Charles Barnes reflects on his 34-year ‘very fortunate’ career
By MARK MILLER
When the 12 members of the Petroleum High School Class of 1953 received their diplomas, it is not likely that any of them imagined one of their classmates would become a brigadier general. Certainly not Charlie Barnes.
“I wanted to be an electrical engineer,” says Barnes, now living in southwest Fort Wayne. Ironically, he never earned a college degree of any kind, but nonetheless rose through the ranks to command the Indiana Air National Guard.
The road between Petroleum, Indiana, and being the pilot for Indiana Gov. Otis Bowen — among other
responsibilities — took a few twists and turns. He’s never regretted not getting that college diploma and knows he has led “a very fortunate life,” as he puts it.
After a year at Purdue University, Barnes transferred his college studies to what was then known as Indiana Technical College in Fort Wayne in order to be closer to a job he had landed in Bluffton.
“I had to work,” he recalls now, “it was the only way I could get through school.”
What is now the Indiana Institute of Technology on Eash Washington Street was then located in downtown Fort Wayne; Barnes was working at the Hoosier Condensery. “I was either in school or working, seven days a week,” he recalls.
Then, fate stepped in.
“There was a friend of the family who was on the county draft board,” he shares. “They called and warned me that my name was coming up.”
The hostilities in Korea had come to an end, but nonetheless, “I didn’t want to be in the Army,” he continues, “so I joined the Air National Guard.” He remembers the exact date — Dec. 14, 1954.
As he was processing into the service, he was told that if he wanted to and if he could pass a test, he could go to pilot school. “So I thought I’d give that a try,” he says. Hence, between Christmas and New Year’s, he traveled to Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, where he went through a battery of tests over three-days’ time.
“I remember them as pretty extensive — written, physical and psychological,” he recalls. Two months later, he got the word that he had passed the tests and his first “class assignment” would start in March at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. It was a combination of basic military training and officer candidate school.
“Pretty intense,” he recalls. “I was starting to second-guess my decision but I was also determined to not quit” as a number of his classmates did. “I’m glad I stuck it out.”
Next stop was six months in Missouri for some primary flight training in a Piper Cub and a T-6 trainer, both propeller-driven planes; then another six months at Laughlin AFB back in Texas in a two-seater T-33 jet trainer. “Graduation Day was June 28, 1956,” he continues. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and “got my wings.”
There would be more training in the F-86 jet fighter class that he would be flying before returning to the Fort Wayne-based 122nd Tactical Fighter Wing and his new part-time position in the Indiana Air National Guard.
“So I had to find a job,” he says. That would be at what was then Farnsworth Electric, founded by Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the television tube.
“I actually got to meet him,” Barnes says. “He still had an office there.”
That business was soon bought out by ITT — International Telephone and Telegraph — and then Barnes got an offer, and a raise, to move over to the Magnavox Corporation, working as an electronic technician. All the while he was putting in his required minimum of 100 hours per year in the 122nd’s F-84F fighters.
In October 1961, Barnes experienced his first deployment. The assignment required a complicated five-stop trans-Atlantic flight — in-flight refueling had not yet become routine — to a NATO airbase in France, from which the unit flew sorties to protect the air corridor to Berline while the Berlin Wall was being built.
“There were also Russian planes in the area,” he recalls, “but we never had any encounters.”
By now, Barnes was a first lieutenant and by late 1962, was back in Fort Wayne splitting his time between the air base and Magnavox. It was in July 1964, that he got a call from the Air National Guard that they wanted him to start full time.
His roles in the ANG were a mixture of technically being both a civilian and a military employee. He continued flying in an F-84F, serving as a flight training instructor. He would eventually also qualify in the F-100 and the F-4 fighters.
In 1980, he was promoted to colonel and transferred to the Terre Haute ANG base as both group commander and air commander. In 1984, he was assigned as the wing commander in Fort Wayne but he and his family would not move back to Fort Wayne until a year later.
He received his general’s star in early 1985, still flying on a regular basis, which was unusual. “Just lots more paperwork,” he relates with a chuckle. “I signed my name lots and lots of times. It got so you couldn’t read it.”
There were a number of deployments during those years, to a NATO base in Norway and another in Turkey. Many other deployments for training within the U.S., including Hawaii, which is the closest he came to Vietnam.
