Oh, doctor: Jerry Coleman headed for Marine Corps, baseball halls of fame this weekend

By: ED EARLY - Staff Writer

Jerry Coleman's journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame almost came to a premature end on a stretch of runway in South Korea. It was the spring of 1953, and the Padres' veteran play-by-play announcer was still Marine Corps Capt. Gerald F. Coleman. He was flying combat missions in support of Marines on the ground, just as he had done eight years earlier during World War II.

Coleman was guiding his Vought Corsair ---- a gull-winged plane used by the Marines for precision bombing ---- down the runway at K-6, his squadron's airfield at Pyongtaek. The plane was loaded with more than 3,000 pounds of bombs.

"K-6 had a bump in the middle of the runway ---- it would lift you up, you'd go down, and then you'd take off," Coleman said. "So I hit that bump, went up and my engine came to a stop. Not stalled ---- stopped. Dead.

"Suddenly, I said, 'I'm not going to make this.' "

Fearing that the ammunition strapped to his airplane could ignite if he were to crash, Coleman jettisoned his bombs.

"I think one of the bombs must have hit the tail wheel, because it pushed my plane up and over, and I went over the top," he said. "Next thing I remember, my knees were in back of my head and my arms were pinned down. And the (cockpit) strap is supposed to give after a certain amount of pressure, but it didn't. ...

"I really thought I was going to suffocate. I was actually out when they got to me."

The airfield's crash crew was able to quickly get Coleman untangled from his harness and out of the plane unharmed.

He was flying again the next day.

Honored veteran

More than a half-century after that harrowing day at Pyongtaek, Coleman remains the only major-league baseball player to see combat in two wars.

"That says it all right there," said retired Maj. Gen. Bob Butcher, a Vietnam-era Marine pilot and chairman of the Flying Leatherneck Historical Foundation, for which Coleman is an adviser. "The fact that he served his country in two wars speaks volumes for the character of the guy."

During 38 months of active service in World War II and the Korean War, Coleman flew 120 combat missions for the Marines. Twice, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism or extraordinary achievement in flight; he also received 13 Air Medals and three Navy Unit Commendations.

But Coleman's service to the Corps didn't end in Korea. Afterward, he joined the Marine Corps Reserve and spent 11 years doing promotional work for the Marines, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1964.

Today, the Marines will honor Coleman by inducting him into the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame at Quantico, Va. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael Hagee, will be there to introduce the 80-year-old Coleman, who will travel to Cooperstown, N.Y., after the ceremony for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.

"I never, ever regretted being in the service," said Coleman, whose colleagues in the media still call him "Colonel." "People say, 'Well, it ruined your baseball career.' So what? That's not important. Really."

Bomber pilot at 19

As a member of what has been dubbed "The Greatest Generation" ---- the young men and women who served their country in World War II ---- Coleman remains amazed at what he and others of his era accomplished in trying times.

"I've always said, if the Japanese knew what they were up against, they would never have surrendered," Coleman said with a laugh. "I'm 19, my gunner's 18, and we're out there winning the war!"

Coleman was just 19 when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and received his naval aviator's wings on April 1, 1944.

He chose the Marine Corps because he idolized Joe Foss, the Marine pilot who received the Medal of Honor early in the war. But Coleman had been inspired to join two years earlier, when the Navy made a recruiting pitch at San Francisco's Lowell High during Coleman's senior year there.

"In walked these two naval aviators whose wings were this big," said Coleman, laughing as he held his hands three feet apart in exaggeration. "And I thought, 'That's what I want to be.' "

In October 1942, then 18-year-old Coleman joined the V-5 program, which trained high school and college graduates to become naval aviators. He spent the next 18 months undergoing flight training in Colorado, Kansas and Texas in order to get his wings.

Coleman's first plane was the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber, famous for sinking four Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.

"It was slower than sin, but you could put a bomb on a pitcher's mound with it," Coleman said.

When he finally made his way to the South Pacific in August 1944, Coleman was assigned to VMSB-341, a scout bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands with a unique, dangerous mission. Scout bombers used their planes to provide close air support of Marine ground forces, diving as close as 1,500 feet above the ground to drop their bombs on the enemy.

