Buick that survived Pearl Harbor helps Michigan family remember owner
On his way to work this Wednesday, Dec. 7, John Michalek, 35, of Plymouth will walk past the classic Buick in his garage and think of 22-year-old 2nd Lt. Gordon H. Sterling Jr., who drove the 1941 Buick Special to work on a Sunday morning 75 years ago, only to die in a dogfight over the waters of Pearl Harbor.
Sterling, who at the time was a recent graduate of flight school in Montgomery, Ala., was one of just a handful of American pilots who got airborne to protect their comrades that day. He engaged the attackers, following a Japanese fighter into a cloud bank, unaware of another hostile plane on his tail.
Michalek's deep blue Buick has been owned by members of Sterling’s family since he bought it in May 1941. It was his first new car.
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Michalek, an engineer with Detroit Diesel, married into Sterling’s family and has become the keeper of the car and a champion of Lt. Sterling’s memory.
As a child in West Hartford, Conn., Sterling had been a Boy Scout and a school athlete. He longed to become a pilot and enlisted in the Army after two years in college. Pearl Harbor was his first post after flight school. Because Sterling was an officer, the Army shipped his car to Hawaii.
Sterling's grand-niece, Amy Schroeder, 33, grew up in Canton, where her grandfather John Sterling had the Buick.
“He took the car to shows and parades, keeping his brother’s memory alive,” Michalek said. “I heard the story from him.”
Michalek liked cars, restoring and working on a couple of classics. As time went by, he went to car shows with Schroeder's grandfather, driving the Buick when the older man’s health flagged.
“He was prepping me to carry on,” Michalek said. He and Schroeder married, then bought the car after her grandfather died.
Most of the planes in Sterling’s unit, the 46th Pursuit Squadron, were destroyed on the ground Dec. 7, 1941. There were just four surviving P36s — an outdated plane that had been parked off to the side away from the best fighters — when Sterling arrived, still wearing his civilian clothes from the evening before. The first plane off the ground was flown by Sterling’s roommate 2nd Lt. Philip M. Rasmussen, who became famous as the “pajama pilot” because he raced from bed to the airfield when the attack began. Rasmussen and three other experienced pilots grabbed the P36s. Sterling had just passed his flight tests, but when one of the others left a plane to get a parachute, Sterling jumped into the cockpit.
He stripped off his wristwatch, handing it to the crew chief with the words, “Give this to my mother. I’m not coming back.”
Sterling joined the other three P36s in the second wave of the attack and died in combat. He was cited for “conspicuous gallantry in the defense of Hawaii” in a letter the chief of the Army Air Forces sent to Sterling’s parents Dec. 18, 1941.
Sterling received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. His remains were never recovered, but there are memorials to his service in Honolulu and at Arlington National Cemetery.
Despite the chaos following the attack, the Army handled Sterling’s effects diligently. His parents had his radio and music collection given to Lt. Rasmussen. The rest, including his watch and car, was sent home.
The car was undamaged except for a bullet hole through the windshield. The family replaced the windshield, but kept the original in the trunk as part of Sterling’s story.
Michalek took the car to shows after Amy’s grandfather died, but he has spent most of his time recently with he and Schroeder's 3-year-old son.
“He’s starting to be interested in cars,” Michalek said. “Maybe next year we’ll take the Buick out together.”
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan.