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- California in World War II
- California State
Guard "Bat Man" Paratroopers in World War II
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The latest in our series
of posts commemorating the 80th anniversary of the founding of
the California State Guard. Today we are looking at the California
State Guard's connection to DC Comics.
On the United States' home
front, particularly on the Pacific coast where the threat of a
Japanese invasion seemed imminent, even a military expert's creative
juices could take a curious turn. Such was the case for the California
State Guard and Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who dreamed up
the idea of "bat-man" paratroopers.
The major's concept of paratroopers
using jumpsuits modified with bat-like "diving wings"
was inspired by the trick parachuting stunts of American entertainers.
Nicholson had observed that in free fall, skydivers using these
wings were able to better control their speed and descent as well
as their maneuverability before opening their parachutes.
Nicholson envisioned winged paratroopers
evading enemy fire by swooping through the air like their namesakes.
In 1942, the California State Guard found the notion so intriguing,
they asked famed jumper Mickey Morgan - whose career often included
testing wingsuits - to head a bat-man paratrooper unit of their
own in 1942. Contemporary news articles state that the unit was
called the "Oakland Aviation Squadron" at the Oakland
Municipal Airport. It is not known in this was a separate unit
or one of the California State Guard's observation squadrons.
Following the Pearl Harbor
attack, defending the Pacific coast from Japanese invasion was
at the forefront of the California State Guard.
The U.S. had entered a new
age of fear and worry. It was also an age of inventiveness - particularly
when it came to national defense.
In this historical context,
it might make sense that the California State Guard organized
just such a unit of "bat-man" paratroopers to defend
the entire state from threats both foreign and domestic.
"Bat-wings, it is claimed, makes paratroops more maneuverable-and
swifter," reported Mechanix Illustrated in January 1942 as
shown to the right.
Incidentally, that same
magazine made a prediction on bat wings earlier, in an August
1941 article titled "Yankee Ingenuity Vs. Hitler!"
Here's a cool bit of history:
The article points out that the military expert who helped Mechanix
Illustrated forecast the use of bat wings for military applications
is one Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Well, a few years before
helping to inspire real-life "bat-men," he founded a
comic book company called National Allied Publications - which
later would evolve into DC Comics.
Wheeler-Nicholson founded
the company in 1934 as National Allied Publications and later
helmed the creation of Detective Comics. Wheeler-Nicholson left
the company before The Bat-Man debuted in 1939's Detective Comics
#27.
While he wasn't plugging
a character running in his comics (because he had left the company
by that point), Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was making recommendations
on bat wings, and helping to inspire a squadron of "bat-men"
while Batman was in the comic books.
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- Updated 13 January 2021