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Malcolm Francis Schoeffel was born in Rochester, New York, on April 3, 1898 to Anna May Hinds Schoeffel and Lt.
Col. Francis Henry Schoeffel, US Army. He and his mother accompanied Col. Schoeffel on a tour of duty in China,
but, when his father was ordered to the Philippines, he returned with his indefatigable mother from China via Manchuria,
Korea, and Japan to the US. Col. Schoeffel, having been wounded in the Philippines, was retired in 1904 and settled
in Rochester and then Millbrook, New York. Admiral Schoeffel remembered his boyhood as a very happy one, of the
style that Americans nostalgically attribute to that era. One of his memories as a lad was his earning an allowance
by polishing the brass carriage lanterns on the cars in his father's and uncle's automobile dealership.
Admiral Schoeffel entered the US Naval Academy in the summer of 1915, in a sense following his father's tradition
of military service. (Col. Schoeffel had graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point with the class of
1891 and had played on Army's line in the first Army/Navy game in 1890.) Schoeffel excelled at the Naval Academy,
graduating first in his class and achieving the second highest midshipman rank. In addition winning prizes in Seamanship
and in Ordnance and Gunnery, and being captain the of rifle team, he helped his classmates by tutoring those having
academic problems. Although his class was that of 1919, the war caused the Navy to graduate the class, and Schoeffel,
in 1918.
From the Naval Academy, then Ensign Schoeffel served briefly in the USS DIXIE before reporting to the destroyer
KIMBERLY. He saw action against the German U-91 off Fastnet, Ireland, and participated in the rescue of crewmembers
of the destroyer SHAW when that ship was cut in half by the troopship AQUITANIA, and in September, 1918, received
his commission as a Lieutenant, junior grade. During the next few years he served in the destroyer BROOME and,
in 1921, in the cruiser PITTSBURGH. Admiral Schoeffel would tell an interesting account about the court martial
of all the principal officers for a grounding of that ship. Cruising in the Baltic, the PITTSBURGH was in some
of the shallower waters that were expected to be safe from German-laid mines, when she grounded. During testimony,
all the prosecution's expert witnesses derided the danger, and the conclusion looked certain; the responsible officers
would be convicted of unnecessarily hazarding the ship. In a movie-style ending, just before the board was to close
for determination of guilt, a dispatch reporting the sinking of another ship by a mine was brought in to the courtroom.
All were immediately exonerated.
In July 1921 Schoeffel was ordered to flight training in Pensacola, Florida, where he was trained only in seaplanes,
namely F-5Ls and N-9s, which only naval aviation history buffs will recall. Graduating in the two thirds of the
class of 48 who didn't wash out, and after about 120 hours of instruction, then Lieutenant Schoeffel went to San
Diego in 1922 to a Pacific coast aviation force consisting of two fighter squadrons of land planes, or two observation
squadrons of land planes, and two squadrons of "big-boat" land planes. Of the two non-big-boat types,
either the fighter squadron or the observation squadron could muster enough pilots, but not both.
None of the new pilots had ever flown a land plane, so essentially they underwent what today would be called advanced
training at North Island. Most of Schoeffel's subsequent instruction was in the famous "Jenny" or JN-4.
His training flights during this period included some to abandoned airfields and golf courses. Indeed, after one
flight, in which Schoeffel was not the pilot, the landing ended with an accident that precluded takeoff. To retrieve
the plane, a team of mechanics arrived, and the plane was partially dismantled. Unfortunately, more damage ensued
after the plane was loaded, and, as senior officer present, Schoeffel received a letter of reprimand, a matter
that today would absolutely preclude advancement to flag rank.
After he completed training, Schoeffel transferred to one of the Observation squadrons, VO-1 in which he flew the
contemporary DH aircraft. While "observation" sounds somewhat strange today for a front line squadron,
in the fleet of the twenties, in which the main target of the fleet was the enemy's battle line, observation aircraft,
by spotting fall of shot accurately and at extended ranges, could enhance the effectiveness of the friendly battle
line enormously. During this tour of duty Schoeffel became flag secretary to the Commander of Air Squadrons, and
later detached to report to the Navy Postgraduate (PG) School, then at Annapolis, Maryland, where he took the first
year of a two-year aeronautical engineering course. Again, his academic skill made him the tutor for classmates,
especially in mathematics. It was there, in 1923, that he met his future wife, Marcia Briggs, whom he married in
1924.
