When the United States Air Force became a separate service, manpower authorizations, notably those for medical service personnel and civil engineering were non-existent. Thus, medical and engineering personnel for Air Force activities continued to be provided by the Army. Such personnel were categorized as "SCARWAF" (special category Army on duty with the Air Force). I remained in that category until July of 1949 when the manpower authorizations were granted the Air Force and I transferred to the Air Force.. On 28 November 1947, I was "relieved from assignment to the 7011th Area Service Unit, Station Medical Activities, Fort Myer, Virginia and assigned to the U. S. Air Force Group, American Mission for Aid to Turkey and directed to proceed to Headquarters, U. S. Air Force, Room 3-D-117, The Pentagon, Washington, D. C. for temporary duty of approximately sixty days in connection with the activities of the American Mission for Aid to Turkey, pending the issuance of further overseas orders". (Auth: Ltr Orders, Dept of the Army, Office of the Adjutant General, AGPA-O 201-Sanders, Eldon L., (28 Nov 47).

During the period of TDY at the Pentagon, Colonel Ralph Switzer, the Air Force Group Surgeon, and I consulted with representatives of the Turkish Air Force, then in the United States, to determine the needs of Turkish medical activites which could be satisfied through the Aid Program. Five general areas became apparent. Since the Turkish Air Force would be receiving surplus USAF high performance aircraft, there would be a necessity for high altitude training of flight crews, establishment of air crew physical standards, close air crew support by well-trained aviation medical examiners (flight surgeons), establishment of baseline physical condition and construction and equippage of base medical facilities. Initially, the Aid Mission was conceived as a diplomatic mission. Thus, all personnel were engaged in getting the necessary passports, turning in all uniforms (except work uniforms) and obtaining civilian attire prior to departure from the United States.

On 1 March 1948, a party of twelve military personnel, one military dependent and one female civilian employee departed Bolling Air Force Base on a "special missions aircraft" assigned to Major General Earl S. Hoag. Those mission personnel aboard were Major General Earl S. Hoag TUSAFG Commander
Miss Mary Metcalf (Secretary to Genera Hoag
Lt Col Ralph E. Switzer, MC, Group Surgeon
Major Charles W. Hostler, USAF
Major Dolores M. Christy, USAF (WAF)
1st Lt John Adel, USAF
M Sgt William J. Mandros
M Sgt Gustav A. Rathgeber, Jr
M Sgt Eldon L. Sanders
T Sgt William F. Bent
T Sgt James R. Brittin
T Sgt Vincent F. Steele
S Sgt William B. Behnen

General Hoag was accompanied by his wife. Routing took us to Bermuda,(remained overnight, weather) the Azores (remained overnight, weather), to Paris (remained overnight), to Weisbaden (remained overnight), to Erding (Munich), remained four days for conferences with depot personnel regarding the selection of aircraft and maintenance to fly-away condition), to Berlin (remain overnight) to Rome (remain overnight), to Athens (remain two nights, weather) and to Ankara, arriving on the 13th of March 1948.Two mission members had preceded the arrival of this party, one Colonel Edward D. Marshall, Chief of Staff and a M Sgt (whose name I do not recall) who was assigned to the jointly staffed Finance Office. Orders confirming the arrival of these personnel and authorizing the station allowance authorized while on duty in Turkey indicate that the unit carried the designation "37th Air Force Base Unit (TUSAFG)". Whether that official designation had existed all along, I do not know, for all travel orders and assignments to the activity while in the United States had come either from Headquarters, USAF or from the Adjutant General, Department of the Army.

There was a period of waiting in Ankara while consultations were held with the Surgeon General of the Turkish Air Force. This was rather an interesting time. The Surgeon General of the TAF was a very likeable person who spoke not only Turkish, but also French, Spanish and Italian. While we had some instruction in Turkish while in Washington, it was occasionally hard to find the right words. Colonel Switzer, although not fluent in Spanish, could make himself understood through the use of Spanish and Turkish. My Italian was rusty and of a different dialect, but we could get along with a combination of Turkish and Italian. We did not often need an interpreter!! I later found my Italian useful when I had to make myself understood by a hospital electrician who had migrated to Turkey from the island of Rhodes.

