refueling at each stop.

His B-25 safely returned to Stateside, he went back to civilian life. He first worked for the New York Central Railroad under Willard Place, Vice President for Finance. From there he went to work for  Owens-Corning Fiberglass in Darien, Conn.,  on the concept of building railroad cars with fiberglass-reinforced-plastic shells. While the concept eventually worked, the first impact stress-test by Pullman failed spectacularly as the experimental cars shattered. Charlie reoriented the idea, pioneering the application of fiberglass-reinforced plastics to the building of boats, an idea that succeeded and took over much of the industry.

Miner left the fiberglass business for Wall Street, working first for Rand & Co. in the municipal bond department. He then joined Clark Dodge & Co., in the same area. It became part of Dean Witter and later part of Morgan Stanley. Charlie Miner quit the business at nearly 70 years of age.

The toll – of the Depression, of World War II and just advancing age – on the survivors from Charlie's generation may be judged by the fact that he was told at his 70th reunion last year that only 125 members of his Princeton class of 1943 are still alive – out of the 630 original members of the class. Fewer than ten members of his class showed up and to his disappointment he didn’t know any of them. Charlie says: "I was told last year that only seven alumni have survived from the Princeton Class of 1936." He asked me contact his friend Dottie Werner the Princeton Alumni office and she quickly responded with an email to me confirming his numbers. But, she said, "the number from 1943 is down to 104 and the number from 1936 has dropped to five."

I was reminded, by her email, of the song "When the Saints... Going Marching In." I thought to myself: "When I am 70 years out from college in 2032, I want to be in that number... maybe."

Charlie falls back on gallows humor about his being a Survivor. Here are some of his funniest comments:

• At several places he hangs out, he says, “the average age is… deceased.” 
• If you are playing golf for money, he says, “collect when you are two bucks ahead because your opponent may not finish the round.” 
• Ocean Towers, he informs me, is also known among his colleagues as “the Pearly Gates.” 
• The people who move on from there to Oak Harbor are said (even by their residents) to have gone to “Croak Harbor.” 

Some of the jokes told in his set relate to the high cost of some of their favorite Florida haunts in retirement areas:

• A popular upscale grocery store on the Barrier Island of Vero Beach, the Village Beach Market, is called “Why Pay Less?” (It has other names, but the fact is they do a fine business. Better selection than 7-11 or CVS.)
• The Golf and Bay Club in Sarasota is nicknamed the “Golf and Pay” Club.
• The average at the bar of a club he belongs to, he says, is "deceased".
• But despite it all, he says, quoting from a phlegmatic friend vacationing in Florida who was looking at clouds taking over the sky, "It's better than Massachusetts."

November 15 - FDR Initiates the Draft to Prepare to Fight Hitler

Today in 1940, FDR called up 75,000 men to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. It was the first peacetime conscription in American history. The United States had a long history of resistance to the draft -- in World War I, some three million young men refused to register. Of those who were called up, 12 percent failed to report for duty or deserted.

FDR's decision to draft the first group of young men in the summer of 1940 was therefore risky because the country wasn't at war and the draft would be on the mind of voters in an election year (the election was ten days earlier and FDR won his third term handily).

The newspapers and cinema newsreels were now full of the news of Hitler's cynical pact with Stalin whereby in 1939 they divided up Poland. The the German army earlier in 1940 overran Norway and Denmark on April 9, then Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg on May 10, and France on May 12. Fear of Hitler, which for many dated back a year to Kristallnacht in 1938, following the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Hitler sensed the fear and was emboldened  by the lack of resistance among the European powers.

Meanwhile Stalin overran the three Baltic states and annexed them. Neville Chamberlain was ousted and Winston Churchill took over the Prime Ministerist of Britain, stepping up preparation for war. The United States had a poorly trained standing army of only about 200,000 soldiers.  FDR took the step of requiring 16 million young men to register with the Selective Service. At the first lottery in Washington, D.C., Secretary of War Henry Stimson was blindfolded and ceremonially scooped out numbers.

By the end of World War II, 19 million men were drafted and 10 million were inducted. The draft lapsed for a while between the World War II and the Cold War, but Truman then restarted. It was not ended until 1973, when Nixon introduced the all-volunteer program.

Most Americans rejoiced about the end of the draft, but in 1999 the historian Stephen Ambrose explained the downside:

Today, Cajuns from the Gulf Coast have never met a black person from Chicago. Kids from the ghetto don't know a middle-class white. Mexican-Americans have no contact with Jews. Muslim Americans have few Christian acquaintances ... But during World War II and the Cold War, American [men] from every group got together in the service, having a common goal — to defend their country.