Gladys Rader still remembers the day in 1942 that her father saw the ad in the newspaper. It was for a drafting course for the Consolidated Vultee aircraft manufacturing plant about to open at Mack Trucks former 5C plant in Allentown.
“He said you get out there and apply for this right away,” she recalled. Since graduating from Allentown High School in 1939, Rader had been looking for a job that would use some of her drawing skills. “You sometimes need a little push and my father provided it,” Rader said.
The course at what is now Raub Middle School was part of a Pennsylvania State University Extension program. When she completed it, Rader was one of many women who labored to help the fight on the home front during World War II.
“It was understood that if you completed the course successfully you would get a job,” said Rader. She did graphic design, including the illustration for the floor plan of the plant that used what is now Queen City Airport to test its airplanes.
“I created a big color-coded chart that shows the flow of material through the plant. When visitors came in it was the first thing they were shown,” she said. It was also at the Consolidated Vultee plant that she met her husband Bud Rader, a well-known Lehigh Valley big band leader.
It’s been 49 years since Consolidated Vultee’s Allentown plant produced its last plane, but the Queen City Airport Action Committee, a group of 50 local pilots and aviation enthusiasts, has decided that Vultee’s contribution to the war effort — production of the TBY-2 Seawolf torpedo bomber — deserves to be remembered.
From Sept. 16-18, “Superweekend” will be held at Queen City Airport. The World War II theme includes a dinner dance with 1940s big band music, a hot air balloon launch and an exhibit of World War II memorabilia. The events will be the same weekend as Allentown’s Super Sunday XX, which is Sept. 18.
“We will have big band music going all day, a major photo exhibit and we hope people come dressed in 1940s clothes. It’s a way to both remember and have fun,” said committee spokesperson Rae Klar.
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Like the other 3,500 Lehigh Valley residents who worked for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. from 1943 to 1945, Rader is proud of her contribution to the war effort: “Some people say, ‘Well, you worked for that place that made those planes that didn’t fly.’ Well, we made about 180 of them and they did fly. The war just ended — thank God — before they had to be flown in combat.
“With a warplane, a lot of changes are made along the way and that was just the way it was with the TBY,” she said.
The designation TB was an acronym for Torpedo Bomber. The Navy designated the letter Y for airplanes manufactured by Consolidated Vultee. The numeral 2 was added because there had been a previous, experimental version of the plane.
The TBY was dubbed the Seawolf in reference to Germany’s Wolf Pack submarine fleet. Primarily an anti-sub, battleship and cruiser bomber, it had a top speed of 316 mph, 50 mph faster than any torpedo bomber the Navy had in service during World War II. It was one of the first fighter planes to have its own radar system.
Designed to take off from an aircraft carrier, it carried a three-man crew — pilot, radio operator and gunner. Along with its one torpedo, the Seawolf could carry two 1,600-pound bombs or a 2,600-pound load of depth charges. A total of 189 were manufactured in Allentown, the only place it was manufactured.
For most local folks, the first knowledge they had about Consolidated Vultee came roughly a year after Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 16, 1942, 快播视频’s local page ran the story under the headline, “Part of Mack Plant to be Taken Over by Vultee Aircraft for Construction of Navy Bombers.” The story noted that the then Vultee Aircraft, a California company, had recently been given a contract from the Navy for a new type of torpedo bomber. The federal War Production Board, acting as a go between, had leased Plant 5C from Mack Trucks Inc. for Vultee. According to the newspaper article, this plant, which had manufactured buses for General Motors, had not done so since the start of World War II.
快播视频 noted the Navy contracts were worth more than $100 million. Up to $11 million was to be spent on the construction of a hanger, an office building and airport. The site chosen was a 325-acre plot off of Lehigh Street known as Mitchell Field. From the mid-1920s it was used as a grass landing strip for small aircraft. In the 1940s it was considered on the far edge of Allentown.
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Because of wartime security, few details about expanding the airport were published in 快播视频. Work began in March 1943, the same month that Vultee merged with Consolidated Aircraft Corp., a Connecticut-based company, to become Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp.
Upgrading the airport was not easy. Sinkholes presented the biggest obstacle. Every time one was filled a new one seemed to open up. Construction crews found themselves pouring concrete on top of concrete, trying to make the shifting limestone stable. Labor disputes caused further delays. In June 1943, carpenters from a New York-based union refused to remove forms from around concrete, a task normally done by laborers. The dispute was not resolved until the problem was referred to federal officials in Washington, D.C.
