Trenton's silent paratroopers, stars of D-Day

A secret corps of paratroopers from New Jersey were instrumental in the Allied victory on D-Day, during World War II. Their story was briefly included in the blockbuster 1962 movie The Longest Day, but no mention was made of their origin.

I discovered this on a visit to the Aviation Hall of Fame in Teterboro, where one of the paratroopers is suspended from the ceiling below a parachute. He’s not human. He’s a rubber decoy.

Developed by the Switlik Parachute Company, 500 para-dummies were attached to parachutes and dropped from airplanes behind enemy lines, intended to distract German troops from the actual dropzones where live paratroopers were landing. If the torrent of descending bogus parachutists wasn’t enough to cause confusion, they were accompanied by special forces personnel who deployed sound recordings of battle noises. The decoys also exploded with the sound of gunfire when they made contact with the ground.

The irony is that the Allies fooled the Germans at their own game. In 1940, the Nazis had tossed straw-filled dummies out of airplanes over the Netherlands, Belgium and Scotland to incite fear in the population. It was the first recorded use of human decoys by an airborne military, setting off a small industry in developing more convincing paradummies.

If you’ve seen The Longest Day, you might remember the highly lifelike (yet smaller) detail of the decoys said to have been used by the Allies. In reality, such detail likely was unnecessary and probably too costly, given the expendability of the dummies. As the war progressed, though, improvements made the decoys’ earthbound fall more convincing to observers from the ground.

Museums in Europe hold a variety of WWII era dummies, including the American-made, British-deployed Ruperts (sack cloth filled with sand or straw), the American prototype Oscar (non-magnetic metal and, ironically, developed with the help of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and the PD Pack (rubber) developed by the Navy at Lakehurst. Though the Switlik dummies appear to have been Ruperts, the Aviation Hall of Fame displays what looks to be a PD Pack.

Switlik is still in business, and has been manufacturing in Trenton for over 90 years. While the company stopped producing parachutes after the Vietnam War, the family-owned business continues to make life preservation products for the aviation and marine markets, including life rafts, life vests, and anti-g and anti-exposure suits.

Aviation history on a short runway: Lincoln Park's Ed Gorski

Hidden New Jersey has taken real or virtual visits to a lot of New Jersey airfields and historical aviation sites like Hadley Field in South Plainfield, Doolittle’s Landing in Boonton, Greenwood Lake and even the old passenger terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport. Through those visits and subsequent research, we’ve learned just how common airfields once were in New Jersey communities, and how many we’ve lost to time and real estate development pressures.

Granted, with the increase in commercial air flight, the skies are a lot more crowded than they were in the heyday of these small airstrips, but some aviation fields are still thriving. Some of the key smaller airports, like Teterboro, Morristown, Princeton and Caldwell/Essex County have evolved to handle corporate jets and the like. They’re an alternative to the major airports, especially for bigwigs who can afford to rent a private jet or own a propeller plane of their own.

Then there are the general aviation fields like Lincoln Park, which have remained largely middle-class in demeanor, with no fancy aircraft or equipment around. Those are the places that really hark back to the days when all a fixed-base operator (FBO) really needed was a wind sock, a level field and someplace to gas up the plane. Standing on the grounds, you can easily imagine that the next plane to land might be piloted by Charles Lindbergh or Wiley Post, returning from a leisurely flight over the Jersey countryside.

Back in the day, one could never know who just might be running the place. She might be an accomplished military pilot like Marjorie Gray, or, in the case of Lincoln Park, Amelia Earhart's mechanic Ed Gorski.

Ed Gorski with Amelia Earhart and mechanic
Bernt Balchen
(photo credit performancedatamanagement.com )

Actually, to simply say that Gorski worked with Earhart is ignoring his much more eventful career, in which he had a hand in the construction or maintenance of several airplanes that would later make history. He was among the first mechanics to work at what would become Teterboro Airport, helping famed aviator Clarence Chamberlin construct surplus World War I airplanes. Later, while working for Atlantic Aircraft Corp., he worked on the plane Commander Byrd flew over the North Pole, and the Fokker Friendship in which Amelia Earhart flew as the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. He was also on the crew that built the first airplane to fly from an aircraft deck in what was envisioned as ship-to-shore airmail.

Gorski reconnected with Earhart in 1932, as she prepared to become the first woman to pilot an airplane across the Atlantic. Working with another mechanic, he reinforced Earhart's Lockheed Vega to withstand the rigors of the extended flight time and added weight of the extra fuel the craft would be required to carry. To test their handiwork, Gorski and the other mechanic logged several consecutive hours of flight time over the Meadowlands, loading the Vega with sandbags to simulate the weight of the fuel it would require for the crossing. When they were ready to return to the airport, they'd drop the sandbags where Giants Stadium now stands, leading a few observers to believe the marsh was being bombed. Gorski also accompanied Earhart to her departure site in Newfoundland to make any last minute adjustments before her historic flight.

