LT. Joel Abramson
U.S. Army Air Corp – Fighter Pilot
456th Squadron 414th Fighter Group
Iwo Jima
1942-1946
U.S. Army Air Corp – Fighter Pilot
456th Squadron 414th Fighter Group
Iwo Jima
1942-1946
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; High Flight by John Magee
Childhood, the Rural Bronx and Surviving the Great Depression
Joel Abramson was born March 15th 1923 as Calvin Coolidge stepped into the Oval Office. He grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx which was a fairly rural area at that time. Joel recalls having to walk through the woods to get to school. At some point his father bought him a bicycle that he rode to school. “I was four years old in kindergarten. The youngest kid in the kindergarten and the only kid left back in Kindergarten”
Joel had one sister, Audrey, who was six years older than him. “I was the pesky kid brother. We fought like cats and dogs.” His mother warned Audrey, ‘one day the worm will turn’. “I didn’t know I was the worm.” Joels parents were born in the United States but all four grandparents were born in Russia.
Joel had a collage of childhood recollections that added some context to that period in the United States. He recalled meeting his father on the street on his way home from work. “He asked me if I was a good boy, and I said yes. That was a lie because I had been caught playing with matches” by the local cop on the beat. “He didn’t spank me, but he made me feel so ashamed that I had lied to him I never did it again.”
Joel recalls standing on a street corner with a “little bag of stuff tied on a stick” preparing to run away. A woman he didn’t know, but she knew him, asked him what he was doing and Joel said he was running away. Then she asked why he was just standing on the corner. Joel replied, “I can’t cross. The street.”
“I remember following the horse draw junk wagon and ice wagon. To this day I refer to the refrigerator as the ice box.”
“I had freedom. I rode my bike all over the area. I think my mother would have died if she knew where I went.” Riverdale Ave was a dirt road during Joel’s childhood. “I can remember riding my bike to the blacksmith shop. I had fun.” Joel recalls going to the local movie house to watch silent movies with a pianist providing music to go with the movie.
“I dearly loved my paternal grandfather. He was a master cabinet maker. He was very good to me. In those days there were no power tools.” Everything was made by hand. Joel remembers crawling behind a big piece of furniture his grandfather had made and said, “Grandpa, all this nice carving on the back. No one knows it’s there.” Joels grandfather replied, “I know!” He taught Joel to take pride in his work.
Joel was six years old when the depression hit NYC. “I think we were doing ok.” “My sister and I always had jobs after school.” His mother had him open a bank account to deposit his earnings and an allowance of 25 cents a week.
The family moved from Riverdale to West End Ave and 104th St in Manhattan. “I hated it. I was used to playing in the woods. This was more urban. I was the new kid on the block and I didn’t have any friends.” Joel developed a strong friendship with Eddie Sheinbaum and the two became best friends. Joel and Eddie spent a lot of time at each other’s home and having meals together. Later he would marry Eddie’s kid sister, Doris. “She was an identical twin. I didn’t have any trouble” telling them apart.
One evening when Joel was home on leave from the military, he was at Eddie’s house. Doris came home and she was hoping to spend time with Joel, but her mother reminded her she needed to walk the dog. Joel volunteered to go along. It was a long walk and “during that walk we fell in love.”
Joel attended DeWitt Clinton High Scholl, an all-boys high school in the Bronx. He graduated in June 1940. “I didn’t have a distinguished high school career. I was alright.” After high school Joel was accepted into the University of Wisconsin, but his mother was ill and his father asked if he would stay near home to help out. Joel agreed and entered City College of New York.
The War Years and Learning to be a Fighter Pilot
On Sunday December 7th, 1941, Joel was at home listening to a football game on the radio when the new came across that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Joel tried to enlist very shortly thereafter. “I had to get my parents’ permission. They refused. I really kicked up a fuss.” Undeterred, Joel learned about a program offered by the military that allowed you to stay in college until you were drafted. “They signed that. I was called in no time.” Eddie did the same.