“They were using F-100s in Vietnam and we were strictly flying the F-84s at the time,” he explains, “which is why we never got that call. So, I’ve never flown a combat mission which frankly, I am very grateful for that.”
Barnes retired on June 28, 1989, having served 34 years and six months.
———
Barnes’ recollections of specific dates includes one more: June 19, 1968.
It was a routine training flight. The then-33-year-old Major Barnes was flying an F-84, doing a flight check of another Wells County pilot. Lt. Henry Gallmeyer was flying another plane at about 15,000 feet right along the southern border of their home county, with Barnes observing.
“My engine just stopped,” Barnes recalls. He tried three times to restart it as the plane was losing altitude and velocity. His training was kicking in.
“Things were happening pretty fast,” he recalls, “but I still had time to think.”
His plane was headed toward Montpelier. “That won’t work,” he said to himself.
He was able to manipulate the controls to aim the plane towards an open field and then prepared to eject, knowing that the previous four ejections from an F-84 had resulted in fatalities.
“It was called ‘seat and chute entanglement,’” he explains. “So I rolled up on the wing.” That’s pilot-speak to say that he ejected horizontally which did not allow his seat to get higher than himself. He was, obviously, glad to see the seat descending below him and his parachute.
He takes the narrative from that point, 50-some years later:
“So, I knew I was sort of over Fiat, and the wind was pushing me kind of away from there. I had to kind of fight my chute to try to stay close to a road. After I landed, I saw Virgil Lines running toward me. He had the general store there in Fiat and I’d known him for years.”
“So he runs up to me and is panting and asking ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ And I say ‘Yeah, I’m all right. How are you doing, Virgil?’ And he then recognized me and says ‘Charlie, what are you doing here?’ and I say, ‘Well, I just thought I’d drop in for a visit.’”
“No, really, I didn’t say that, but it makes for a good story.”
As reported in the next day’s News-Banner, Lines had heard what he thought was a sonic boom “but thought nothing of it until a neighbor pointed to the distant figure of a parachute,” the story reported. He then jumped into his pickup truck to help whoever that might be. Lines subsequently took Barnes to his store where they contacted the Indiana State Police. Meanwhile, Gallmeyer circled the area to ensure the plane landed in an open area and that Barnes had landed safely before heading back to the base.
The crash, of course, was quite newsworthy in Bluffton and Fort Wayne, “but I never talked to the media,” he says now. “I let our PR people take care of that.”
Indeed, he is not quoted in either of the News-Banner accounts. The many details about the event came from “family members,” the reports stated.
“And later on I was shown a front-page story in the New York Times about it,” Barnes added.
“So, I joined a new club that day,” he continues. “The ‘Caterpillar Club’ — people whose lives have been saved by a parachute. I understand the name comes from the chutes being made out of silk.”
———
Charlie Barnes has been retired now for almost as long as his career had been. For many years, he and his wife Carol split their time between a home on Big Otter Lake and another in Venice, Florida.
Their blended family also kept them busy. Barnes and his first wife, the former Beverly Weaver of Bluffton, had three children — a son and two daughters. Carol also had a son and two daughters from her first marriage. He now counts 10 grandchildren and 13 “greats.”
The couple traveled “as much as we could, but I could never get her to go on a cruise,” he says. The most memorable trip was an extended tour of Europe.
When maintaining two homes and the travel between them became too much, they bought a villa in a newer development off Covington Road in 2013. Carol’s declining health had also become a factor in that decision. She passed away eight years ago. They’d been married for 41 years.
Now 88, he is determined to live independently as long as he can. He keeps busy with activities in his community, including serving on the association board. He had always enjoyed annual reunions with fellow Petroleum High School graduates, but the pandemic has apparently put an end to those. Barnes particularly enjoys his membership in the Quiet Birdmen Club, an international group of pilots.
“One more thing,” he shares, “I once drove a stock car in a race up in Avilla.”
It seems that several radio stations put together a promotion in which 10 military pilots got the opportunity to race after some training runs that included time trials. Being the highest ranking pilot there, a general, he got the fastest car.
“And I won,” he says, chuckling. “I have a perfect record. Undefeated.”
miller@news-banner.com