Despite his youth, Coleman proved to be an able pilot, flying 57 combat missions over the Solomons and the Philippines to help American forces retake Japanese-occupied territory. Coleman received both of his Distinguished Flying Crosses during his tour of duty with VMSB-341.

In the summer of 1945, Coleman and other carrier-qualified pilots returned to the States to train for an even larger task ---- the invasion of mainland Japan.

"We were going to pick up carriers and hit Japan in November," Coleman said.

But when Japan agreed to surrender on Aug. 14, 1945, Coleman ended up staying at Cherry Point, N.C. The Marines released him from active duty the following January.

"I was like, 'What am I going to do now?' " he said. "So I thought, 'I guess I'll go back and try baseball.' "

'We're going to get you'

Coleman's career as the New York Yankees' second baseman was flourishing in October 1951 when he was contacted by a Marine major stationed in Alameda, near his offseason Bay Area home.

The Marines, needing experienced pilots to serve in Korea, wanted Coleman ---- an inactive reservist ---- back in uniform.

"I hadn't thought about it, to be honest," Coleman said. "He said, 'Well, we're going to get you for a year and a half.' So I told him, 'Do me a favor, then. Take me right now in October and let me out in March of 1953.' "

As it turned out, Coleman wasn't recalled to active duty until May 1952, when he headed to El Toro for retraining in the Corsair, a World War II fighter adapted for ground-attack missions. From there, he left for Korea and his new squadron, VMA-323.

Coleman's 63 combat missions in Korea included close air support and strike missions against North Korean targets. During one mission, Coleman was listening on his radio when fellow big-leaguer Ted Williams, a Marine fighter pilot, attempted an emergency landing of his shot-up plane.

"Of course, when that happens, that becomes your brother out there," Coleman said. "Somebody says, 'OK, you've got smoke coming out of your tailpipe, we're vectoring you in ...' and that's all we heard until the next day, when we found out he was OK."

Coleman's near-miss at K-6 wasn't his only one. After flying a mission with a dead radio, he landed safely ---- but almost didn't get out of his plane alive.

"All of a sudden an F-86 (jet) hops over the top of me, goes down to the end of the runway and blows up," Coleman said. "How he didn't hit me, I don't know."

Coleman was serving as a forward air controller near the front lines when hostilities ended on July 27, 1953. When he returned to his base, Coleman got a call from Bobby Brown, a childhood friend and Yankees teammate serving as an Army surgeon in Tokyo.

The Yankees wanted to know when Coleman would be home.

"George Weiss (the Yankees' general manager) told me that if Jerry followed certain instructions, he could get an early discharge," Brown said.

The plan worked ---- sort of. After the commander of the First Marine Air Wing assured Coleman that he would be home in three days, his transfer request was held up by Marine headquarters in Washington.

"The commandant at the time, (Gen.) Lemuel Shepherd, was away," Coleman said. "And some guy in the commandant's office turned me down."

Soon after, though, Coleman was summoned to the sergeant major's office and found out that he was indeed going home ---- with the commandant's blessing.

"The sergeant major said, 'Give me your piece (weapon). There's a Flying Tiger out there that's leaving in an hour,' " Coleman said. "And I was back in New York in 48 hours."

Still serving the Corps

Following Coleman's release from active duty in August 1953, he began the transition from the playing field to the Yankees' front office and, eventually, to the broadcast booth.

The latter move meshed nicely with Coleman's work in the Marine Corps Reserve. Coleman did many radio spots promoting the Marines, often traveling to Washington, D.C., from his New York home.

"As far as a (full-time) career in the military, I had no interest in that whatsoever," Coleman said. "But I never, ever stopped trying to promote the Marine Corps."

He still hasn't. Coleman is a regular guest speaker at local military functions and serves on the board of advisors for the Flying Leatherneck Historical Foundation, which operates a museum of historic Marine planes at Miramar.

"Jerry keeps asking me if there's anything he can do for us," Butcher said. "I can't say enough about him."

And Coleman can't say enough about the life experience he gained while serving his country.

"The most important part of my life is my time in the Marine Corps, bar none," he said. "It's bigger than baseball, bigger than anything I've ever done."

Contact staff writer Ed Early at (760) 739-6646 or eearly@nctimes.com.



Ellie