“I knew from the get-go, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. That was my goal. Why? I had never flown. I didn’t know anything about flying.” Joel knew that if he enlisted, he could pick his branch of service. It was 1942 and Joel and Eddie both headed to 30 Whitehall St. in Manhattan and they both enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
Joel was sent to Atlantic city for basic training. “Basic training I hated. All we did was march up and down the boardwalk.” Joel was sent to Syracuse University. “I learned something. Some meteorology and trigonometry.” Joel’s next stop was the Air Corps’ Classification Section in San Antonio, Texas where he was selected for pilot training. Then to Corsicana, Texas for primary flight school. The instructors were civilians, and they trained in a two-seater aircraft. “I had never been in a plane before.” This was Joel’s dream, but he found himself getting air sick. He was unable to hide it from his instructor who gave him some sagely words of advice. “Son, if you don’t learn to swallow it, you ain’t gonna make it.” After a short training period Joel was sent up solo and he felt great. He learned that he only got air sick when the instructor had the controls. With his air sickness under control Joel was shipped to the small town of Enid, Oklahoma for basic flying school.
In Enid, Joel was required to pass a three-legged navigational check flight with an Army officer riding along. If he didn’t pass, he would wash out of the program. Joel took off and had no problem hitting the first check point. He turned to head for the second check point and soon realized he had no idea where he was. The terrain was flat red clay with no distinguishing features. Far off on the horizon he could see railroad tracks. “I dive down to ground level and follow the tracks. I read the name on the station. I pull up, take out my map and see exactly where I am.” Now fully oriented, he headed to the second check point and turned onto the final leg back to the base. Joel made a perfect landing but now he fully expected to be washed out because he buzzed the station, which was a serious offense,
Joel stood on the tarmac at rigid attention waiting for Lt. Becker to drop the axe. Lt. Becker told Joel to stand at ease and said to him, “I’m going to pass you on ingenuity, but brush up on your navigation. There are damn few railroads in the Pacific Ocean.” Joel was one step closer to being a fighter pilot and his next stop was Mission, Texas. There he earned his wings “and now I’m an officer. I’m a fighter pilot.”
Initially Joel was flying a P-40. “Now we knew how to fly, but flying as a combat pilot, that’s something else. You had to be taught.” Joel recalls learning tactics and flying close formation as a wingman to a more experience pilot. “Whatever he did, you did. The reaction time had to be like this”, Joel demonstrated with a snap of his fingers.
“We were a close-knit group.” The year was 1944 and Joel expected to be sent as a replacement pilot to North Africa. His squadron learned that the Army was forming a new unit, and they would be part of it and flying P-47’s. The new group was the 456th fighter Squadron, 414th Fighter Group. The Army changed the plane again and outfitted the 456th with a brand-new plane. The P-47N. This was a long-range fighter that could fly 2,000 miles.
“We were a bunch of wild hooligans. I got into trouble.” During a training flight Joel was “buzzing” which was a very serious offense. The Colonel caught Joel in the act and was not happy. “He gave me hell.” He told Joel he should ship him out of the unit, but he needed Joel. A monetary fine would be the only punishment.
Joel recalled one training mission where they were flying from North Carolina to Maine. As they passed over New York City, the lead pilot advised the squadron they would be landing because he didn’t like the sound his engine was making. The squadron landed at Mitchell Field on Long Island and Joel called his father to let him know he was free for the evening. His father picked up Doris and drove to Mitchell Field to pick up Joel for the night. The next morning when he returned, he learned that all P-47’s across the country had been grounded for carburetor modifications. Joel had an unexpected three day leave to spend with Doris.
The squadron was informed they would be going to the Pacific. Their aircraft were loaded on to the USS Casablanca and they set course for Guam. From Guam the squadron island hopped to Saipan, then Tinian and then on to Iwo Jima. Joel arrived at Iwo Jima after the Marines had taken the island. He was in awe when he looked at MT. Suribachi and realized how hard it had been for the Marines to capture the island.
