Michigan Honors: Flint woman, 91, recalls time as fighter plane mechanic during World War II

FLINT, MI — Jewell Frances Chandler had never driven a car before she learned to fix the airplanes that would help win World War II.

Now 91 and living in Flint, she grew up on a farm in Missouri. She grew up to be a teacher in a one-room school house. It was a different world then, one where, if she got sick, there was no such thing as substitute teaching. School was just canceled.

In 1943, her mother walked to town and signed her up for the Navy. It was something she wanted. When school was out for summer, she left her life on the farm and went to New York for boot camp.

It was there her life as a fighter plane mechanic would begin, even if it wasn't something she expected — and something that would turn out to shape the rest of her life.

"They gave you tests, and I guess I could answer questions on that subject pretty well, even though I only knew how to drive a wagon," she said with a laugh, sitting in her Flint home.

The Flint Journal and MLive.com are profiling Chandler as part of the Michigan Honors project that seeks to document, and tell some of the stories, of the living World War II veterans in Michigan.

From boot camp, Chandler went to the Chicago naval base, where she went to school to be a mechanic.

"I was the only girl in the whole class," she said.

Being the only woman meant that sometimes she'd get unasked-for comments from some of the boys, but it didn't last very long.

One man put a stop to it. His weapon was a book.

"He would turn around and hit them," she said. "He became my husband."

After school, Robert Chandler went off to be a sailor, and Jewell headed to Pasco, Wash., where she lived her life as a mechanic.

Again, she was the only girl.

Sometimes, that made it tough. The women's barracks were farther away from her work area than the men's.

"I was always tardy for roll call," she said. "Every morning, I was in trouble."

Marilla Cushman, spokeswoman for the Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation, said she's "confident" Chandler wasn't the only woman mechanic serving, even if she was the only one at her particular location.

Women serving in the war were very common, she said.

"Some 400,000 served during World War II, and they did everything. They were mechanics, they were air traffic controllers, they were code breakers, they were nurses, they were clerks. You name it, they did it," she said.

As for Chandler, she was working alongside the men.

Once she was there, she did her job, which mostly entailed fixing or replacing propellers on F4U Corsair fighter planes. Looking at old pictures, she pointed out their distinctive feature.

"See the indentation on the wings?" she said.

When she wasn't fixing airplanes, she was writing letters to Robert Candler and waiting for the times he might come into port so they could see each other.

After the war, they were married. He was a career Navy man and put in his 20 years. They adopted three daughters. When his time was done in the Navy, they moved to Chandler's hometown of Flint.

They had children and grandchildren, the evidence of them everywhere in her home — photographs sit on several surfaces. You might not guess she was a veteran, and maybe that's because to her, it's not that big a deal, even if she was "the only girl" doing the same job as the boys.

"It was just my duty," she said.

Story and Photo Gallery:  http://www.mlive.com

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