For the 48-day journey, Master Sergeant Lichty made the chamber his home, sometimes spending three or four days on a railraod siding awaiting further movement. Arrival at the Eskisehir Air Base was an auspicious event. People from miles around came to see the "monster". Little did we know that the English-made lorries available on the Air Base would not accommodate an American-made fifth-wheel, but after a bit of head-scratching, measurement and re-measurement, a couple of workers appeared with perfect adapter. A building suitable for housing the chamber, making mock-ups of oxygen systems which would be in aircraft and a classroom was located just 50/60 yards from the railroad siding.

After building a temporary roadway to the rear of the building, the end-wall was removed and the chamber carefully moved to its resting place. It was then necessary to run a dedicated power line to provide electric power for the chamber. Since the route of the power line had to cross an approach to one of the runways, the line was place underground which called for a great deal of pick and shovel work by an "army" of soldiers. Four weeks after the chamber arrived at the Eskisehir Air Base it was operational. Not once did we hear "yarin", everything was "chabuk, chabuk". The first high altitude indoctrination of 6 Turkish pilots occurred on 1 July. Training Program Established

In preparation for the establishment of a training program for Turkish military physicians, five military phyicians had been sent to the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Air Force Base in early 1947. They were Major Izzet Oykam (a psychiatrist), Lt Col Salahattin Balaban (an ophthalmologist), Major Nevres Sayman (an otolaryngologist), Captain Cemal Duman (an internist) and Lt Hilmi Dinc (an aviation physiologist). Major Hikmet Oralkan developed the dental training segment of the program. Initially, six Turkish military physicians were selected to undergo the training program developed by Lt Colonel Ralph Switzer, in consultation with the five Turkish physicians who would conduct the training.

This training was carried out at Turkish Air Force Hospital, located in Eskisehir, with the exception of the Aviation Physiology increment, which was conducted at the location of the Altitude Training Facility on the Eskisehir Air Base. The training was conducted four days per week, six hours per day, and included not only a thorough review of aviation medical literature, but also a concerted practicum in the fields of psychiatry, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, diagnostic medicine, aviation physiology and limited dental practice. The first six Turkish physicians completed the training in approximately eight months and returned to their TAF units to initiate the new Physical Standards Program, which had been approved by the TAF Headquarters on a test basis. These standards were a translation of the U. S. Air Force standards which had been developed during WWII and replaced standards which had been adapted from the German standards of 1933. Some opposition to the enforcement of the standards developed. It was the intent to authorize an aviation medical examiner (flight surgeon) to temporarily ground any flyer who might endanger his life, the lives of others, or cause the loss of aircraft, if he continued to fly with a disqualifying medical condition. This opposition came from some of the older officers who feared the loss of income if taken from flying status. The matter was overcome by offering a sort "grandfathering" into continued flight pay if found physically disqualified to fly.

It had been the habit of Turkish physicians and dentists to practice without the aid of technician assistants. In the establishment of the Aviation Physiology program, and with it, the high-altitude chamber operation, there was an immediate necessity to have persons trained to operate the chamber. Technician observers were necessary both inside the chamber and at the operating controls outside of the chamber in the event that it became necessary to remove a trainee from the chamber. Eight trainees were entered into this program under the watchful eye of Lt Hilmi Dinc, M Sgt Harold Lichty and myself. Fortunately, these trainees were highly motivated and were capable of working in all aspects of the program within a period of approximately three weeks. The experience with the chamber technicians caused the physicians and dentists in the TAF Hospital to emulate the effort and to train their own assistants. Since there were no training manuals available, a translator was employed and training manuals of the Department of the Army were used for producing training references in the fields of medical/surgical technician, dental chair assistants and, to some extent, clinical laboratory procedures.

Living on the Turkish economy in some of the Turkish villages, such as, living in Eskisehir, was considerably different than anything most Americans had experienced in their lifetime. By the standards to which we had been accustomed, living was primitive. Food was of great concern because most Americans had not developed a taste for mutton. However, with the aid of Dr. Dinc and Ali Sevrioglu, our translator, we were able to help plan the menus that would be served by the Yeni Gun Lokanta. As a result, most Americans took their subsistence from that restaurant and all faired rather well. A rather interesting side story.....one of our Mission members who was concerned about gastronomics decided that he would subsist on eggs only when in Eskisehir. He could not have chosen a food item more likely to cause a problem as the eggs were "yard eggs" (that is, they were laid on the ground rather than in nice clean nests) and would have been most susceptible to salmonella. Informed of this, he decided that the Mission was not to his liking and he was transferred to Germany.

