PAUL CHAPAS
Age: 95
Born: Feb. 15, 1915
Hometown: Seattle
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 1st Photo Charting Squadron; 11th Photo Mapping Group; 1st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron; 2nd Photo Mapping Squadron
Years served: February 1942 - February 1946
Rank: Captain
Family: Wife Betty; five children, Allan Chapas of San Diego, Nadean Curtiss/Day of Whidbey, Wash., Gregory Chapas of Santa Clarita, Cassi Chapas-Curtis of Hermosa Beach and Kevin Chapas of Riverside; six grandchildren.
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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer used the power of the press to get Paul Chapas into the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The paper's reporters frequented Chapas' family-owned Greek Restaurant — Richelieu Cafe in Seattle — across from Eagles Auditorium, the headquarters of the Seattle Press Club.
Chapas had been trying to get into the air corps since the war broke out and by January 1942, he was a month away from being too old to qualify.
The reporters launched a campaign to catch the attention of military decision-makers.
“These guys started writing little blurbs in the paper,” encouraging the air corps to enlist Chapas. “Time was growing close,” he said. “I was coming up on 26 years pretty soon.”
On Feb. 15, Chapas' 26th birthday came and went without hearing from the air corps.
“Of course I was very disappointed,” he said.
The reporters stepped up their efforts, admonishing the military for passing up the opportunity to sign Chapas.
Soon after, Chapas was invited to the office of John Boettiger, publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“He said, ‘I want you to come to my home and meet my wife, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger,'” Chapas said.
Chapas went to their home, where he met the daughter of President Franklin Roosevelt.
“I told her my story,” he said. “At least I was in a little better spirits.”
Soon after, “My mom got a radiogram from the War Department that said regardless of my age, I was to be inducted into the air force (corps).”
By October 1942, Chapas had earned his wings and his second lieutenant's bars.
He was assigned to the 1st Photo Group in Douglas, Ariz., where he began flying reconnaissance mapping flights all around the world.
He flew an A-29 twin-engine British plane outfitted with trimetrogon cameras — three cameras mounted at different angles.
“Those cameras took pictures so they overlapped,” he said. “When the film was developed, it made a mosaic of pictures that became a solid map.”
The cameras, timed to go off at certain intervals, snapped pictures from 20,000 feet.
His first flights were over South America, where his crew mapped areas including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Later, Chapas was issued a brand new B-25 Mitchell bomber — minus all of the armament — and flew his crew up to the North Pole for another mapping expedition.
From then on, whatever aircraft he flew would be dubbed “The Mad Greek,” with a picture of a Greek man in a fustanella — a traditional, knee-length kilt-like garment worn mainly by ceremonial Greek military units — painted on the fuselage.
Later, he was handed a “brand spanking new,” B-17 Flying Fortress — also sans weapons — and sent to photograph the topography of places including Algiers and Cairo in North Africa.
“The objective was to take the pictures and get out of there and not make contact with the enemy,” he said.
If the reconnaissance plane needed to take cover, the aircraft had the luxury of being able to maneuver quickly because it wasn't carrying much weight.
“We could outclimb anything or get right on the Mediterranean and just shoot home 10 to 12 feet off the the water,” Chapas said.
Chapas flew more than 1,600 hours, accounting for about 200 missions, in his tour of duty.
Some memorable assignments included ferrying high-ranking officers from mapping headquarters in Washington, D.C. on a 90-day inspection tour over regions including Algeria and Italy.
“To see where the enemy installations were and to see where troops could invade enemy territory,” Chapas said.
On the way overseas from Washington, the officers wanted to stop in Haiti.
“That's because they could get some rum there,” he said. “They got tons of rum.”
Chapas had to make another diversion during the inspection tour, this time to Recife, Brazil.
“Because there was a casino there,” he said, laughing.
Chapas was sent on a mission across the Pacific in the waning days of the war.
For this trip, Chapas received a “nice, new shiny B-29.”
This aircraft provided a whole new flying experience for the veteran pilot.
“As a pilot, I always had the thrill of controlling and maneuvering the airplane,” he said.
With the B-29, “it's like sitting on the front porch flying the house,” he said.
Chapas and his crew were sent to Tinian — an island in the Northern Marianas. From Tinian, Chapas flew reconnaissance missions over Japan — 1,800 miles away.
His longest mission was 18 hours and 5 minutes.
“We'd go in and get the photographs in a designated area and get the hell out of there and head to South Korea. The bombers would bomb the area and we'd go back and photograph what the bombers had done. We did that until Enola (Gay) did its job,” and dropped the atomic bomb.