Despite these setbacks, on Sept. 12, 1943, what was then called Convair Field was ready for its dedication. The name Convair was derived from Consolidated Vultee Airfield.
快播视频 presented what it called a “thumbnail sketch” of the new airport:
* More than 125,000 cubic yards of topsoil and 325 cubic yards of earth was moved to create the field.
* A total of 34,000 cubic yards of concrete went into the runways, one was 3,400 feet long; the other 3,950 feet. Both were 350 feet wide.
* The hanger covered 71,000 square feet and cost $330,000.
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At the dedication, tight security kept the crowds down to about 2,000. Bands played and ministers prayed. The Navy sent as its representative Admiral Ralph Davison, chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. In his remarks, Davison officially announced the name for the new bomber would be the TBY-2 Seawolf. “This plane has everything we have learned about planes of this type,” he said. “It carries the deadly tin fish (torpedo), which the Japs make a futile effort not to catch, or a load of bombs, which makes them equally unhappy.”
Davison promised his audience that the TBY-2 would be the best of the best. And he praised the workers of the Lehigh Valley who would make it all possible. “Every time the employees of a manufacturing concern roll up their sleeves and initiate a new project, the enemy has to dig a little deeper, every time a community joins in the with the producers of new weapons … the enemy is forced to pause and listen. Without any hesitation I can tell you that he doesn’t like what he hears,” he said.
What Davison didn’t mention to the cheering crowd was that torpedo bombers, including the TBY-2, were considered death traps. Modern military aviation experts point out that because torpedo bombers needed to fly at low altitudes over the ocean in order to release the torpedoes, they often came within close range of Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Also, because of deficient technology, the torpedoes often failed to explode.
Nonetheless, the Navy had become obsessed with further development of torpedo bombers after the attack on Pearl Harbor where Japanese planes successfully torpedoed the Navy’s Pacific fleet. However, the element of surprise and the fact that the fleet was at anchor in the harbor perhaps exaggerated the effectiveness of torpedo bombing.
Perhaps the most meaningful moment that day came when 20-year-old Marine private Edwin Bastian of Trexlertown rose to speak. Bastian had been severely wounded on Guadalcanal on Aug. 20, 1942. He was still being treated in a Philadelphia hospital and walked up to the platform on crutches. “Briefly he told how the Grumman Avengers cleared the bay (officially called Sealark Channel, it contained so many sunken ships GI’s nicknamed it Ironbottom Sound) of Jap submarines when American wounded were evacuated and urged the people of his native Lehigh Valley to help the company that will be making more planes for America’s fighting forces –planes that will clear more sea lanes of the wolf packs,” reported 快播视频.
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The history of Consolidated Vultee from the start of production in 1943 to 1945 was not covered in the local press. In the era of “loose lips sink ships,” the Navy was very closed-mouthed about TBY-2 production.
“Everything was restricted,” recalled photographer Gerry Snyder, head of the photography department at Consolidated Vultee from 1942 to 1945. A professional photographer, Snyder was recruited for the project at the start of the war. He said that he and a crew of six people worked seven days a week for Uncle Sam. “The Navy doesn’t want you to take just one picture, it wants you to take 10 pictures,” he recalled with a chuckle.
Like Gladys Rader, Snyder has also heard a lot of the criticism about how Consolidated Vultee turned out planes that never flew, or that the whole operation was some kind of government boondoggle.
“At least part of the problem is that everything was top secret,” Snyder said. “The whole TBY project was something we were told to just not discuss.”
Wartime confidentiality surrounding TBY-2 manufacturing was such that at the close of World War II, Consolidated Vultee Corp. took its records back to California. Therefore, there was little proof that the planes were flown, much less flown successfully. “Even after the war they were restricted material,” Snyder said.
A chief reason for the concern over security was the experimental nature of the TBY-2. “It was one of the first planes around to have radar attached to it,” said Snyder. “They always seemed to be adjusting one thing and another. There was just so much security around that plane, it was unbelievable.”
As part of Snyder’s job he would regularly take part in TBY test flights. “I would go up with the test pilots,” he said. “We would take off and fly out over the Atlantic Ocean carrying dummy torpedoes.” Once a plane was over the ocean off the New Jersey shore, the pilot would sweep down low into the test zone and drop a torpedo. Snyder, movie camera winding away, would be recording it all for the Navy brass. “When we flew off of Atlantic City the beaches would be crowded with people watching us from a safe distance. We put on quite a show,” Snyder said.