Most of us had families in Ankara while our duty stations were in Eskisehir, Kutahya, Bursa, Diyarbakir, Izmir, Balikesir and Merzifon, to name a few. It was the practice when weather would permit to send a "gooney bird" out to these stations on Friday and bring all personnel back into Ankara. Then on Sunday at noon the"bird" would leave Etimesgut (near Ankara) and return personnel to the duty station. In inclement weather, those who had railroad service available would "ride the rails" to Ankara. From Eskisehir, one would board the train at eleven o'clock PM and arrive in Ankara the next morning at about eight o'clock. There always seemed to be a lot of passengers out of Eskisehir and, in the winter, there was always quite a gathering around the source of heat in the railraod station. Some developed quite a taste for "salep", a sort of custard drink, which was quite palatable. Boarding the train in Ankara on Sunday afternoon, we would make the journey back to Eskisehir to arrive at about 2 o'clock on Monday morning. Eskisehir had no automotive taxi service. All taxi service was provided by horse-drawn carriages similar to our old "storm buggies". The cobblestone streets and snow and ice was not conducive to good traction for horses and occasionally a horse would fall and the driver and passengers were obliged to get the animal back on its feet.

Sometimes it made for a long day after struggling for a couple of hours to get an animal on its feet to stay. While in Eskisehir, several of us lived in the Dogan Palas Hoteli. It was a very small hotel with a salon on the first floor and six rooms on the second floor. There was no central heating system....a charcoal burner on each floor prodided the only heat. Often during the winter we would go to the Turkish bath just across the street and spend the major portion of the evening getting a good hot steam bath, rub and hot tea. We would then go back to the hotel, perhaps play some backgammon, drink more good hot tea and eventually find our way to our rooms and dive into as many covers as we could pile on. Sometimes, the old brown woolen over coat of the Army made the final body warmer. The owner of the hotel was an astute businessman. Among other business, he had a brick manufacturing operation. On those weekends when I could not get back to Ankara, I often went to the brick factory and observed the manufacturing process. This operation was not new to me for my grandfather had such an operation in Illinois when I was a child.

Both M Sgt Lichty and I had grown up on small farms. The area around Eskisehir was one where lots of sugar beets were grown. Those farmers who had property on the creeks and rivers irrigated with water that they dipped buckets and poured into trenches for distribution to the crop. We built a water-wheel which was mounted to two bicycle frames, sprockets and chains attached to move the water from the river to the trenches. Two bicyclists could move enough water to irrigate the fields in about one third the time that the dipping operation took. We also showed the farmers how they could make syphons to move the water from the trenches to the crop, but aluminum tubing was not readily available for that type of operation, so the practice of just opening up the main trench at various points was continued.

Entertainment was rather lacking. The movie theaters in Eskisehir were showing American movies with the English sound-track with Turkish subtitles. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Laurel and Hardy were the standard fare. Many of the persons with whom I had contact and who spoke English had learned to speak the English that they learned in school by going to the movies. It was interesting to note some of the western inflection and the slang expressions that had been picked up from the Autry and Rogers movies. Also, one could go the the gazinos and listen to the Turkish music. We went to one gazino in Eskisehir rather often and the three or four piece musical group would always make it a point to play some popular American song from the "Big Band Era". Their rendition was not quite the Glenn Miller Band, but it was pretty good for a three or four piece group.

I think it would be superfluous to say that I enjoyed my tour in Eskisehir. I will never forget the children, enroute to or from school, who would make an attempt to speak to me in English Or, the young business man (an 8 or 9 year-old) on the street early in the morning selling hot chestnuts who always had a few words with me. A couple of hot chestnuts and a hot cup of tea was a welcome "feast" since there were no open restaurants to obtain a breakfast meal. Also, the young people who rode the trains to go to high school were a source of amazement. These young people would board the trains in Polatli and ride to Ankara to go to high school. They rode free and had to stand in the passageways of the compartmented cars. Often, if three or four Americans were in a compartment, an invitation would be extended for the youngsters to come into the compartment for the ride. There was always a period of questioning and exchange of language prowess.