Sometimes really awesome things happen (My only Bar Mitzvah Experience)

During my assignment in Germany, my family had some really interesting cultural experiences that I doubt would have occurred just about anywhere else. Part of this experience was geographic. My family was housed on the largest US Army post in the region and it was also near the military hospital that served our area. Part of the experience was due to daily aspects of life and my families' need for medical services and part was just being at the right place, at the right time and looking at the world with an open mind.  

While a lot of our friends and associates were either from my work or from the building where we lived on Leighton Barracks, the second largest group of friends my family and I socialized with were doctors. My being a Warrant Officer pilot and all US Military doctors being Commissioned Officers, stateside I don’t think we would have been in the same social circle based on economics and the areas where we lived. During Germany assignments, this socio-economic division is blurred due to lack of varied housing and some social pressures we encountered living in a foreign country.

My wife Anna first met the son, daughter and wife of the Allergist for the hospital while she was picking up our son at the elementary school on post. The daughter (Anya) and my youngest son (Timothy) were in the same third grade class together. These two mothers started talking while waiting for the kids to come out after school and soon began talking on a regular basis and it was also apparent the kids also got along well. A few weeks later, my wife had an appointment with the Allergy clinic and met the allergist. 

He was a Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) and was the only allergist in the entire European Theater and we were glad she could get into seeing him. Anyone who has ever taken a battery of allergy tests knows that it can be a long process. If your doctor was any type of semi-social person, you got to talking about varying subjects to pass the time waiting for results. It came to light somewhere in the process of waiting for kids at school and doctor visits at the clinic, the dots were connected and the Allergist Dr. Ned Bernton, turned out to be Anya’s father.

Anya’s mother (Anita) was an Indian national and Ned was of Jewish descent from the New York area. In the military, you quickly became immune to mixed races and mixed religious beliefs in families and you just went with it. That was exactly what we did. We only became aware of Ned being Jewish when we invited the Berntons to dinner and we inquired if there were any dietary restrictions (Some people are allergic or just plain don’t eat some foods. With many food items being rationed at military bases overseas, it was logical to ask to avoid issues. 

Ned mentioned they were Jewish but they were reformed and didn’t adhere to the dietary restrictions. That was pretty much the last we spoke or thought about it for a while. Dinner went off well and while we were of very diverse origins, we got along well as a group. Ned and Alice had a son, Jeremy, who was near my older son’s ages and Timothy and Anya were already buddies. 

While Ned didn’t talk a lot of shop, he was an audiophile (He also shared a passion for the Grateful Dead with my wife) and we determined we shared a lot of music interests and he found my job as a pilot fascinating. Anna and Anita clicked pretty well too, and we were fascinated how Ned and Anita had met and they found the story of our convoluted journey interesting too.

We began to see more of each other when Anita returned to India for a couple weeks and Ned needed some help picking up Anya after school because he had appointments running long or a sudden staff meeting etc. It was not unusual to come home and find Jeremy and Anya doing homework with our kids while waiting for Dad to come get them. 

One day when Ned came to pick up the kids he mentioned he was having trouble learning Hebrew which initiated a conversation about why he was learning it at such a late time in his life. This is when we learned that his son, Jeremy was nearing his Bar Mitzvah and Jeremy had decided he wanted to be an Orthodox Jew. Since their father and grandfather participate in the ceremony, they were both learning at least enough Hebrew for their parts. The final result of all this interaction was an invitation to our family to attend the Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

In the following days, we learned that the ceremony would occur in a town northwest of Wurzburg called Urspringen. There you can find a holocaust museum called Synagogen-Museum Judengasse. The building was a Synagogue built in 1702. It was renovated in 1932 before it was demolished and desecrated on 10 November 1938 by the Nazis. During that period, all the Jews in the region were deported. 

The building was restored and converted into a museum by the people of the town from 1989 to 1991 the museum opened to the public in 1992. This says a lot about the town. No Jews remained in Urspringen. We also learned that Jeremy’s Bar Mitzvah was historic in that it was the first Jewish religious service performed in the building since 1938, over 50 years.

When we arrived for the ceremony to find the building a fever of activity. At least twenty local women were working in the kitchen providing food and drink while the building was being readied for the service. The first thing I encountered was the wearing of a Yarmulke (a skullcap worn by Jewish men) that my sons and I were requested to wear. My sons were also co-opted into assisting with passing them out to other men as they entered the synagogue. 

The building itself was very austere with benches for pews and a minimalist decor. At the north end of the building there were several local women setting up food for those attending the service. My wife and I did a tour of the building taking in several photos and articles about the building, the Holocaust and the history the museum was preserving.