Following his PG tour, Schoeffel became an aerodynamics instructor at the Naval Academy starting in June 1925.
There he taught the principles of aerial gunnery and simultaneously wrote the first chapter on aerial navigation
to appear in Dutton's Navigation and Practical Astronomy, the foundation text used by the US Navy.
From the Naval Academy Schoeffel transferred to the Bureau of Aeronautics, where he manned "the instrument
desk," being responsible for procuring the rudimentary aircraft instruments of the time. Fortunately for the
Navy, one of the prospective suppliers turned out to be quite innovative, and the Bureau was able to begin a period,
leading up to World War II, of increasing instrument utility and accuracy. Even though his duties sound mundane,
obviously Schoeffel was deeply involved with contemporary aerial problems, for he published an article in the Technical
Notes, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, No. 262 dated August, 1927, entitled The Installation and Correction
of Compasses in Airplanes. It was during this period of 1926 through 1928, also, that his wife presented him with
two daughters, Marianne and Sally.
In the summer of 1928 Schoeffel reported to a torpedo squadron, VT-2, in Coronado, California. The squadron flew
aircraft known as SCs, and later, T3-Ms. The former could be switched between floats and wheels. Unfortunately,
the planes were too large to operate from the Navy's only current carrier, the LANGLEY. Here Schoeffel took part
in a number of simulated torpedo attacks against fleet units during monthly Battle Force exercises with tactics
on both sides that he regarded as quite limited in their effectiveness and realism. Later, in 1929, the powerful
but awkward T3-M was replaced by the T4-M which he regarded as an excellent craft, and the squadron participated
in some truly pioneering efforts to develop fleet air tactics. The fleet now possessed the carriers LEXINGTON and
SARATOGA, and VT-2 went on board the SARATOGA. The now legendary Admiral J.M. Reeves, then Commander, Aircraft,
ordered the Saratoga squadrons to launch before dawn to strike US forces defending the Panama Canal at dawn. This
night launch tactic was repeated later, and although the pilots were untrained in night operations and the state
of the aircraft instrument art provided nothing to support night operations adequately, the strikes were accomplished
successfully and without loss of aircraft.
In late 1929, the new Commander Aircraft, Admiral Butler selected Schoeffel as gunnery and tactical officer, and
he remained in that post into another tour under Admiral Reeves when he relieved Admiral Butler. Schoeffel was
detached in 1931 to report to Dahlgren, Virginia, the Naval Proving Ground. There he commanded the aviation detail
and acted as fire chief, a posting he particularly relished. Most of his activity at Dahlgren revolved around development
of bombing tables and the Norden bombsight, the instrument used heavily by the Army Air Force during World War
II. For his work on the bombsight he received a Letter of Commendation. Still a Lieutenant (after twelve years
of service), Schoeffel took his Lieutenant Commander exams in 1931, just in time to have his pay cut by 15% in
the latter rank instead of as a Lieutenant. The entire Navy was to suffer a fifteen percent pay cut as of 1 July
1932. At this time a son, Peter, was born.
After this tour Schoeffel returned to the west coast in 1932 to be in the CALIFORNIA, in San Pedro, California,
again under Admiral Reeves, now Commander Battle Force. Although he did not invent the seed of the idea, Schoeffel
modified a proposal (by someone named Ott) for recovery of seaplanes by ships underway (they had previously had
to come to a very vulnerable stop). This involved the use of a net dragged on the water surface from an outrigger
boom, so that a seaplane, with a hook on the bottom of its float, could taxi to the net and hook on. Initially
the idea failed because the net tended to be dragged to the ship's side. Schoeffel proposed a modification so that
the net was dragged away from the ship. The device was used throughout World War II and a single ship could recover
simultaneously as many as three aircraft at speeds as high as 18 knots. In addition, the March, 1933 United States
Naval Institute Proceedings carried Schoeffel's article, Tactics of Large Aircraft Forces.
