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thedrifter
10-24-02, 12:16 PM
Story by Maj Allan C. Bevilacqua, USMC (Ret)


Natural: "Any person or thing that is or is likely or is certain to be very suitable to and successful in an endeavor without much training or difficulty"

--Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

All of us have heard of someone who was described as a "natural," a person seemingly born with skills and talents the rest of us are able to attain only after long and ceaseless practice and application. Blessed from birth with abilities that make the most difficult tasks appear effortless, the natural excels with a deft grace most others can only envy. Whether it be hitting a baseball or playing the violin, weaving a race car through traffic or plying the surgeon's healing knife, the natural stands alone as one born to the task.

On April 5, 1928, one such natural, Lieutenant Christian F. Schilt, USMC, stood at attention before the President of the United States on the White House lawn. As Major General Commandant John A. Lejeune and an honor guard of his fellow Marines looked on, President Calvin Coolidge placed the Medal of Honor about the neck of the one-time farm boy from Richland County, Ill. It was the first time a winner of America's highest award for heroism received the decoration personally from a president, and it would establish a tradition that generally endures to this day. The citation that was read commended Schilt for "almost superhuman skill" in carrying out one of the most incredible acts of bravery in the history of Marine Corps aviation. Perhaps that was only normal, for even before there were airplanes, Christian F. Schilt was born to fly them.

In the beginning there was no hint of the extraordinary things that were to come. In 1917, 22-year-old Schilt, known as "Frank," was just one of many young men eager to answer his country's call in the war against Germany. Fresh out of Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute, Ind., Schilt enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on June 23, 1917. In due course he joined the flood of Marines bound for the Marine Corps' new recruit training depot at Paris Island, S.C. He would continue to wear the eagle, globe and anchor for nearly 40 years, and his shoulders would one day bear a general's stars.

Did the new boot Marine have visions of the battlefields of France? Perhaps, but if he did they were destined to go unrealized. Instead, Schilt joined the first American air unit of any service to be sent overseas in World War I, Captain Francis T. "Cocky" Evans' 1st Marine Aeronautical Company ordered to Punta Delgada in the Azores. Expecting to see action in the trenches, the new Marine found himself instead a machine-gunner flying antisubmarine patrols in the unit's Curtiss HS-2L flying boats. It wasn't quite what he had envisioned when he enlisted, but he did the job and did it well. If he was disappointed, it didn't interfere with his performance of duty.

Besides, there was something fascinating about airplanes, something exhilarating about actually being among the clouds. The hours spent cruising above the Atlantic gave Schilt, an observant youngster with much better than average mechanical skills, time to develop an appreciation of what was necessary to get an airplane into the air and keep it there. It began to seem that actually flying an airplane wasn't all that complicated. If he got the chance, he more than likely could do a fair country job of it. If being along for the ride was fun, think of how much fun it would be to sit in the pilot's seat.

Intrigued by that possibility, Schilt, by then wearing a corporal's chevrons, decided to stick around at war's end and explore the chances of becoming a pilot. As it turned out, his chances were pretty good. Early in 1919, orders and seabag in hand, the aspiring aviator reported to the Marine Flying Field, Miami, the site of present-day Opa-Locka Airport, for flight training.

Schilt took to flying an airplane quicker than an otter skimming down a mud slide. He did far better than a fair country job of it. And it really was fun.

On June 5, 1919, Cpl Christian F. Schilt, USMC, was designated a naval aviator detailed for "duty involving actual flying in aircraft, including dirigibles, balloons and airplanes." Five days later he was commissioned a second lieutenant and ordered to duty as a pilot with Squadron D, Marine Air Forces, 2d Provisional Brigade in Santo Domingo.

The show was about to begin.

Expeditionary duty was a fact of Marine Corps life in the 1920s, just as deployments are today. For an aviator it was also an opportunity to log a lot of flight time. Schilt honed his flying skills to a fine edge. Except for a brief stint at Quantico, Va., to attend the Marine Officers' Training School, the forerunner of today's Basic School, the new pilot spent an impressive number of hours in the air over Santo Domingo and Haiti. It was time well invested, for it was becoming increasingly apparent that Schilt had a touch with airplanes few men attain. When the former mechanic took a plane into the air, it was almost as though he was a part of it.

In the decade of the '20s, that was a handy skill to have. Schilt's return to Quantico in 1923 coincided with the dawn of the golden age of one of aviation's landmark events, air racing. Stronger airframes, better designs and more powerful engines had opened the door to increasingly faster airplanes. Air racing blossomed into a major spectator attraction, with prestigious sponsors lining up to post prizes and trophies to feed the popular appetite for speed, speed and more speed. In no time at all, events like the Bendix Cup, the International Air Races, the Schneider Cup Seaplane Races and the Cleveland Air Show were drawing thousands of spectators.

This was something right down Schilt's alley. There was no prohibition on military pilots participating; in fact, entry was encouraged.

For the next four years, he flew in every major air race, always bringing his plane home among the top finishers, always displaying flying skill that drew the admiration of his fellow competitors. Accounts credit him with being one of America's premier military aviators. When Schilt wasn't racing, he was collecting trophies in the Army Air Service's Machinegun and Bombing Competition, pioneering techniques in aerial photographic surveys and putting airplanes through their paces as a test pilot.

Even as Schilt gained a reputation as an exceptionally gifted aviator, a far greater renown was awaiting him at a flyspeck village called Quilali in the mountainous, jungle-covered interior of Nicaragua's Nueva Segovia Province. It was 1927, and the strategically important Latin American country, only recently wracked by civil war, was experiencing an uneasy peace brokered by American negotiator Henry L. Stimson. Under the terms of the agreement, the leaders of both factions consented to the disarmament of their troops and an American-supervised national election, with Marines serving as guarantors of the peace. From the start it was less a peace than an armed truce as both sides hedged their bets and held on to their guns.

http://www.mca-marines.org/Leatherneck/schiltarch.htm


Sempers,

Roger