Shoe Clerks

RALPH CLARK WAS A GRUMMAN “tech rep,” a field service representative who worked with Navy squadrons who were, in effect, his clients. The young New Yorker had signed on with the expanding Grumman firm in 1941 and stayed more than forty years. During four of those years he kept Hellcats and Avengers flying, and learned firsthand of America’s war-winning secret.

Shoe clerks.

Clark believed fervently in what he called “the shoe-clerk approach to aviation.” He said, “We had shoe clerks building airplanes, we had shoe clerks repairing airplanes, and we even had shoe clerks flying airplanes. That’s not taking away anything from shoe clerks, but 90 percent of the people involved in aviation had never touched an airplane before the war.”

The massive changeover to wartime production and training was unlike anything previously seen. Men and women with no mechanical experience became expert riveters and welders. Farm boys and city slickers were turned into aircraft mechanics who could troubleshoot problems and repair them quickly.

Pilots had to be trained in production-line numbers while retaining the touch of the artisan. The aviator curriculum was force-fed with a fire hose: theory of flight, navigation, communications (including the dreaded and seldom-used Morse code), meteorology, instrument flying, formation, aerobatics, gunnery, and much more. To say nothing of the esoteric, dangerous routine of carrier landings.