Soon, we were all seated and the room was filled to capacity. There was an electric feeling in the room and we were keenly aware something wonderful was about to happen. There were people we knew from the army hospital there, including Doctor (Maj) LeBeau The Dermatologist, Doctor (Maj) Ruskin the Urologist. Dr. LeBeau commented to my wife: “I didn’t know you were Jewish!?” and she replied jokingly; “I didn’t know you were Jewish either!” (A few minutes later she did tell him we weren’t Jews but friends of the family.) I didn’t talk to Major Ruskin as he was working as lay clergy along with the German and Army Rabbis in the service.

When it was time start, a very striking dark haired lady arose and walked to the center of the room. She waited for the room to quiet and then she explained that she would be singing a song in Hebrew, German and English. What occurred next floored most the people in the room. First, she used a pitch pipe, to get the key right. (She was thrown off for a second as Jeremy’s grandfather was taking pictures with an auto-winding SLR camera and it made a sound off key and she had to use the pitch pipe again.) 

The amazement started when she began to sing. I have never heard such a powerful and melodious voice, she literally rattled the rafters! Her voice completely filled the room and I could barely register some gasps of astonishment from people around me, I was gasping myself. She was Israeli, a professional Opera Singer in Kassel, Germany, and Jeremy’s aunt. Her song was full of emotion and wonder and as she changed from Hebrew to German and then finally English, the wonderment multiplied. We later learned she was also the wife of Ned’s brother, Professor of Arabic Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in New York City.

The ceremony began with the Chaplain from Heidelberg explaining how the service would proceed and his apology on the quality of his Hebrew, He too was a reformed Jew but he was trying hard. The local German Rabbi conducted the service while the Chaplain and Dr. Ruskin assisted him. Both Ned and his father did Jeremy proud with their parts and their Hebrew recitations. 

Then after Jeremy had completed his part of the ritual there was a bit of levity as my son Tim and Jeremy's sister Anya began pelting Jeremy with candies from the balcony (Apparently, a tradition at the end of the ceremony) and Anya got a tad carried away and threw an unopened bag too. There was a small reception there in the building with the locals who were helping with the ceremony and then we caravaned back to Wurzburg to Ned’s house for the main reception.

I was not surprised to find the Bernton's lived in a large home with immaculate grounds. There was a catered buffet with all kinds of Kosher food and I was particularly fond of the Lox (a fillet of brined salmon) which I’d never eaten. The house was a torrent of activity with 50 to 75 people of all races and nationalities. We ate and talked and enjoyed cocktails and initially we expected to stay for a half-hour or so and go on our way. The evening didn't exactly end that way though.

My wife Anna spent the better part of an hour conversing with a Chinese Neurosurgeon, who was flabbergasted to learn Anna was a homemaker who’d never gone to college (He had assumed she was a professor.) Meanwhile, I was also accorded a minor celebrity status when it was learned I was a helicopter pilot. 

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but eventually I ended up giving a class on Rotary Wing Aerodynamics to Ned’s Brother, a German lawyer and about four others who were curious about what I did and how helicopters worked. While we were socializing, the kids all kept each other busy doing kid things. 

We finally went home as the sun began to set on what had been a most amazing day.

Moving aircraft for the Luftwaffe Museum

Today’s memory missive involves a mission I flew with CW3 Ronnie Ashcraft relocating some aircraft on display at the Luftwaffe Museum in Hamburg, Germany to the new museum location in Berlin. As a result of reunification, many things were being consolidated in more central locations in Germany and the Museum was one of those consolidations. The mission was very loosely organized with three Ch-47D aircraft from A-5-159 AVN (Big Windy) sent to move some of the aircraft they had on the airfield in Hamburg to the new location. The pilots were to evaluate the aircraft and decide which could be sling loaded to the new location. Several factors were involved starting with the overall condition of the aircraft to be moved, the weight of the aircraft and how well we could rig these for sling loading. We only had authorization for a single turn so this limited the selection to three of I guess eight or ten aircraft to be moved. Several were eliminated due to weight, one of those was a soviet era cargo helicopter I estimated to weigh in excess of 30,000 lbs.

My crew and I settled on a British jet that had its engines removed but seemed to be in good shape structurally. The aviation maintenance crew set to task rigging the 110 foot slings used for aircraft recovery while my crew prepared the aircraft (Refuel, internal configuration of equipment etc.) and my co-pilot Ronnie and I filed our flight plan along with the other two crews. This was an exciting time for Ronnie, who had only recently transitioned from OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopters to CH-47Ds. Ronnie was the unit Instrument Flight Examiner (IFE) and had given me my annual instrument evaluation a few weeks earlier. Ronnie had never flown a aircraft recovery mission and so we decided that he would do the first leg of the flight to Parchim where we planned to refuel and them I would fly the second leg to Berlin. We were going as a flight of three so that we could provide support if one of the aircraft had an issue.