Joel named his new aircraft “Mighty Mouse” after a cartoon popular at the time. Doris wrote to Paul Terry, the head of Terrytoons Studios that created Mighty Mouse, to let him know about Joel’s plane. Paul Terry sent two original drawings of Mighty Mouse to Doris that Joel has framed and displayed on his office wall today.
On August 14th, 1945 while stationed on Iwo Jima, Joel and the 456th Squadron were sent on a mission to Japan. There was little enemy resistance, “a real milk run”. Joel entered his dive, dropped his bombs and headed back to rendezvous with his squadron. Joel flew through the clouds and much to his surprise he could not locate his squadron. Joel decided to break radio silence to locate his squadron, but his radio was dead. Joel knew Iwo Jima was south of the bombing target and he put his plane on a southerly course. Suddenly Lt. Beckers words were ringing in Joel’s ears, “I’m flying over the Pacific and there’s not a railroad in sight”, Joel recalls.
Joel had to rely on his training and utilize dead reckoning navigation to get him home. In dead reckoning the pilot calculates his position by utilizing air speed, heading and elapsed time. Iwo Jima was a tiny island and could be covered by any of the cloud formation. Joel had his eye on the clock because if he flew past the island there might not be enough fuel to correct his course and make it back to the base. Out on the horizon, Joel could make out the tail of B-29. He pulled up right next to the bomber and signaled to the pilot by tracing IWO on the cockpit window. The pilot nodded and pointed straight down. “I looked down and there it was. I hit it right on the nose.” Joel went into a dive, picked up speed and suddenly, there was the rest of the squadron. He slipped right into place and landed safely. “The crew chief asked me how was the plane? The plane’s fine Davey, but the radio’s dead.” As he was walking away Davey called him back and told him the radio was fine and he was talking to the tower on the radio. Davey asked, “did you press the red circuit breaker button?” It never crossed Joel’s mind. Davey scratched his head in disbelief.
Several hours after they landed the base public address system blared, “Japan has surrendered, the war is over.” The message was repeated over and over. Joel had just flowed the very last combat mission of World War II. “There are so many things that could have worked out otherwise. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
The war was over, but Joel did not have enough points to be immediately discharged. The squadron was moved to Okinawa, then to Clark Field in the Philippines and then to the rural town of Florida Blanca in the Philippines. The squadron would be flying the P-51’s. The squadron continued its training and one day tragedy struck. During a training mission one of the planes went into a dive, never came out of it and crashed. They were unsure of the pilot that went down. When they landed it was obvious the missing pilot was Milt James, a very good friend of Doris and Joel. “That really hurt. The war was over. Everything was fine. What happened? You never know.” Shortly thereafter Joel head for the states.
Joel was sent to Fort Dix to be discharged. He and Doris were married September 22, 1946. They rented their first apartment in Astoria, in the borough of Queens in New York City. Although it was on the fourth floor of a walk up the couple was happy to have their own place. “When I got married, I lived in Astoria at 30-58 34th St. I know Astoria very well.” 13 years later this author was born in Astoria and lived at 25-81 34th St. It’s a small world.
A Career in Advertising and the Luckiest Man
Joel began looking for a job and he took a position as a file clerk in the art department of an ad agency. “It was a crappie job, but I grabbed it. I figured it was a foot in the door, and I needed the money.” Joel let it be known he didn’t expect to be a file clerk for the rest of his life, and he introduced himself to head of the Production Department. He told him that if there was ever an opening he would like to be considered. He gave Joel some books to read about advertising production and Joel found it interesting. Sure enough, a position opened, and they asked Joel if he could type. Joel had taught himself to type in high school and he got the job. Joel worked his way up the ranks of the advertising business. “Those were exciting days. Everything worked out. I just feel I’m the luckiest guy in the world. There are so many ways things could have turned out otherwise.”
Doris and Joel went on to be married for 74 years. They have a son and a daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Doris passed away at the age of 94. Today Joel is 101 years old. “Sometimes when I call the doctor’s office, and I give them the date of birth they say you’re kidding, right.”
Joel thank you for pursuing your dream of flying and being a fighter pilot. You helped the free world triumph over true evil and if it were not for men like you the world would be a terribly different place. Joel, you feel you are the Luckiest Man. That puts you in good company with the other Luckiest Man, Lou Gehrig.
