Hinkle looks back on World War II service

Thursday, July 29, 2010
As a youngster, Barth Hinkle dresses up in his father's uniform and dreams of one day being a pilot. A vision problem thwarted that dream, but Hinkle went on to serve as an airborne radar specialist.

Special to the Daily Mail

As a child, Barth Hinkle, of Nevada, wanted to be a flyer. His father, Alvin Charles Hinkle, was one of the first U.S. Navy pilots. They were looked up to then as much as astronauts are today. His father was an Ensign with the U.S. Naval Flying Service in World War I. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, he was "nuts about anything to do with aviation."

Barth Hinkle was allowed to "dress up" in his dad's old uniform and knew what he was going to be.

Alvin Charles Hinkle, Barth Hinkle's father, was one of the first U.S. Navy pilots. Above is his World War I-era portrait.

They moved to Joplin about 1940 and he entered a model airplane he had built for a contest at the Joplin Airport. He won "hands down." His power source was 20 strips of rubber that he had wound with an egg beater. "It flew out of sight."

But he got measles when he was in grade school and the disease affected his eyes. When he volunteered for the draft in 1943, He "was ready to go."

He was sent to basic training in the spring and summer in a camp in Alabama and they discovered that his vision would not allow him to be a pilot. "The weather was terrible, but the disappointment was worse."

Hinkle was trained in the use of poison gases. "Even though none were used in World War II, they wanted to be prepared. I got some mustard gas on my arms and got some burns, but nothing major. However, one of the companies went swimming in a water impoundment and someone had dumped a container of mustard gas in it. Two were killed and a lot of them burned. We were certainly more careful after that."

While Hinkle was in basic training, a high explosive mortar was developed that could be used both as a chemical and high explosive. Later, his group was sent to North Africa, but he didn't get to go. Because of this, he didn't feel that he contributed much service to his country.

But the country needed more specialized officers, and he was sent to college at City College in New York City. He was taught pre-engineering for eight months until the program was closed. After New York, he was transferred to U.S. Air Force and picked along with 34 officers and sent to Madison, Wis. There he was trained in a new and "very hush, hush environment." Next he was sent to Chanute Field, Ill., for advanced training, then on to the Air Force Radar Central Training Facility at Poca Raton, Fla., for airborne radar training.

At Poca Raton, his group was assigned to different categories of Air Force Radar.

"We were in a very secured and high security training facility," Hinkle said.

In the winter of 1944, he was sent to Kearney, Neb., where he worked with the B-29 bombers. Most air bases in the Midwest were being used to build, house, and train officers in the use of the B29.

"The B-29 was sent to us to be stripped of all ornaments where they could fly at higher speeds. A 20-mm cannon was placed in the tail of the plane and hooked to radar. This radar was used to scan behind planes, lock in on every fighter plane and aim the guns. After this time, very little was done manually."

During this time, Iwo Jima was taken. "This was very costly in American lives, but it was necessary and important," Hinkle related. "At least 3,000 B29s made emergency landings there."

Hinkle got to fly in some of the B29s, but only to calibrate the radar system.

The next field of training was at Kirtland Air Field near Albuquerque, N.M.

"The base at Santa Fe was off limits to all our military personnel, but we didn't know why. We knew the morning after the atomic bomb was used. It had been tested in our area and brought to our field and loaded. When the president gave the order, it was sent to Japan where a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and later on Nagasaki."

Hinkle said he had mixed emotions about the dropping of the atomic bomb. Tears filled his eyes as he spoke. "It sure ended the war in a hurry -- within a week -- but I thought about all those civilians that were killed and hoped it would never be used again."

The war wound down and they were discharged in order of time and service.

In early 1946, Hinkle was back to Joplin where he graduated with an associate degree from Missouri Southern. He went on to University of Missouri where he enrolled in the school of business. However, next door was the prestigious School of Journalism and he ended up graduating with a degree in journalism in 1949. He worked as an advertising manager at a firm in Kansas City for two years, but left to help his dad who underwent surgery.

Barth Hinkle recalls his World War II service.

After his father regained his health, Hinkle was offered a job in his dad's company. He became an insurance agent over seven counties in the Nevada area in 1951. Hinkle and his wife, Catherine, liked the area and moved to Nevada and have resided in Nevada ever since. They purchased the Vernon County Land and Title Company in 1955 and sold it to David Litton in about 1985.

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