George Schofield
Army Air Corps Aerial Navigator
Air Medal
Wilmington Warriors President
Air Mobility Command Museum Guide
George Schofield served in the Army Air Corps (March '42-December '46) as an aerial navigator
with the Air Transport Command. He flew with the 6th, 20th and finally the 2nd Ferrying Group,
navigating B-24s, B-25s, C-47s to the Pacific, and c- 46s, c-54s, B-26s, A-26s and A-20s across
Souih America to England or continued eastward to India. At New Castie, George was the check
navigator, certifying new navigators for service, flying the new Crescent air route and, later, C-54s out of Labrador to the west coast of Greenland above the Arctic Circle. The 2nd Ferrying Command
carried every type of cargo. One journey entailed two hops a day for 6 days for a total of 85 flight
hours. This journey on a C-87 (converted B-24 without armaments), brought replacement B-29 baffles on to Kharagpur, lndia, to address the problem of B-29 engine fires. George also recalls trips to return wounded to New Castle where they were met with the sobering sight of ambulances lining the field.
George was awarded the Air Medal after 2039 flight hours, including 800+ international ferrying hours, and at least 160,OOO miles, where he was using, by today's standards, primitive navigation systems on often war-weary aircraft, in unpredictable, hazardous weather.
When stationed at NewCastle,DE,in 1945,George met and married Elizabeth Craven. Post-war,
George continued in the Air Force Reserves, rising to the rank of Lt. Col. After retiring as a Captain
from the NYC Fire department, George, with Elizabeth, resettled in Dover, Delaware.
A Wilmington Warriors member for twenty years and also president ('98 - '00), George wrote personal accounts of memorable flights for the revised The History of the 2nd Ferrying Group (1993) by Onas P. Matz. George initiated the distribution of the History to the Delaware Historical Society, the Air Mobility Command Museum, and libraries.
As president, George managed the group's final four-day reunion. One hundred fifty attendees,
including several WASPs, gathered for a final dinner in the Air Mobility Command. George has also
volunteered hours of storytelling for WWll history videos:
Delaware - Voices of WWII, an oral history project sponsored by the Commission of
Veterans Affairs and Lt. Gov. Carney.
Flying for Freedom, - Women Air Force Service Pilots. Wright-Patterson Air Museum
video on the career of Margaret Ann Hamilton Tunner. The contributions of WASPs are
detailed and George Schofield voiced support for better treatment for WASPs who had been abruptly severed from the Army Air Corps after the war.
Steven Sidebotham, of the University of Delaware's History Department, recorded five hours of
George's experiences to be used in university classes. George has served and continues to serve as a guide, primarily during Open Cockpit Days, at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover AFB. He guides visitors'of all ages through some of the same aircraft he had navigated almost eighty years earlier.