The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. High Flight by Bill Magee
Childhood, the Rural Bronx and Surviving the Great Depression
Joel Abramson was born March 15th 1923 as Calvin Coolidge stepped into the Oval Office. He grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx which was a fairly rural area at that time. Joel recalls having to walk through the woods to get to school. At some point his father bought him a bicycle that he rode to school. “I was four years old in kindergarten. The youngest kid in the kindergarten and the only kid left back in Kindergarten”
Joel had one sister, Audrey, who was six years older than him. “I was the pesky kid brother. We fought like cats and dogs.” His mother warned Audrey, ‘one day the worm will turn’. “I didn’t know I was the worm.” Joels parents were born in the United States but all four grandparents were born in Russia.
Joel had a collage of childhood recollections that added some context to that period in the United States. He recalled meeting his father on the street on his way home from work. “He asked me if I was a good boy, and I said yes. That was a lie because I had been caught playing with matches” by the local cop on the beat. “He didn’t spank me, but he made me feel so ashamed that I had lied to him I never did it again.”
Joel recalls standing on a street corner with a “little bag of stuff tied on a stick” preparing to run away. A woman he didn’t know, but she knew him, asked him what he was doing and Joel said he was running away. Then she asked why he was just standing on the corner. Joel replied, “I can’t cross. The street.”
“I remember following the horse draw junk wagon and ice wagon. To this day I refer to the refrigerator as the ice box.”
“I had freedom. I rode my bike all over the area. I think my mother would have died if she knew where I went.” Riverdale Ave was a dirt road during Joel’s childhood. “I can remember riding my bike to the blacksmith shop. I had fun.” Joel recalls going to the local movie house to watch silent movies with a pianist providing music to go with the movie.
“I dearly loved my paternal grandfather. He was a master cabinet maker. He was very good to me. In those days there were no power tools.” Everything was made by hand. Joel remembers crawling behind a big piece of furniture his grandfather had made and said, “Grandpa, all this nice carving on the back. No one knows it’s there.” Joels grandfather replied, “I know!” He taught Joel to take pride in his work.
Joel was six years old when the depression hit NYC. “I think we were doing ok.” “My sister and I always had jobs after school.” His mother had him open a bank account to deposit his earnings and an allowance of 25 cents a week.
The family moved from Riverdale to West End Ave and 104th St in Manhattan. “I hated it. I was used to playing in the woods. This was more urban. I was the new kid on the block and I didn’t have any friends.” Joel developed a strong friendship with Eddie Sheinbaum and the two became best friends. Joel and Eddie spent a lot of time at each other’s home and having meals together. Later he would marry Eddie’s kid sister, Doris. “She was an identical twin. I didn’t have any trouble” telling them apart.
One evening when Joel was home on leave from the military, he was at Eddie’s house. Doris came home and she was hoping to spend time with Joel, but her mother reminded her she needed to walk the dog. Joel volunteered to go along. It was a long walk and “during that walk we fell in love.”
Joel attended DeWitt Clinton High Scholl, an all-boys high school in the Bronx. He graduated in June 1940. “I didn’t have a distinguished high school career. I was alright.” After high school Joel was accepted into the University of Wisconsin, but his mother was ill and his father asked if he would stay near home to help out. Joel agreed and entered City College of New York.
The War Years and Learning to be a Fighter Pilot
On Sunday December 7th, 1941, Joel was at home listening to a football game on the radio when the new came across that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Joel tried to enlist very shortly thereafter. “I had to get my parents’ permission. They refused. I really kicked up a fuss.” Undeterred, Joel learned about a program offered by the military that allowed you to stay in college until you were drafted. “They signed that. I was called in no time.” Eddie did the same.
