Darren Smith
Jack Chen
Natalee Thomazin
U.S. history per.5
Corona
4/14/03
ESLR 1,2,5
Robert Kleinman
During the yearsof our limited life experience we have had the rare privilege of meeting real veterans from World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. Recently, we have had the pleasure of meeting one of these gentlemen. His name is Robert Kleinman.
Robert Kleinman had three stages in his career and life. First he was involved in World War II. Secondly he tangled in the Korea War. And lastly, he went to work with NASA and still does. In the thirty seven years of active duty, he flew three hundred combat hours, and sixty one full tour missions in Europe. Not only did he destroy four enemy aircrafts on the ground, but he also encountered many different enemy fighters in the air. Some examples of the fighters were; the Messerschmitt Bf.109, Focke Wulf Fw.190, Messerschmitt Me.262, and the Arado Ar.234. He also flew in airplanes such as the C-46 (a military transporter), the C-47 (the military version of the Douglas DC-3), and the C-118 (which was the prop driven predecessor to the current C-17 built in Long Beach). Robert Kleinman served in the European Theater during World War II and in the Korean Theater during the Korean War. After all of these accomplishments (not even mentioning that he was assigned to a special team to develop simulators for fueling airplanes), Mr. Kleinman went on to work on space aviation with NASA. This is his story.
Robert Kleinman was born in Brooklyn, New York. His life started like every normal person, he went to grammar school for eight years. Afterwards, he took the entrance exam to go to BrooklynTechnicalHigh School, which was given to three thousand students and only three hundred were chosen.He was one of the fortunate few chosen. The school had every new student take two years of the same courses. Within the next two years, the students could choose to study in a College Preparation course or if they are not able to go to college they could choosea few courses that will teach them practical information to guide them through life. “I took the Aeronautical course and decided to take an aviation cadet position.” Before his graduation, he had to take a three hour test to get his diploma, “they prepared me so well in my classes that I finished the test in one hour. The instructor looked at me like I was crazy and told me to go back and look over it. So I did and about fifteen minutes later I gave it to him.” In January of 1941, he passed and received his Regents Diploma which allowed him to go to any college without taking an enterance examination. The big shock of Pearl Harbor was just about to strike.
“I was going to dinner with my mother and father. In Brooklyn there was no television, we heard it on the radio. It was a Sunday afternoon. Pearl Harbor had been bombed and destroyed by Japan, and President Roosevelt had congresses permission to declare war on Japan.” At the time Mr. Kleinman was a little over seventeen and decided he would volunteer for the service and fight for his country. Robert and his friends joined the military trying to be dog fighters(fighter pilots). They signed up on October of 1942 thinking that they were just in a big game. Since they did not have a college degree, they had to go through the College Training Program. Soon after he took basic training in the winter, he went to Saint Vincent’s College in Pennsylvania, where he stayed for two months. After passing classification to go to aviation training in July of 1943, Mr. Kleinman spent 2 and 1/2 months in four different schools; starting with Pre-Flight Training, then going to PrimaryFlightSchool, BasicFlyingSchool and thenAdvancedFlyingSchool in Georgia. Upon graduation, he was a second Lieutenant trained to be a single engine fighter pilot. It took just few flight missions before he realized that war is extremely dangerous and that he was not just playing a game, it was a life or death situation. Mr. Kleinman served under the command of Commander Zemke, and his squad Commander Duffie in the 479th fighter group in the 436th fighter squadron located in England. He had a total of three hundred combat hours and sixty-one missions(one called on him to fly for the first Marine Division in Korea).
After his tour in Europe stopped in April of 1945, Robert returned to the United States. He went to radar officer school and received his Aero Engineer Degree when orders came to travel to Japan with his family and daughter. Then he received a telegram to cancel all orders and immediately head to the west coast for embarkation to Japan. He arrived at Japan in July of 1950 and the Korean War had started on the 25th of June 1950.
He got stationed at Initisukie in Japan and was the flight commander and radar engineer.
Robert had stopped going on fighter missions, and had switched over to combat cargo flights instead.
Robert Kleinman had no real regrets about his duty that he did during the wars in which he was involved. He felt that there were reasons for why America did what they did in each war and he stands by them. In World War II, the United States and allies were trying to defeat the axis power in a world war. In the Korean War, the United States was part of the United Nations force and was there to keep North Korea from invading South Koreato stop infiltration. “What I was doing was paramount to providing a place for young people, making the world safe for democracy.” Robert Kleinman retired thirty-seven years after swearing into the military as a Full Eagle Cornel and now works for NASA in aiding in satellite technology and engineering.