Hell’s Angels? This veteran’s the real thing
Charles Schmeltzer is a Hell’s Angel, but not like you think.
The 85-year-old north Spokane man has never straddled a Harley – or any other motorcycle for that matter. The closest Schmeltzer comes to embracing the biker lifestyle is when he putt-putts to the store on his electric scooter, a bicycle helmet affixed to his head for safety and legal compliance.
“Top speed is 5 miles an hour,” says Schmeltzer, cracking a grin. “But that’s with the battery really charged up.”
When Schmeltzer says he’s a Hell’s Angel he’s talking about real warriors and fighting that would make most motorcycle misfits run screaming for their mommas.
Schmeltzer is a former flyboy who served with the 303rd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force during World War II.
The Group adopted the Hell’s Angels moniker in early 1944 to pay tribute to its most celebrated Flying Fortress. The first 8th Air Force B-17 to complete 25 combat missions had carried the Hell’s Angels nickname.
There is no connection to that infamous motorcycle club, which was formed in 1948.
I gave Schmeltzer a call after one of his friends tipped me off to this original Hell’s Angel living in Spokane. He invited me to his home, and the timing couldn’t have been better.
Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, that grand and glorious end of World War II.
But here’s something else that will happen Sunday: Another 1,100 veterans are statistically expected to die, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
With each passing day, the aged World War II generation withers before our eyes.
Schmeltzer, for example, suffers from prostate cancer and diabetes. He must be tethered to an oxygen tank wherever he goes.
The sacrifices of the veterans who remain should be honored and remembered while there is still time.
Schmeltzer was a waist gunner in B-17 heavy bombers. He flew his first combat mission June 29, 1943 – the day after his 23rd birthday.
That run took him into France from an airfield in England where the 303rd was based. His bombing run baptism was a piece of cake – except for the crash landing.
The trouble was caused by a rough takeoff, he says, which broke one of the bomber’s main landing gear struts.
No time to worry about that. The crew went out, dropped their payload and headed back for England.
The white-knuckle moment came during touchdown when the rest of the landing gear collapsed. The impact was tooth-rattling, says Schmeltzer, but nobody was hurt.
That’s one of the mysteries Schmeltzer ponders even today. Why did he survive when so many did not?
Schmeltzer flew 24 more missions. Death lurked with every anti-aircraft burst. His airplanes took hits often. Yet the closest to dying any of Schmeltzer’s crewmates ever came was when a piece of flak nicked the radio operator between the webbing of two of his fingers.
Others weren’t so lucky. Schmeltzer recalls seeing airplanes “just go plummeting down, twisting and turning and burning.”
As a waist gunner, Schmeltzer’s job was to fire a .50-caliber machine gun through an open window in the airplane.
There were plenty of opportunities. The B-17 missions were routinely harassed by German fighters. But though Schmeltzer burned up a lot of ammo, “I don’t ever know if I ever came close,” he says.
Schmeltzer flew his 25th and final combat mission March 19, 1944. Back in the United States, he followed the trend of the returning serviceman.
He got married, found work and began raising a family. His wife, Irvine, died in 1999. They were married almost 55 years.
Although Schmeltzer has attended a number of 303rd reunions, he says he doesn’t dwell on his wartime experiences for his own sake.
A pragmatic guy, Schmeltzer says he mainly wants his children to know what he did.
“I wasn’t particularly scared,” says the old Hell’s Angel. “Had I realized the peril I was in, I probably would have been scared.”
He pauses a moment to add: “When it’s all over, you wonder why your number didn’t come up.”