For Dearborn resident, Harold Searcy, being born in 1923 and living in the year 2023 is a little confusing and weird. But the 100-year-old World War II veteran is still sharp as a tack, agile, grateful for his last century and happy to begin the next.
Friends and family filled the Dearborn Christian Church recently to celebrate his 100th birthday.
Born in Weston, he has been in Dearborn since 1957. He spent four years in the Navy on active duty during WWII. He also served in the Naval Reserve out of the Naval Air Station at Olathe, Kan. as a ‘Weekend Warrior’ and retired from the Navy.
“I went on active duty in 1943 as an aviation cadet,” Searcy said. “At that time most of the cadets only had a high school education. Out of the battalion of 300 people, I think we only had one guy who was a junior college graduate. Most of us were fresh out of high school.”
He then went into the aviation program and was commissioned an ensign in 1944, in the Naval Reserve. I’d never flown before that time,” Searcy said. I read articles on aviation, and I remember it was a new experience for me. Some of the officers there that interviewed me asked me how I knew that I would like it, and I said, ‘well, I don’t really know, but I built airplane models and I think it would be an exciting career.”
After training, he flew F6F Hellcats, then flew about 400 flight hours in the F4U Corsair, along with about 20 aircraft carrier landings. Squadrons consisting of the dive-bomber unit, the torpedo unit, the fighter bomber unit and fighter unit converted over to flying the Corsair in the run-up to the planned invasion of Japan.
“When we went aboard the USS Intrepid Aircraft Carrier we had about 85 Corsairs and it made it easier,” Searcy said. “Now they had one airplane instead of four to buy spare parts for, so now all I had to do was maintain one aircraft and if they damaged one, they could take out the parts and push it over the deck into the ocean and have spare parts for the next airplane.”
“We were scheduled for the invasion of Japan in 1945, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” Searcy said. “President Truman was criticized for this, but I never did. Dropping atomic weapons kills a lot of people, but if we had invaded, more would have died. Japan would have continued to fight since that was their homeland. Women and kids would have been in the battle fighting for their country, and many more American military members would have been killed.”
While learning to land a plane on an aircraft carrier was difficult, Searcy had mastered it when he finished flying school at Corpus Christi, Texas.
“They sent us to the Naval Air Station at Cecil Field in Florida, and it was a dive bomber squadron and we flew the SBD Douglas dive bomber,” Searcy said. “During the war a lot of people don’t know this, but about 80 to 85% of the pilots trained on aircraft carriers were qualified on Lake Michigan. They had 22 steamships up there that they converted to aircraft carriers, including the USS Wolverine and USS Sable, and so that’s where we initially came in with our practice, but before all this we had a lot of field carrier practice landings which is simulated on aircraft carrier decks, so it wasn’t just that we climbed into the cockpit and went out and landed on the aircraft carrier. It didn’t happen that way, we had a lot of field carrier landing practice before we got to that stage.”
The SBD was instrumental at the Battle of Midway in the sinking of three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers that were used in the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
After qualifying on the SBD, Searcy was placed in a fighter squadron, so he no longer flew a dive bomber. Dive bombing had been a thrilling experience for him.
“We had targets down there and we had our instructor at Naval Air Station Cecil Field,” Searcy said. “We climbed the SBD to I think probably about 10,000 feet and from there we dove on this little target below. SBD had a rear gunner and one day we went out there and it had what they call the a Fowler Flap on the aircraft, which had holes in the flaps to make it more air dynamically stable in a dive, and I looked down and they were starting to open and I concentrated on the target and we were supposed to really pull out about 3,000 feet and I came screaming across the pine trees in Florida at about 200 feet and I was pulling back on the stick, but what had happened, the flaps had not opened completely, so the air speed built up on the aircraft and it was harder to pull it out of the dive. But we made it and the instructor said, ‘you just joined the Green Weenie fun, so that’s going to cost you a dollar.’ I said, ‘well it could have been worse because I had both hands on the wheel pulling it out of a dive, and I didn’t recognize that the speed was building up too fast on a dive like that to pull out at that altitude.’ That was kind of a close call but I learned from that experience.”
After the war Searcy graduated from William Jewell College in 1950, thanks to the GI Bill. “The GI Bill was one of the greatest bills that the government invested money in and one of the greatest ones they could have at that time,” Searcy said. “The GI Bill was the best investment I think maybe has ever made because they gave all of us guys an opportunity to be educated, to be something beside a homeless person and also the other deal that was great was the one that rebuilt Europe under the Marshall Plan. That was great for those people you know. I got a letter from a German man recently thanking me for his freedom. I’m sure he made reference to when Berlin was divided and the Berlin Wall was erected and we flew in supplies with the Berlin airlift,” Searcy said.
He majored in history and political science. He wanted to be a teacher, but decided he wouldn’t make much money teaching at that time. He then worked at the TWA Overhaul Base as a member of management and production for 30 years. He was involved in keeping track of the aircraft and handling the paperwork with the engineers to manage airworthiness directives which are regulations issued by the government.
“It was a safety deal, so we kept track of the aircraft,” Searcy said. “An airplane has to have a base overhaul after so many flight hours.”
He also raised cattle on his 40-acre family farm. He now contracts with local residents who raise soybeans and corn on the land.
Searcy lives by himself, and his daughter and son live close to him. His wife, Beverly, had cancer and passed away in 2001. He had three children. One son passed away at age 70. “I should have been the one departing and he should have been the one staying, but that’s not the way the ball bounces,” Searcy said.
Although he admits he’s a little wobbly at times, he doesn’t use a cane very often. He believes that his cane can help him if needed, but it might also decrease his ability to force himself to keep steady and mobile.
“I’ll probably fall flat on my butt someday, but I’ll still enjoy life,” Searcy said.
Being a commercial pilot was something Searcy considered after the war, but the maximum age for pilots at the time was about 32 years old. He is grateful that it didn’t work out.
“I doubt very seriously that I’d be around today if I’d been flying a commercial airplane because their schedule is not that great, and it used to be that a cross-country flight, when we had to propel a driven aircraft and they’d fly to a place on Friday, the pilot might be there the whole weekend and not be able to fly back until Monday or Tuesday,” Searcy said. It would have involved packing the bags too much, so although it would have been better pay, I don’t think I would have been any happier.”
He still plays golf and is still driving his 2000 Buick sedan, which is a big car and is much appreciated when he goes golfing with friends and family since it has a big trunk and can hold four bags of golf clubs and golf balls.
He has been an active member of Dearborn Christian Church since 1957, and he is still an elder and a trustee of the church. He was also on the school board.
He would have liked to have owned his own plane, but due to the expense of purchasing a plane and the annual inspections being costly, he decided that it was too expensive of a novelty to pursue.
After retirement, Searcy built a Corsair model airplane with a kit that his family had given him with a good friend who had served in the Army. The huge balsa wood plane, which took 200 hours to build, covers his dining room table, reminding him of the excitement he felt piloting the Corsair, and protecting his country in a world war.
“I’ve had a pretty busy life and I’ve had a very pleasant life,” Searcy said. “My family was a blessing to me, Searcy said.
For Searcy his military service memories remain fresh in his mind.
“My dad was in the Naval Reserve also, but he was a firearms instructor and I used to hear dad talk about things that happened in World War I, which was 115 years ago, and I used to say, ‘Dad that’s ancient,’” Searcy said.
And now after 78 years since the end of WWII, he appreciates the importance of telling the stories again and again, and hopefully, learning from history.