In about that time, Schoeffel took command of a scouting squadron, VS-1, which was attached to the carrier RANGER.
The RANGER, not being ready to receive its squadrons in time, VS-1 reported to the SARATOGA, but by the end of
that year, VS-1 had operated from every carrier the Navy owned. Now, for the first time emphasis was given to night
flight operations. The dangers of the operations with contemporary instruments and training proved that Naval Air
was not technically ready for night operations. The Navy seemed to have given up on these efforts until late in
the war, although the Japanese apparently did develop a night capability.
In 1935 Lieutenant Commander Schoeffel returned to Washington to the Division of Fleet Training in the Navy Department.
Here he was responsible for tracking aircraft gunnery exercises, preparing the rules for the next year's exercise,
and writing an annual report of it. After a year, Schoeffel sought a move to a more challenging duty and was able
to secure the Aviation Desk in the Bureau of Ordnance (then enjoying a total complement of about forty). Here his
chief duty was procurement of aircraft machine guns. Although during this time there was argument concerning the
superiority of many smaller guns versus a few heavier guns, the issue was not settled before he left for his next
assignment. Again, he wrote an article, to appear in the February 1938 United States Naval Institute Proceedings,
this time by the title of The Objective in Aerial Warfare.
In his next duty, in May 1938, Schoeffel became the navigator of the SARATOGA, serving, at first, under Albert
C. Read, who had flown the first transatlantic flight in 1919 in the NC-4. In May 1938 Schoeffel received his commission
as a Commander. After a year he returned to Washington in spite of his request to remain in place for another year.
Anticipating the coming conflict with Japan, Schoeffel was sure he would have a better chance of serving effectively
in the SARATOGA. The authorities refused this request, however, and he proceeded with his family to Washington
in the summer of 1940. An interesting detail of that trip was that the family traveled on the first semi-transcontinental
airline service, flying overnight, sleeping in folding bunks. The flight stretched all the way from Los Angeles
to Chicago. The airline (probably TWA) was almost as impressed with the adventure as the family, and took them
to the airport in a limousine, with a gardenia bouquet for Mrs. Schoeffel. The remainder of the trip, they traveled
by car.
In Washington Schoeffel assumed a post in the Ships' Movements Division, but was soon sent back to the Bureau of
Ordnance, which was then expanding (from about 40 to about 100). Schoeffel headed the newly organized Research
Division. In this division he worked to establish programs for improving and specializing aircraft bombs. These
specializations included armor piercing, semi-armor piercing and general-purpose bombs. The Division also examined
British experience with incendiary bombs, whose design proved ill adapted to Japanese targets. In this effort he
worked on a British/American Bomb and Bomb Suspension Committee, and, after the war was awarded the Order of the
British Empire for his work. He remembered obtaining all Navy 50-caliber machine guns from the Army and supplying
to the Army Air Corps all of the Norden bomb sights that they used. During this time, capitalizing on his long
experience in bombsight development, Captain Schoeffel teamed with a colleague, Louis G. Pooler, to submit for
patent, the invention of a radar, rather than optical bombsight. Strangely, in order for the Commissioner of Patents
to consider the invention, it was necessary for this exceptionally advanced invention to be unclassified, and Schoeffel
was directed to submit his patent as unclassified. Apparently the Navy's relationship with the Norden Company had
cooled to such an extent that it was considered that the protection of a patent overrode the loss of security classification.
Promoted to Captain in September 1942, finally in 1943 Schoeffel received the orders he had been awaiting, those
of a ship command. His orders made him the Prospective Commanding Officer of the USS CABOT (CVL-28), which was
being built in Camden, New Jersey. The ship had already been launched and was commissioned on the first of June
in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
After a short trial period, the ship picked up her first Air Group (31) of about thirty planes, both fighters (F6-Fs)
and torpedo planes (TBMs). After training in the Caribbean and a short leave period, the ship transited the Panama
Canal in November, to arrive later that month in Pearl Harbor, and in January 1944, Captain Schoeffel and the CABOT
accompanied the USS ESSEX and USS INTREPID, along with other ships of Task Force 58.2, to the central Pacific.