Constant changes required by the Navy created a hectic atmosphere at Consolidated Vultee. “There were daily, almost hourly changes,” said plans office worker Margaret Sopper in a 1982 interview in A.M. Magazine. “Everybody was working really hard to get things done.”
The late Kenneth Bogert, who worked in construction illustration, also recalled in 1982 that he often had no plans to draw from. “I had to try and show a plane that I hadn’t even seen,” he remembered.
By late 1944, the Allentown plant was turning out seven planes a day. Vultee Street was used as a taxiway from the plant to the airfield. With few cars on the road because of gas rationing this apparently never created a traffic tie-up.
To the east of the airport the federal government built housing for many of the technical employees who came from other parts of the country to work at Consolidated Vultee. Today, that neighborhood of small brick homes remains. Some of the streets — such as Liberator and Catalina, which were named for other Consolidated Vultee airplanes — are all that is left of its links to the World War II era.
Most of the employees at Consolidated Vultee were from the Lehigh Valley. Average starting pay was 65 cents an hour. It was 90 cents an hour by war’s end. With the Seawolf’s odd production schedule and the many changes, workers sometimes found themselves plagued by a process familiar to those in the military as “hurry up and wait.” One female worker said that some people in her section spent their spare time making aluminum jewelry.
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In August 1945 word came that the first squadron of Seawolfs was ready to be sent to Pearl Harbor for combat. But a few days later there was an even bigger announcement: on Aug. 14 –V-J Day, Victory in Japan — World War II was over. In all the hoopla and excitement, the Seawolf was allowed to slip out of the mind of a public eager to get back to peacetime production.
One of Snyder’s last tasks was to take a photo of the parts of unbuilt Seawolfs about to be scrapped. Eclipsed by oncoming jet technology, no more TBY-2s were built and they were relegated to use as training planes for Navy pilots. Today, apparently, no examples of the TBY-2 exist.
On July 10, 1947, the federal War Assets Administration turned Convair Field over to the City of Allentown, stipulating in the quit claim deed, then Mayor Brighton Diefenderfer told 快播视频, that the land must be kept open and “maintained as an emergency landing field” or the airport property would be returned to the federal government.
For a time in the 1950s Allentown City Council allowed drag races, sponsored by Lehigh Valley Timing Association, to take place at the airfield. The hangar was rented to Air Products and Chemicals from 1951-’66 to house its corporate airplanes and for some manufacturing. In 1957, the drag races raised protests from residents. The Civil Aeronautics Administration, predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration, stepped in and the car races ceased.
In 1961, Allentown took over direct running of the airport from independent contractors, renaming it Queen City Airport. After 1966 the hanger became a municipal garage. Since then, 30 acres were purchased by Spirax-Sarco, a maker of steam and heat transfer equipment. Today, Queen City Airport occupies roughly 200 acres.
As one of the few undeveloped properties in Allentown city limits, Queen City continues to be a subject of controversy between city officials, who would like to use it as an industrial park, and pilots, who want to keep it an airport. Klar and her fellow pilots hope their celebration of Queen City Aiport’s contribution to the America’s war effort on the home front during World War II will help preserve it as an aviation center.
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EVENTS RECALL VULTEE’S ‘HOME-FRONT HEROES’
Here is the schedule of activities for “Superweekend” at Queen City Airport, Allentown. All activities take place at the airport, 1730 Vultee St., Allentown. Super Sunday takes place on Hamilton Mall at the center of downtown Allentown.
Saturday admission is free. Tickets required for the Friday dinner dance.
Information: 791-3241.
Sept. 16
– 7 p.m.: World War II dinner dance, 1940s style.
– B-52 Mitchell Bomber arrives
– All-you-can-eat buffet dinner
– Big band music
Sept. 17
– Dawn to dusk — World War II air expo
– 6 a.m.: Hot-air balloon launch
– Walk-in/drive-in/fly-in breakfast
– Military aircraft fly-bys
– Children’s activity tent
– Antique and classic cars display
– Warbirds and classic aircraft
– Home-built and ultra-light aircraft display
– Radio-controlled model plane demonstration
– World War II memorabilia exhibit
– Various exhibitors, vendors
– Veteran’s remembrance tent
– Food and refreshments
Sept. 18
– 8 a.m.: Fantasy of Flight winners exhibition
