JOHN IRWIN
Age: 92
Born: Aug. 11, 1918
Hometown: Visalia
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Marine Corps
Years served: Jan. 5, 1938-July 1, 1963
Rank: Highest rank attained during World War II: first lieutenant; retired as a major on July 1, 1963.
Family: Wife Dorothee; four children, Marie Irwin and Jim Irwin, both of Palm Springs, Joyce Glenn of Parkin, Ark. and Christine Lancaster of Cathedral City; four grandchildren; one great-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 tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Herb Luis of Palm Desert.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii
More
After U.S. Marine Corps veteran John Irwin graduated from high school in 1936, he found work at the North American Aviation factory at Los Angeles Airport — now Los Angeles International Airport.
The manufacturing company later turned out famous World War II aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang fighters and B-25 Mitchell bombers.
After a couple of years at the factory, a buddy joined the Marine Corps and encouraged Irwin to do the same.
So Irwin joined, but his military career took a different route than his buddy's.
“My friend joined the Marine Corps reserves — but I didn't know it was the reserves,” Irwin said.
Irwin enlisted on Jan. 5, 1938, nearly two years before Hitler invaded Poland, setting the stage for World War II.
Irwin, who attended boot camp in San Diego, had his sights set on getting into Marine aviation, but for the next two years, he was assigned to a Marine detachment aboard the heavy cruiser USS Portland.
Irwin had various duties aboard the ship, which engaged in peacetime training in the Pacific.
One of his jobs was to stand guard duty, which he referred to as “fantail watch.”
He walked the fantail (an overhang at the back of the ship), “To spot anybody falling overboard. It's happened. If you lean over and the ship rolls mainly if somebody fell overboard I was supposed to sound the alarm,” he said.
He later became the captain's orderly.
“That was pretty nice,” he said. “Up on the bridge, I got to see everything. It was pretty good duty.”
In March of 1940, Irwin was assigned to a base air detachment on North Island in San Diego. By December, he was working as an aircraft mechanic.
In January of 1941, he was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, located near Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, where he received three promotions — from corporal to sergeant to staff sergeant — and became plane captain for an aviation squadron.
Irwin arrived home on leave the night of Dec. 6, 1941. His sea bag was still at the front door when he heard the news the next morning that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
He picked up his sea bag and immediately returned to duty.
Returning to North Island, Irwin was assigned to VMO-251, a fixed-wing Marine observation squadron, comprised by F-3Fs — “old and slow biplanes,” Irwin said.
Later converting to F-4F aircraft, Irwin — who worked as an aircraft mechanic, line chief and leading chief with the squadron — participated in landing operations in New Caledonia, Espirito Santo and Guadalcanal.
The F-4Fs Wildcats — loaded with cameras — took photos and provided advanced intelligence for invasion operations.
Near the end of the war, the observation group was converted to a fighter squadron.
In July of 1943, Irwin, now a master sergeant, left the Pacific theater of operations and was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Mojave.
“They rotated out to reconstitute the squadrons,” he said. “They lost a lot of planes and pilots.”
In the Mojave desert, Irwin was promoted to the temporary rank of second lieutenant, and became maintenance officer of the VMO-251 squadron.
“I was pretty fortunate — being at the right place at the right time,” he said of his promotion.
In November of 1943, the squadron was sent to Camp Pendleton, where Irwin met his future wife, Dorothee, also a Marine, who was working at the base as a mess sergeant.
The couple said their vows on Jan. 28, 1944.
“Three weeks after I was married, I was back overseas,” Irwin said.
First stop — back to Espirito Santo.
The observation squadrons' aircraft had been upgraded to the supposedly-higher-performing F-4U Corsair aircraft.
“They were lousy then,” Irwin said.
“We took over an older squadron out there ahead of us,” he said. “The first one took off and climbed for altitude and the engine quit.”
When the plane returned to the field, “We tore things apart trying to find out what made that happen,” he said.
After pulling the carburetor off, “We found all this gray casing of the engine was corroding.”The corrosion collected, plugging up a hole that shouldn't have been plugged up, he said.“That's how we lost several airplanes,” he said. “The engines would be starved of fuel.”
After tinkering around with the engines, Irwin was finally able to diagnose and fix the problem.
“We took the carburetors and turned them upside down,” he said.
“We had Grumman Duck, an amphibious plane that could make land and sea landings,” he said, recounting one of his favorite stories.
The aircraft would be used to pick up parts that were needed by the squadron and bring them back to the airfield.
One day, the Duck picked up a load of vanilla ice cream.
“They flew out to a carrier, they were hoisted aboard and they came back with 5-gallon cardboard container of ice cream,” Irwin said.
The tub of ice cream slipped as it was being unloaded from the plane, hit the ground, and broke open.
“Here was a pile of ice cream,” he said, laughing. “We weren't about to lose that.”
Knowing they wouldn't have time to run around looking for spoons, “We started eating it with one hand at a time. After eating it off of one hand, we'd stick that hand under our armpit to warm it up,” then scoop another helping with the other hand.
Irwin continued serving — in the reserves and active reserves — until his retirement in July 1963.
“I've never regretted it,” he said. “I've enjoyed my service time. It was always something different.”