A reading of the book, The History of the USS Cabot (CVL-28): A Fast Carrier in World War II by J. Ed Hudson, a
contemporary crew member, makes clear by the number of aircraft accidents involved with air group training, just
how difficult operations from an escort carrier were. Schoeffel later formed the opinion that pilots were seriously
under-trained for carrier operations when sent to the fleet.
In rout to the combat area, the "pollywogs" of the CABOT's crew "enjoyed" an initiation ceremony
when they crossed the equator at the International Date Line, thus becoming rare Golden Shellbacks on 23 January.
The CABOT now proceeded to earn her reputation as The Iron Woman, a nickname given her later by Ernie Pyle, the
war correspondent. Action for the CABOT began in the Marshalls in early '44 when the fighters achieved their first
victories. After the action at Kwajalein, Captain Schoeffel next took the ship as a unit in Task Group 58.2, which
accompanied Task Groups 58.1 and 58.3, to attack Truk in April. Surviving a number of kamikaze attacks (including
night attacks), the ship and her air group augmented her already impressive string of strikes and aerial victories.
Early in May, Schoeffel was relieved, promoted to Rear Admiral, and ordered to Washington and the staff of Fleet
Admiral Ernest J. King, who was then Commander in Chief, US Fleet. Schoeffel's new assignment was the post of Assistant
Chief of Staff for operations. Given King's modus operandi of making nearly all decisions and doing so with little
staff assistance, Schoeffel felt his position involved little but initialing the work of others. His oral history
clearly reflects his low satisfaction with the post.
It was during this tour that Admiral Schoeffel served as the Navy's deputy member of a Joint Chiefs of Staff committee
tasked with considering the possible options for merging the armed forces. The primary Navy member was Admiral
John S. McCain, then the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, but because Admiral McCain had no interest in the
committee or its doings, Schoeffel became the Navy's de facto representative. This committee became known as the
Richardson Committee, after Admiral Joe Richardson, its Chairman. The idea of service unification was popular,
at that time, with the media, many politicians, and the Army Air Corps, but not with the Navy, which shuddered
to think that Naval Aviation could suffer the same atrophy that had been visited upon the British Fleet Air Arm
when the RAF took over all aviation responsibility for that nation. Admiral King's only instruction to Schoeffel,
however, was, "be factual." After a number of meetings, discussions, and trips to interview area and
fleet commanders, the committee prepared a report recommending a more unified form of organization, with an overall
Chief of Staff and a staff formed of the various services. The only disagreement was that of Admiral Richardson,
who submitted a minority report. Although Schoeffel's support of the report directly opposed Navy (and Admiral
King's) wishes, King never criticized him for his forthright stance.
In the summer of 1946, Schoeffel received orders to Nimitz's staff in Hawaii, as Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans.
The surrender being signed on the day of his arrival, his primary concern became planning for Operation Magic Carpet,
the return of servicemen who were eligible for discharge, but since most of the planning had already been done
by his predecessor, he again found himself in a billet in which he felt unnecessary.
To his satisfaction, Admiral Schoeffel received orders, in April, 1946, to report as Assistant Chief of the Bureau
of Ordnance, which had grown by this time to about 1,100 people. In that position, he became involved in the establishment
of the Naval Weapons Center (NWC), China Lake (then called Inyokern). Today a baseball field at NWC is named "Schoeffel
Field." He took pride, also, in forming an informal committee of submariners in the Bureau devoted to investigate
weapons that would be suitable for stationing on atomic submarines. This may have been the earliest initiative
that finally culminated in the Polaris program. It was also during this time that the Bureau began development
of the Terrier and Talos anti-aircraft missiles.
At about Christmastime in 1948, Schoeffel again received orders, this time to become Commander, Carrier Division
SIX, and to act (double-hatted) as Commander Task Force TWENTY EIGHT. It was in this period that he felt most in
his element. Asked some years after his retirement, which duty he had enjoyed most, he said it was that one, because,
"he had always wanted to be an Admiral, and the command of a Task Force was the most like being an Admiral,"
that is, being responsible for the successful employment of a fleet. Furthermore, Schoeffel felt he had inherited
a staff of the highest professionalism he had ever seen.