“I knew from the get-go, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. That was my goal. Why? I had never flown. I didn’t know anything about flying.” Joel knew that if he enlisted, he could pick his branch of service. It was 1942 and Joel and Eddie both headed to 30 Whitehall St. in Manhattan and they both enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
Joel was sent to Atlantic city for basic training. “Basic training I hated. All we did was march up and down the boardwalk.” Joel was sent to Syracuse University. “I learned something. Some meteorology and trigonometry.” Joel’s next stop was the Air Corps’ Classification Section in San Antonio, Texas where he was selected for pilot training. Then to Corsicana, Texas for primary flight school. The instructors were civilians, and they trained in a two-seater aircraft. “I had never been in a plane before.” This was Joel’s dream, but he found himself getting air sick. He was unable to hide it from his instructor who gave him some sagely words of advice. “Son, if you don’t learn to swallow it, you ain’t gonna make it.” After a short training period Joel was sent up solo and he felt great. He learned that he only got air sick when the instructor had the controls. With his air sickness under control Joel was shipped to the small town of Enid, Oklahoma for basic flying school.
In Enid, Joel was required to pass a three-legged navigational check flight with an Army officer riding along. If he didn’t pass, he would wash out of the program. Joel took off and had no problem hitting the first check point. He turned to head for the second check point and soon realized he had no idea where he was. The terrain was flat red clay with no distinguishing features. Far off on the horizon he could see railroad tracks. “I dive down to ground level and follow the tracks. I read the name on the station. I pull up, take out my map and see exactly where I am.” Now fully oriented, he headed to the second check point and turned onto the final leg back to the base. Joel made a perfect landing but now he fully expected to be washed out because he buzzed the station, which was a serious offense,
Joel stood on the tarmac at rigid attention waiting for Lt. Becker to drop the axe. Lt. Becker told Joel to stand at ease and said to him, “I’m going to pass you on ingenuity, but brush up on your navigation. There are damn few railroads in the Pacific Ocean.” Joel was one step closer to being a fighter pilot and his next stop was Mission, Texas. There he earned his wings “and now I’m an officer. I’m a fighter pilot.”
Initially Joel was flying a P-40. “Now we knew how to fly, but flying as a combat pilot, that’s something else. You had to be taught.” Joel recalls learning tactics and flying close formation as a wingman to a more experience pilot. “Whatever he did, you did. The reaction time had to be like this”, Joel demonstrated with a snap of his fingers.
“We were a close-knit group.” The year was 1944 and Joel expected to be sent as a replacement pilot to North Africa. His squadron learned that the Army was forming a new unit, and they would be part of it and flying P-47’s. The new group was the 456th fighter Squadron, 414th Fighter Group. The Army changed the plane again and outfitted the 456th with a brand-new plane. The P-47N. This was a long-range fighter that could fly 2,000 miles.
“We were a bunch of wild hooligans. I got into trouble.” During a training flight Joel was “buzzing” which was a very serious offense. The Colonel caught Joel in the act and was not happy. “He gave me hell.” He told Joel he should ship him out of the unit, but he needed Joel. A monetary fine would be the only punishment.
Joel recalled one training mission where they were flying from North Carolina to Maine. As they passed over New York City, the lead pilot advised the squadron they would be landing because he didn’t like the sound his engine was making. The squadron landed at Mitchell Field on Long Island and Joel called his father to let him know he was free for the evening. His father picked up Doris and drove to Mitchell Field to pick up Joel for the night. The next morning when he returned, he learned that all P-47’s across the country had been grounded for carburetor modifications. Joel had an unexpected three day leave to spend with Doris.
The squadron was informed they would be going to the Pacific. Their aircraft were loaded on to the USS Casablanca and they set course for Guam. From Guam the squadron island hopped to Saipan, then Tinian and then on to Iwo Jima. Joel arrived at Iwo Jima after the Marines had taken the island. He was in awe when he looked at MT. Suribachi and realized how hard it had been for the Marines to capture the island.
Joel named his new aircraft “Mighty Mouse” after a cartoon popular at the time. Doris wrote to Paul Terry, the head of Terrytoons Studios that created Mighty Mouse, to let him know about Joel’s plane. Paul Terry sent two original drawings of Mighty Mouse to Doris that Joel has framed and displayed on his office wall today.
