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World War II veteran Max Ganstwig / Denise Goolsby, The Desert Sun
MAX GANSTWIG
Age: 87
Born: June 18, 1923
Hometown: Boyle Heights
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 7th Air Force; 11th Bomb Group; 431st Bomb Squadron
Years served: February 1943- May 1946
Rank: First lieutenant
Family: Wife Shirley; two children, Karren Ganstwig of Toluca Lake and Richard Ganstwig of Santa Clarita; one grandchild.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming Wednesday
U.S. Army Air Corps veteran Lee Yoss of Palm Desert.
LEARN MORE
Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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U.S. Army Air Corps B-24 bomber pilot Max Ganstwig flew 15 combat missions over the central and western Pacific islands during World War II.
Based in Okinawa, Japan, at the time, Ganstwig's most memorable mission was one he flew over the Japanese homeland the first week of August 1945.
“I was bombing Nagasaki when they dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima,” Ganstwig said.
“I saw the flash,” he said. “We didn't know what it was.
“When we were bombing Nagasaki, we got hit by enemy fighter pilots,” he added.
His plane returned to the airfield sporting numerous bullet holes, but landed safely.
“I was too young to be scared,” he said, laughing.
Nevertheless, as a pilot, the safety of Ganstwig's crew was always on his mind.
“I worried about my men when I was flying,” he said.
Ganstwig, flying with the 431st Bomb Squadron, a component of the 11th (Heavy) Bombardment Group, 7th Air Force, flew his first missions from Kwajalein, a small atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The squadron moved from Kwajalein to Guam on Oct. 25, 1944, and from there, attacked shipping and airfields in the Volcano and Bonin Islands.
Nearly all of his missions were flown on the same B-24 bomber — the men dubbed the aircraft “Moonlight Maid,” with the requisite shapely young woman painted on the nose of the aircraft.
On July 2, 1945, the group was moved to Okinawa to participate in the final phases of the air offensive against Japan, bombing railways, airfields and harbor facilities on Kyushu and striking Japanese-held airfields in China.
With the move to Okinawa, the 7th Air Force joined the Far East Air Force as hundreds of planes were concentrated for a massive attack.
In early August 1945, according to military records, more than 330 B-24s, B-25s, A-26s, P-47s, and P-51s pounded Tarumizu, the industrial area on Kyushu and many targets of opportunity on Kyushu and in the Ryukyu Islands.
Ganstwig took plenty of pictures during his time overseas.
And, in Okinawa, he and his men built a darkroom so they could develop their film on the spot.
Later, a typhoon hit the island and destroyed the photo lab.
After the war, Ganstwig had a famous movie star aboard one of his flights.
“I flew Tyrone Power from Okinawa to Manila,” he said.
Ganstwig, who graduated from Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, was dating his future wife while he was going through pilot training with the Army Air Corps.
While training at Muroc Air Base — now Edwards Air Force Base, in Antelope Valley, Shirley would come to visit her favorite airman.
But coed sleepovers were not permitted.
“Wives and girlfriends came and slept in the parachute-rigging room,” she said, laughing.
Ganstwig received his pilot wings at Douglas Army Air Field in Arizona in April 1944.
“I wanted him to be an instructor so we could get married,” said Shirley Ganstwig, his wife of nearly 65 years. “When he got his wings, I got my wings instead of an engagement ring.”
The couple was married on Dec. 1, 1945.
When Ganstwig finally returned, for good, from overseas duty, she noticed his coloring had changed.
“They ate so many Atabrine tablets (an anti-malaria drug) he came back yellow,” she said.
Atabrine is a yellow dye, and its continued use usually causes a yellow discoloring of the skin, according to medical reports.
There are no harmful effects and the discoloration soon disappears when the drug is discontinued.
Ganstwig made use of the GI Bill when he returned home, earning a degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1950.
He worked for companies including Sperry Gyroscope, Packard Bell and TRW, and was director of Engineering at BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), in San Francisco.
While Ganstwig was at TRW, he worked on projects for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
“I worked on Apollo 13 for three years,” he said.
Apollo 13, launched on April 11, 1970, was intended to land on the Moon.
When Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, uttered the now-famous, “Houston, we have a problem” - after an oxygen tank ruptured, damaging the spacecraft's electrical system - Ganstwig, who worked on the spacecraft's Abort Guidance System, joined a team of engineers in the successful effort to return the three-man crew safely to Earth.
As a member of TRW Systems Group, Ganstwig worked on Pioneer 10 — the first spacecraft to travel through Jupiter's asteroid belt, on July 15, 1972, and make direct observations of the planet, which it passed by on Dec. 3, 1973, according to NASA reports.
