The Nobleboro Historical Society and Nobleboro Central School are working together to preserve the stories of war and the lives of local veterans.
The school’s current budget does not include funding to complete the film project that NCS sixth and seventh grade students began last May, but the historical society is seeking grants and other sources of funding for the project.
Nobleboro resident Norm Van Dine, one of three veterans who met with the students in May, said that the experience was a good one for the kids. During his interview, Van Dine talked about his experience as a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater.
Van Dine flew a single engine F-4-F Grumman Wildcat in World War II after 14-15 months of training. He guessed that the students wanted to hear about the excitement and hair-raising stories from the war.
“It wasn’t glamorous, but it was exciting,” he said, adding that one of the most frightening experiences was landing on the back of an aircraft carrier.
Van Dine’s training took him from New Hampshire, where he flew Piper Cubs in competition with 40 other candidates. He spent two months at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill engaged in physical training and went to what he called an Elimination Base in Olatha, Kansas.
“It was where you separate the wheat from the chaff,” he said.
Candidates who didn’t pass the training stayed in the Navy to perform other duties. Van Dine left with the cadets who made the cut to primary flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas, to advance his training. He said that many people lost their lives during training, a fact not often talked about.
“We made six landings on a converted pleasure cruiser on Lake Michigan,” he said, indicating the precarious nature of this exercise. “It was a goodly stint in training.”
As for life aboard an aircraft carrier, Van Dine said that he and the other officers made out fairly well. They had steak for breakfast whenever the pilots had to fly at night. He said that officers also had someone to shine their shoes and make their beds, but Van Dine would have none of that.
“They teach you how to make your own bed as a cadet,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let anyone make mine. We were gentlemen, but not that kind of gentlemen. There was a war on.”
Van Dine was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Fanshaw Bay, and was a pilot on Squad 10. He said that he replaced pilots who fought on the U.S.S. Gambrier Bay, which was later sunk by Japanese fighters in 30,000 feet of water in Oct. 1944.
Joining his squadron in December of that same year, Van Dine traveled from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and then to Guam. The ship passed through the Kurile Islands just north of Hokaido, Japan when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Van Dine said he never shot at any enemy forces.
“I shot at what I thought was a submarine,” he said with a smile. “It turned out to be a whale.”
Flying during WWII was a far different experience than it must be for today’s jet pilots, Van Dine said, explaining that they didn’t have the complexity of controls that are in jets now. He said he sat in a single cockpit and there was no room for another person.
Pilots of the Wildcats had to hand crank the wheels up and down, for hydraulics were not built into the planes at the time. The planes were catapulted off of the aircraft carrier and upon taking flight, Van Dine said that he had to hand crank the wheels up to reduce drag. The planes had six 50-caliber machine guns, three in each wing.
Van Dine said that while off the coast of Honshu, the main island of Japan, his plane had to be tossed overboard by the Navy crew. He had been flying and was forced to land on the aircraft carrier during a typhoon. Waves towered and crashed over the side and the ship tossed in the ferocious sea. Van Dine said he had to land on the ship, because out at sea, that was ‘home’.
“I didn’t like it, but I lived through it,” he said.
His plane had been destroyed by the severity of the storm. He recalled that the fiercest action he encountered during the war happened after the war had ended. Van Dine said that the coast of Japan is beautiful and one sunny afternoon, he flew low over a stretch of sandy beach he liked in particular. A woman and child who saw his plane got angry and threw rocks. He said that his plane was still too far above them for their rocks to make contact.
Van Dine said that the school children would benefit from the interview projects, because they would learn from history and how to conduct their lives.
Preparing for the project in May, NCS students received an interview primer from oral historian and storyteller Jo Radner, funded by Maine philanthropists through the NHS. The students learned how to ask questions and how to listen to other people.
NHS president Mary Sheldon said she hopes to secure funding to support the project. She said the film editing alone could cost anywhere from $10,000-$20,000. They have two local prospective editing companies whose cost estimates for the project she finds reasonable.
“It’s been exciting to see,” Sheldon said. “It is meant for a much greater audience than just the students and I’d hate to have that get lost.”
