Memoir: Hot War - Cold War | Page 5

open and pain relief syrettes were just
'gone.'
Before 1942, parachute canopies were made of silk or cotton cloth, and
the harness, in which the parachutist is encased, was made of cotton
webbing. Both silk and cotton are organic materials which can be
seriously weakened when attacked by fungus and dampness. That's
what had happened to the gear we were getting, much of it recently
shipped. Often, the equipment was unsafe, and could not be fixed.
I complained to my supervisor about the quality of the parachutes and

survival gear that we were getting from the Mainland, and he passed
my complaints along to his supervisor. He told me to put my
complaints in writing. I wrote reports that described the damage, and
included photographs. The poor quality of the life-saving gear that
had been sent to us, I wrote, added to the risk of an emergency bailout
from a disabled airplane.
At work one day, I was called to my supervisor's office.
'Just got a phone call from the front office,' he said. 'You're to report
immediately to Headquarters, Seventh Air Force. The soldier in the
Jeep outside is waiting for you. He'll drive you there. Move.'
Sitting alongside the driver, I wondered what it was all about. The
thought that I had made an error in my work made me nervous. Was I
being called on the carpet because an injury, or worse, had happened,
resulting from an improperly packed parachute?
At Seventh Air Force headquarters, a Colonel cleared me past the
security guards and I followed him into an office that had a sign on the
door. It read 'Major General White, Commander, Seventh Air Force.'
Several men in uniform were standing near a desk at the far side of the
room. A uniformed officer was seated behind the desk. In the
middle of the room lay several packed parachutes in a heap.
The officer behind the desk, stood, came around, walked to and
crouched next to the parachutes. He motioned me to get down beside
him. On each of his shoulder tabs he wore a Major General's two stars.
'OK, son,' he said, 'show me the problem.'
My reports had received attention.
I stared at the parachutes. Did any among them include the damage I
had reported? I examined the inspection log attached to each parachute.
The dates stamped in the logs showed that the parachutes had been
recently inspected and packed at a stateside Air Corps base.

I stood, bent forward over one of the parachutes, and grasped one of its
four straps; the strap is known as a 'riser', and it connects the jumper to
the canopy. The life of the jumper would depend on the strength of
that riser.
Jerking the riser straight up as hard as I could, I shook it repeatedly
against the twenty-five pound weight of the packed parachute. The
sudden yanks and shakings were only a fraction of the shocks that the
riser would get when the parachute's canopy snapped open.
The cords, of which the riser was made, separated, and several cords
were shredded. Here was another case where dampness and rotting had
weakened an emergency man-carrying parachute into dangerous
uselessness. Yet, the parachute had been tagged as 'serviceable'.
The General stared at the shredded strap and then, at me. He said,
'Thanks, son.'Â The Colonel, who had escorted me to the General's
office, motioned to me and pointed at the door.
As I left, I heard the General say; 'I want a personal message on this
from me to Hap Arnold'. General Arnold was the Commander of the
Army Air Corps worldwide during World War II, and reported to the
President of the United States.
I returned to my job. The quality of parachutes and other survival gear
that arrived at Hickam Field from the Mainland quickly improved.
Serious defects in design, operating instructions supply, maintenance,
and acquisition of aircraft and their components were also found in
other types of equipment and methods used by the U S Air Force.
When the fighting part of the war was over, I was assigned to a work
group that gathered evidence from technicians, engineers and
administrators on what was wrong and to write reports that went to
engineers and managers at higher headquarters. They would do what
was required to get the problems solved and, when appropriate, issue
correcting technical instructions to the reporting field activity or
USAF-wide. It was during that experience that I began to plan the
'checklist' that is presented in the following memoirs about (a) fixing

mistakes in the workplace, and (b) supervisory inspection of the work
unit.
MEMOIR: CHECKLIST - FIXING MISTAKES IN THE
WORKPLACE
Grandparents and middle-years or