Robert P. Sheaffer is best-remembered as the fighter pilot who took off "backward" from the aircraft carrier Saratoga in World War II. Read on:
Newark born and raised, Bob Sheaffer was graduated from Newark High in 1941 and enrolled in college. But December 7 changed all that. He enlisted in the Navy, hoping for carrier duty.
He had a headstart: He had gotten a private pilots license in 1940. The Navy sent him to the University of North Carolina for a semester of ground school, then to Pensacola Naval Air Station for 10 months of flight training—thence to San Diego for duty aboard the Saratoga.
In the battle of Iwo Jima, the carrier was badly damaged by Kamikaze bombers; it was afire and listing. Planes on the deck in front of him were burning and exploding. So Ensign Sheaffer turned his "Hellcat" around and took off over the fantail—a first, maybe last, in Naval history.
Sheaffer served on three different carriers and flew seven different aircraft types, mostly in close support of Marines on the battlefield. He flew countless sorties (unlike other air services, the Navy didn't keep track).
Sheaffer spent six years in active duty and 15 in the Naval Reserve. He attained the rank of Commander flying jets out of Willow Grove Naval Air Station.
Following the war, he married Pauline McWilliams, a Pennsylvanian, and went into the business his grandfather founded: Sheaffer Wallpaper and Paints on Main St. in Newark.
The Sheaffers have two daughters: Amy Hurff of Corner Ketch, Del., and Jody Vinson, who lives in Texas.