On August 14th, 1945 while stationed on Iwo Jima, Joel and the 456th Squadron were sent on a mission to Japan. There was little enemy resistance, “a real milk run”. Joel entered his dive, dropped his bombs and headed back to rendezvous with his squadron. Joel flew through the clouds and much to his surprise he could not locate his squadron. Joel decided to break radio silence to locate his squadron, but his radio was dead. Joel knew Iwo Jima was south of the bombing target and he put his plane on a southerly course. Suddenly Lt. Beckers words were ringing in Joel’s ears, “I’m flying over the Pacific and there’s not a railroad in sight”, Joel recalls.
Joel had to rely on his training and utilize dead reckoning navigation to get him home. In dead reckoning the pilot calculates his position by utilizing air speed, heading and elapsed time. Iwo Jima was a tiny island and could be covered by any of the cloud formation. Joel had his eye on the clock because if he flew past the island there might not be enough fuel to correct his course and make it back to the base. Out on the horizon, Joel could make out the tail of B-29. He pulled up right next to the bomber and signaled to the pilot by tracing IWO on the cockpit window. The pilot nodded and pointed straight down. “I looked down and there it was. I hit it right on the nose.” Joel went into a dive, picked up speed and suddenly, there was the rest of the squadron. He slipped right into place and landed safely. “The crew chief asked me how was the plane? The plane’s fine Davey, but the radio’s dead.” As he was walking away Davey called him back and told him the radio was fine and he was talking to the tower on the radio. Davey asked, “did you press the red circuit breaker button?” It never crossed Joel’s mind. Davey scratched his head in disbelief.
Several hours after they landed the base public address system blared, “Japan has surrendered, the war is over.” The message was repeated over and over. Joel had just flowed the very last combat mission of World War II. “There are so many things that could have worked out otherwise. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
The war was over, but Joel did not have enough points to be immediately discharged. The squadron was moved to Okinawa, then to Clark Field in the Philippines and then to the rural town of Florida Blanca in the Philippines. The squadron would be flying the P-51’s. The squadron continued its training and one day tragedy struck. During a training mission one of the planes went into a dive, never came out of it and crashed. They were unsure of the pilot that went down. When they landed it was obvious the missing pilot was Milt James, a very good friend of Doris and Joel. “That really hurt. The war was over. Everything was fine. What happened? You never know.” Shortly thereafter Joel head for the states.
Joel was sent to Fort Dix to be discharged. He and Doris were married September 22, 1946. They rented their first apartment in Astoria, in the borough of Queens in New York City. Although it was on the fourth floor of a walk up the couple was happy to have their own place. “When I got married, I lived in Astoria at 30-58 34th St. I know Astoria very well.” 13 years later this author was born in Astoria and lived at 25-81 34th St. It’s a small world.
A Career in Advertising and the Luckiest Man
Joel began looking for a job and he took a position as a file clerk in the art department of an ad agency. “It was a crappie job, but I grabbed it. I figured it was a foot in the door, and I needed the money.” Joel let it be known he didn’t expect to be a file clerk for the rest of his life, and he introduced himself to head of the Production Department. He told him that if there was ever an opening he would like to be considered. He gave Joel some books to read about advertising production and Joel found it interesting. Sure enough, a position opened, and they asked Joel if he could type. Joel had taught himself to type in high school and he got the job. Joel worked his way up the ranks of the advertising business. “Those were exciting days. Everything worked out. I just feel I’m the luckiest guy in the world. There are so many ways things could have turned out otherwise.”
Doris and Joel went on to be married for 74 years. They have a son and a daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Doris passed away at the age of 94. Today Joel is 101 years old. “Sometimes when I call the doctor’s office, and I give them the date of birth they say you’re kidding, right.”
Joel thank you for pursuing your dream of flying and being a fighter pilot. You helped the free world triumph over true evil and if it were not for men like you the world would be a terribly different place. Joel, you feel you are the Luckiest Man. That puts you in good company with the other Luckiest Man, Lou Gehrig.
The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. High Flight by Bill Magee