Following his stint with Earhart's Vega, Gorski opened an FBO operation at Teterboro with his new wife Julia. Together they made a living during the depths of the Depression, providing flight lessons, running sight-seeing flights to Hackensack and back, selling airplanes and operating an aerial photography business, among other ventures. After the United States entered World War II, they moved the business to Warwick, NY and continued training pilots until Ed joined the Air Corps. Julia kept the business going as Ed flew in the Pacific theater, though wartime shortages eventually forced her to close up shop.

The Gorskis returned to New Jersey after the war, purchasing the Lincoln Park Airport in 1946. He might not have continued to make aviation history, but in many respects, Ed did much more. From all accounts, he and Julia ran a tight operation with little tolerance for cutting corners or bending the rules. In my research, I found fond remembrances from several former employees and people who'd flown in and out of Lincoln Park, recounting the lessons Ed taught them, and how he made them better, more disciplined pilots. Many mentioned his unassuming nature and their own amazement that this down-to-earth man had worked with so many aviation greats.

Both Ed and Julia were named to the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame in the 1970s; Ed as part of the inaugural class which included Lindbergh, Earhart and Chamberlin. While the Gorskis retired in 1979, Lincoln Park Airport continues to attract regular traffic and appears well maintained. Unlike so many of New Jersey's other historic airfields, it seems that Ed Gorski's old field will continue to welcome flyers for quite some time.

Defying gravity and convention: aviator Marjorie Gray

The 1997 Douglass College Alumnae Directory lists Marjorie Gray, class of 1933, as a retired technical editor for Grumman Aerospace Corporation. Nothing in the listing refers to her pioneering achievements as one of America's vanguard of women pilots, except for the designation "LTC." Those three letters stand for "lieutenant colonel," Gray's rank when she retired from the Air Force Reserve in 1972.

Born in New York in 1912, Gray was raised in Cliffside Park. A few years after graduating from the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College of Rutgers University), she flew her first solo flight at Nelson Airport in Franklin Lakes. It was a start of a lifelong love of aviation that saw her gain a commercial license and fly 19 types of military aircraft.

Gray was a social worker and air traffic control trainee when famed aviator Jackie Cochran invited her to join the first class of Womens Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Started in 1942 to relieve the shortage of eligible male pilots not already serving in the military, the WASPs were civilian pilots recruited to transport military aircraft to their points of embarkation during World War II. Participants had to be between the ages of 21 and 35, hold a commercial license and 200-horsepower engine rating, a minimum 500 hours flying time, and cross-country flying experience. Many WASPs had more experience and were more skilled pilots than many of their male counterparts in the Army Air Corps.

Stationed at Newcastle Air Force Base in Delaware, Gray logged over 750 hours flying B-24s, B-25s, B-26s, DC-3s and other aircraft. Though I haven't been able to track down any additional information on her service, it's possible that she served as a flight instructor for the Air Corps, as many of her colleagues were.

Her wartime service alone would be enough to make Gray a notable name in aviation history, but after the WASPs were disbanded in 1944, she continued making aviation history. She returned to New Jersey and became one of the first women in the country to operate a fixed-base operation, or airport services business. Based at Teterboro Airport from 1946 to 1950, Marjorie M. Gray Aero Service offered flying lessons, piloted charter flights and assessed new aviators for licensure as a pilot examiner. No doubt, her customers could rely on her versatility: besides her commercial license, she had earned ratings for seaplane, multiengine and instrument flying.

Gray later joined the Air Force Reserve and worked as a writer and editor for Grumman, Curtis Aviation and Flying Magazine. She was active in the aviation community through leadership positions in the Ninety-Nines, the organization founded by 99 licensed women pilots in 1929 for the mutual support and advancement of aviation. The Womens' International Association of Aeronautics awarded her the Lady Drummond-Hay trophy in 1956 for her many achievements and contributions to the field.

Describing her years in aviation as "the best time in my life," Gray accumulated more than 3000 hours in the skies. She died in 2008, at the age of 95.

I discovered Gray's story at Teterboro's Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey, into which she was inducted in 1992. Hers is one of many fascinating stories of people with a Garden State connection who've made air and space history locally and worldwide. We'll be returning to some more of those people -- and the Hall of Fame's museum exhibits -- in future Hidden New Jersey stories.