Once preparations were complete, we fired up our birds and we all moved into position next to our loads. The slings were laid out to the side of the load allowing you to land over the clevis and the flight engineer (FE) merely reached down and grabbed it though the cargo hook hatch and placed it on the center cargo hook. Once the FE gave up the go ahead, I had Ronnie pick us up and I explained to him how as we climbed and the slings started to get tension the pull of the load would automatically center our aircraft over the load. We then picked up the load and performed the before takeoff checks. All three aircraft tried to do this at the same time to limit the time hovering while waiting for one of the other aircraft to pick up their load. Ronnie and I were the trail aircraft and we waited for the first two birds to move out then we followed.

Since we were on the northwest side of Hamburg and we were flying southeast, the German aviation administration didn’t want us flying these loads over populated areas and had requested we fly over the Elba river through Hamburg. We flew a couple miles south to the river and then made a 130 degree or so left turn to follow the river through town. Our airspeed was limited to about 70 knots and once we were at cruising altitude, we performed our cruise check. This is when I noticed that we were picking up a forward and aft oscillation of the load. I had Ronnie make a couple of lazy left and right turns and used the lateral force of the turns to settle down the load. The problem quickly returned though when were returned to a straight flight path. I was discussing this with the flight engineer who indicated that he saw no indication that the load was causing the issue and I started to become concerned as the aircraft was starting to pitch twenty degrees nose up then twenty degrees nose down and I was worried that we might have to jettison the load.

I was discussing more maneuvers to stabilize the load with Ronnie who I noticed his thumb position on the cyclic control stick. On the right side of the grip is a button that allows you to release the force trim of the cyclic, and he was mashing it with all his might. (Force trim is a centering device that will hold the cyclic in position and is spring allowing you to move the stick against the springs and when you release the pressure, the control will return to the original position.) In small aircraft like the OH-58 Ronnie had flown for over a decade, it was standard practice to disable the trim and fly the light and nimble aircraft by the seat of your pants. In a large aircraft with a computer stabilized flight control system, this just causes the computer to fight the pilot for control of the aircraft.

I took the flight controls and the pitching of the aircraft immediately ceased and we were flying smooth and steady. I spent the next several minutes demonstrating to Ronnie where we’d been shown in the CH-47D transition. The CH-47D flies best when least interfered with by the pilot. I had pressed the Force trim button once and let go to center the pressures for the current flight profile (70 knots straight and level) and then I let go of the stick. The force trim maintained the stick position I had selected. I then demonstrated the 4-position rocker switch on top of the grip that allowed you to turn left or right, speed up or slow down all with the simple application of a thumb or finger. The collective pitch required only minimal monitoring as the weather was calm and there was little wind or thermals to cause you to deviate from altitude. Once I had the aircraft steady and had given Ronnie a lesson in the easy way to fly, I had him take to controls back and I only allowed him to use his index finger and thumb to move the cyclic and only using the 4-position switch. The flight was much smoother now letting the Advanced Flight Control system (AFCS) do all the works and Ronnie just kinda supervised.

I had really been surprised with what Ronnie had been doing as the exact way we were flying was the method most pilots used in the CH-47D to fly on instrument flights. I’d just assumed Ronnie would know that the same skills would be used on a sling load. I still struggle some times to not make assumptions, but I am learning. About the time we got things settled down, we started getting hook warning lights. The center hook on the CH-47D is rated for 26,000 lbs. and is hydraulically actuated to release. It has a hook open sensor that is activated by a plunger switch that is released when the hook is open. When released, the master caution light illuminated and the center hook open illuminates. I checked with the FE who confirmed we still had the load (I could tell by the weight but ya gotta ask) and we discussed why the light was coming an and determined that the switch was most likely out of adjustment. So aside from having to reset this errant light, no big deal.

The big deal came up as we were approaching Parchim to refuel. The FE noticed that one of the slings was fraying at the wing root on the load and that it could fail. We were fortunate to be able to get the load on the ground at Parchim, but we were end of mission at that point as we had no replacement for the sling and another aircraft would have to complete the leg from Parchim to Berlin the next day using one of the sling sets from the other two loads. Feeling a little defeated, we refueled and returned to base in Giebelstadt end of mission. It had been a good education for me as a Pilot-in-Command and I got to teach an old dog some new tricks along the way.