In the midsummer of that year he took the carrier CORAL SEA (not of his Division) to the Mediterranean to operate
with the Sixth Fleet. During this period, he was refueling at sea from one side of an oiler with a destroyer refueling
from the other side. Expecting opposition from a submarine, the refueling trio detected it at a range of about
ten miles. Schoeffel was presented with the choice of breaking off refueling, thus endangering the destroyer and
causing a great deal of previous setup effort to be wasted, staying on course and being "torpedoed",
or attempting a radical course change while still refueling. The last option was considered unsafe by many at the
time, although it has since become standard. Trusting the training and seamanship of his Captains, Schoeffel directed
a closely controlled but radical unit course change while still refueling. This prevented the submarine from intercepting
and may have been the first instance of a significant course change during such an operation. After witnessing
this feat, the submarine requested assignment to Schoeffel's unit, considering that further opposition would be
pointless.
After returning from the Mediterranean, Schoeffel continued exercising his forces against air and submarine opposition.
In some of these exercises he directed as many as forty or more ships.
Schoeffel's next assignment, in about May, 1950, was as Chief of Test at the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent, Maryland.
It was there that the Navy tested all new aircraft types for suitability to naval operations. It was also the site
of the Navy's legendary Test Pilot School. Aside from his enjoyment of the professional challenges, he took pleasure
in commencing to check out in a helicopter, and for the first time since his tour at Dahlgren, he and Mrs. Schoeffel
occupied quarters, an historic mansion known as Mattaponi, some of whose parts dated to 1668. One of his memories
of this period included having to warn the local media that a helicopter would be testing a special night lighting
scheme (there being no standard helicopter scheme at the time), and not to believe any flying saucer reports.
Having held that post for only about six months, on New Year's Eve Schoeffel received a call with surprise orders
to report as Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance on the 2nd of January, 1951. It was during this time that the Bureau
put Terrier missiles into production, and developed the Talos to near completion. It was then, also, that the Sidewinder,
in spite of many problems, received enough funding so that Research and Development could continue at NWC, and
it could later become the progenitor of a long sequence of very successful air-to-air missiles. It was also then
that the Bureau enjoyed the services of two engineers, much admired by Admiral Schoeffel for their originality,
who developed the high-rate-of-fire aerial gattling gun later mounted in an aircraft pod and put to good use in
Viet Nam. Another development during this extremely fertile period was the establishment of Naval Station Dahlgren
as the Naval Computer Center. Although it was not initially at Dahlgren, the Navy had been one of the earliest
to apply computers to military problems, having a program at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, in White Oak, Maryland,
to compute gun projectile trajectories.
Retiring in 1954, after thirty-six years of service, Admiral Schoeffel went to work for the General Precision Corporation
as Director of Weapons Planning, establishing a new office in Washington, DC. Upon his retirement, in addition
to numerous campaign ribbons and the aforementioned Order of the British Empire, he had been awarded the Presidential
Unit Citation, the Legion of Merit, and the Navy Commendation ribbon. After seven years with that company and a
year or two on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Research Corporation, he finally accepted full retirement.
Admiral and Mrs. Schoeffel moved, in 1963, to Naples Florida to enjoy golf, traveling, and being with friends,
new and old, in that city. Their idyll was disrupted in 1967, however, when their son, a Naval Aviator flying from
a carrier in the Tonkin Gulf, was shot down and became a prisoner of North Viet Nam. Upon that news, and until
their son's return in March 1973, they both took on strenuous efforts to energize the public and the government
on the behalf of all the prisoners. Subsequent to this time, Mrs. Schoeffel died in 1978, while Admiral Schoeffel
kept in touch with old shipmates and the Cabot Association. He died, loved and revered by family, peers, and those
who know "the old Navy." He died in 1991 at the age of 93 in Jacksonville, Florida.
"It is by no means enough that an officer be a capable mariner.
He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He must be a gentleman of liberal education, refined manner,
punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor."-John Paul Jones
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