White Christmas

A reflection on World War II and a classic film

My friend and aviation mentor, Frank Corbi, lost four white Christmases. His family and future wife were living in Alliance, Ohio, when Frank was captured by the Japanese on the Bataan peninsula in April of 1942. He and 10,000 Americans and over 50,000 Filipino soldiers were marched some sixty miles to Camp O’Donnell, during which men were casually slaughtered or died of privation, hence the term The Bataan Death March. In late 1944, Hell Ships carried Frank and thousands of Americans to Japan and lived up to their terrifying name.

After his liberation from a slave/work camp in Moji in 1945, Frank returned to the states where he married and moved to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and began his career as flight test engineer on the early jet bombers: the B-47, and later, the B-52, which is still in service. In the movie “White Christmas,” Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye’s characters plunge into civilian life after the war, singing and dancing and delivering to the everyday world the magic of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies,” “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing,” and “White Christmas,” which are among the film’s best songs.

In a series of low altitude flights in the B-52 over the Pennsylvania mountains, Frank’s mission was to intentionally load up the wings and tail with ice in order to test the latest anti-ice and de-ice equipment. At high altitudes, Frank and his flight crew also tested and modernized the jet’s pressurization and oxygen systems that keeps today’s travelers alive, warm, and comfortable at 35,000 feet. Yes, Virginia, Frank and company also gave the everyday world something very magical--the ability to visit family and friends over great distances, and the chance for businesses and dreams to flourish.

I remembered an anecdote recently of an English World War One veteran who was given Jane Austen to read to help with his post-war trauma. The man commented that there’s nothing like Jane to get you through a tough spot. Frank knew about tough spots, and he dove into family and work with passion, not to forget, but to move forward and find that horn of plenty in the American Dream. His flight doctors over the years were amazed at his vitality after enduring several years of hellish imprisonment. Frank’s work with his son at the small airport they operated outside of Alliance, and his lifelong love of photography, and later computers, were just some of the ingredients found in his “Jane Austen” tonic.

The humor and dancing in “White Christmas,” the repartee between Bing, Danny, Rosemary and Vera-Ellen (the amazing dancer with only a suggestion of a waist) and the foursomes’ stumbling romances, magnificently entertains and gets us through the tough spots. And the title song from the movie is still the best-selling single of all time, and continues to soften that terrible roughness called life.