John Bierie
Age: 88
Born: Oct. 19, 1922
Hometown: Dubuque, Iowa
Residence: Indian Wells
Military branch: U.S. Navy; Naval aviator; Composite Squadron VC-9; carrier assignments included the USS Solomons; USS Admiralty Islands, and USS Natoma Bay
Years served: 1942-1945
Rank: Lieutenant JG (Junior Grade); Bierie was awarded four Air Medals, a Distinguished Flying Cross, and a Presidential Unit Citation.
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Naval aviator John Bierie flew Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers in the South Atlantic and the Pacific during World War II.
After earning his wings in November of 1943 in Pensacola, Fla., Bierie was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in North Chicago, where he made qualifying landings on the USS Wolverine — an old steamship converted into a freshwater aircraft carrier.
It was an odd sight landing on a ship in Lake Michigan — with a big city skyline in the background.
“You'd be making the landings, and here's Chicago,” Bierie said, laughing.
Bierie was sent to Norfolk, Va., where he was assigned to the VC-9 squadron — a veteran group of fighters and torpedo bombers credited with sinking nine German submarines and damaging or possibly sinking at least eight others.
When Bierie joined the squadron on the escort carrier USS Solomons, it was chasing down a German sub, the U-860, in the South Atlantic.
“We spent a long time going after it,” Bierie said.
They found it one day when it surfaced off the coast of Brazil. The sub shot down one of the planes, but the squadron prevailed, sinking the sub and taking aboard 21 prisoners — one later died from his injuries.
After wrapping up its duties in the South Atlantic, the squadron was eventually assigned to the Pacific, where it provided close air support for troops on the ground.
They traveled from Hawaii to Ulithi — the staging area for the invasion of Okinawa — aboard the USS Admiralty Islands, then transferred to the escort carrier USS Natoma Bay.
The squadron sailed to Okinawa on March 21, 1945, and made pre-invasion strikes on various targets, including enemy airfields and equipment.
Once the invasion began on April 1, “We operated very close in front of the moving Army and Marines fighting on the ground,” he said.
The Avenger carried a three-man crew — pilot, radio operator and tail gunner — and tons of weaponry, including rockets, depth charges, 500-pound bombs, and .50-caliber machine guns tucked under the wings.
Bierie made 90 carrier landings and racked up close to 1,000 hours of flight time.
A mechanical catapult helped launch the aircraft.
The plane was held in place by a yoke in the front and a ring in the back, he explained.
The pilot would run the 2,000 horsepower engine at full power — the aircraft rumbling and rattling in place — until it was released and launched across a 100-foot deck.
“It went from zero to 90 knots in 100 feet,” he said.
Landing on the carrier deck at night was a challenge.
There were no lights on the carrier except three little lights at the edge of the deck — and glow lights on the runway that were raised.
A signal officer stood on the corner of the deck guiding the pilot with two lighted wands waving in the pitch black skies.
“It was horrible,” he said.
Bierie flew F4F and F6F fighters and worked as a flight instructor in the waning days of his military career.
On the ground, the former pilot still sits at the controls of a powerful machine — a white, 2010 Grand Sport Corvette — a gift for his 88th birthday.
Staff writer Denise Goolsby profiles desert veterans from World War II on Sundays.
Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
