Tøff dame med norsk far - Curt Lewis

Navy WAVE instructor taught instrument flying to WWII pilots, including her future husband

Salem resident Chris Schiess, 95, served during World War II with the Navy WAVES. She recently flew with the Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation. Capi Lynn, Statesman Journal

Her father emigrated from Norway when he was 16 and served in the U.S. Army during World War I.

Her husband was a U.S Navy fighter pilot during World War II.

One son served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam era. Another flew combat missions for the U.S. Air Force during the Persian Gulf War. A grandson is an Air Force pilot on active duty.

Chris Schiess is proud of their military service, although she downplays her role in the family's legacy.

She served in WWII, too, in the Navy.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Eleanor Jean Christiansen was a Link Trainer operator with the WAVES - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.

She still has her tailor-made dress blue uniform jacket, faintly stamped E.J. Christiansen on the lining. She didn't like her given name and went by Chris in the Navy, and it stuck.

The Link Trainer was a flight simulator - often called the "Blue Box" - used to train pilots and other airmen for instrument flying conditions. It was key to the Allied victory during World War II, with more than 500,000 U.S. pilots trained on Link simulators.

"I had the most interesting job in the Navy," the 95-year-old Salem resident said, "especially for how young I was."

She was 20 when she enlisted, one of about 84,000 WAVES who volunteered for duty. They didn't serve overseas, but they were heroines on the homefront.

They made combat victories possible, rigging parachutes, operating control towers, working on aircraft engines, deciphering code and producing munitions.

Chris trained pilots, including her future husband.

Hard-to-get assignment
Her parents ran a mom-and-pop grocery store in Redfield, South Dakota. Chris had plans to go to college nearby, but then the war broke out and "there was nobody left in South Dakota," she said.

She took a government job placement test after graduating from high school, then went to work for the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. Among the highlights of her stay was standing on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial while it was under construction.

The woman she worked for joined the WAVES, but Chris wasn't old enough.

She returned home around the time her brother-in-law, stationed at a naval air base in Minnesota, was killed in a flight training accident.

Chris Schiess served in the Navy WAVES from 1944 to 1946.

Through other Navy pilots who came to pay their respects, she learned more about the WAVES and about the Link Trainer.

"I knew then that was what I wanted to get into," she said. "It was the best billet and one of the hardest to get."

A recruitment brochure described it this way: "This WAVE instructs an Aviation Cadet in a Link Trainer. Today, he's flying on instruments in a plane that never leaves the ground. Tomorrow, this instruction will bring him back alive."

The minimum age to enlist was 20. Once old enough, she and a friend hopped a ride to Aberdeen, about 45 miles away, on a grocery delivery truck and volunteered their service.

Boot camp was in New York City, where the Navy took over the Hunter College campus for its recruit training facility. The women were indoctrinated in Navy history, rules and regulations, and then given their assignments.

"Because of my experience with the FCC, I was afraid of getting put in office work, and I can't even type," Chris said, doubting her request for Link training would be granted with only a high school education.

D-Day anniversary: Salem's direct connection to Band of Brothers

Blue Box difficult to fly
Chris was surprised when she received her assignment for LITIS, or Link Instrument Training Instructors School at the Naval Air Station in Atlanta, Georgia. Most women selected for the program had at least two years of college or were teachers.

Once she completed training, she hoped to get to see another part of the country, but was assigned to the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics near Washington, D.C.

"That was really disappointing to me," Chris said. "I was sick about it."

At Bu-Aer there were two Link Trainers, which were made of wood and shaped like a cockpit with full instruments and controls. Each was connected to a base with several sets of air-driven bellows and a vacuum pump to create movement and simulate flight.

Local aviation buffs may have seen one at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. That Link was donated to the McMinnville museum in 2000 and then restored.

More than 500,000 pilots were trained on a Link flight simulator like this one on display at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville. This Link Trainer was donated to the museum in 2000 and restored.

Across from a Blue Box would be an instructor's desk, where a WAVE like Chris would communicate with the pilot using a radio, giving signals and voice commands. In front of her would be a large map table, a duplicate display of the pilot's flight instruments, and a motorized marker on the map called "the crab" plotting the pilot's track.

The pilot was tasked with navigating from one radio station to another and then to a control tower for landing.

The instructor would give a series of Morse codes identifying the station and determining which quadrant the pilot would enter. She also had controls to alter wind direction and speed.

Chris had opportunities to fly the Blue Box herself.

Support local journalism: Stay on top of community news and the people who live here with columnist Capi Lynn. Become a Statesman Journal subscriber and get unlimited digital access to stories that matter.

She regularly did "Charlie patterns," a series of maneuvers including four straight legs and four turns with transitions, climbs and descents. Doing it was less stressful for her because she wasn't truly being tested.

"I probably wasn't the best at it," she said. "I had problems with the turning motor when I was in school."

Most of the pilots who came through at Bu-Aer were experienced, but had to log so many hours a month on the Link Trainer.

"Everybody hated the Link. It was hard to fly," she said. "But they had to have it."

Most of them were "too old to date," she added. But there were plenty of opportunities to fly with some of them when she was off duty.

Making a home in Salem
Chris finished her tour at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, where one young pilot caught her eye.

They didn't hit it off the first time they met, though, with him in the Blue Box and her at the instructor's desk.

"I gave him the wrong signal," she said. "He made me write it down as operator error.

"He was into himself, but I knew he was attracted to me, and I was attracted to him."

Edward O. Schiess served on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Essex with Air Group 83 in the Pacific. He primarily flew the Vought F4U Corsair in combat.

"He was good," Chris said, "and brave."

Her late husband, who retired as a lieutenant commander, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, seven Air Medals, the Presidential Unit Citation and several other decorations.

They married in 1946 after she mustered out of the Navy. He stayed in the reserves for 20 years.

After the war, the couple settled in Salem. Ed worked for United States Steel, retiring as the Pacific Northwest sales manager, and Chris was a stay-at-home mom, raising their six children.

They pooled their savings to pay $5,000 cash for their first house in West Salem.

"Those were the best years," said Chris, who has 15 grandchildren and 16 grandchildren.

Memories of her time with the WAVES were stirred recently during a flight courtesy of the Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation. Several local veterans from Bonaventure senior living facilities soared over the Salem skies on back-to-back days.

Chris needed help getting into the cockpit from pilot Christopher Culp of Jefferson, but once there looked right at home, although she could have used a booster seat. She was 5-foot-1 when she entered the service.

"I loved it," she said after her 20-minute flight in the Stearman airplane. "I felt like I was flying in my LINK Trainer. It was perfect, but he could have banked more so I could see more."