Gerhard Neumann
Encyclopedia
Gerhard Neumann was a German
-American
aviation engineer
and executive
for General Electric
's aircraft engine
division (which today is called GE Aviation).
in the Prussian
Province of Brandenburg
. His parents Siegfried and Frieda were non-practicing "Jewish Germans". As a teenager, Neumann apprenticed under a master auto mechanic, surnamed Schroth, who followed the traditional Prussian lifestyle of "First the work, then the pleasure." In 1935, Neumann entered the well-regarded technical college Ingenieurschule Mittweida
and earned very high grades. With other students from the college, he learned to construct and pilot a one-person glider. His experience as an engine mechanic, an aircraft designer, and as a practical engineer would prove very useful in his career.
, and alliances were murky and shifting. In late 1938, Neumann saw a bulletin board posting at Mittweida saying that Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek
needed engineers in his fight against Japanese invaders
. Engineers who got the jobs would receive deferment from conscription
into the German army. Neumann decided to leave his family and embark on a long journey to the British colony of Hong Kong in May 1939. But upon arriving in Hong Kong, he found that the company for which he was to work for had disappeared. Fortunately, his skills as an auto mechanic were in great demand.
A few months later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland
. On 3 September, the United Kingdom
declared war on Germany, and all Germans in Hong Kong were rounded up and interned in La Salle College
, Kowloon, a Christian Brothers High School for boys. Neumann was interned in the school together with some 100 Germans for several months. The British in Hong Kong considered any German citizen a potential "fifth column" and revoked his passport. No embassy would talk to him.
Luckily, Neumann had a chance meeting with W. Langhorne Bond of the Chinese National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The company arranged for Neumann to enter China without a passport. He flew to Kunming
, capital of the remote Yunnan
province, and there he contacted the Chinese Air Force. He worked as an auto mechanic until the Pearl Harbor attack, when he accepted an offer from Colonel Claire Lee Chennault
, who had established the Chinese Air Force with Madame Chiang Kai-shek, to work in support of that Air Force.
As the war with Japan progressed, the Chinese Air Force became the American Volunteer Group
(AVG), nicknamed the "Flying Tigers
." Neumann was part of the Headquarters Squadron as a Propeller Specialist. While with the Flying Tigers, Neumann was nicknamed "Herman the German". When the AVG was replaced by the U.S. Army Air Corps, Neumann was inducted into the Air Corps in July 1942 although he was not yet a U.S. citizen. He helped the effort against the Japanese in many important ways. He led dangerous supply convoys, he performed all types of mechanical repairs on P-40 aircraft, he translated to and from Chinese, he assembled a working enemy Zero fighter from crash parts to assess its flight characteristics (the other such Zero was the Akutan Zero
), and he even directed bombing attacks from the ground while disguised as a Chinese coolie
.
Eventually Neumann was dispatched to Washington, D.C.
, where he met his future wife Clarice. Yet for all of Neumann's heroism in China, as a German he was still considered an enemy alien. It took an act of the United States Congress
to correct this. After the war, he was finally permitted to work for Douglas
Aircraft Research.
In the year that followed, the Chinese Communist army was taking over China. The Neumanns had no choice but to attempt to return to the United States. They chose an unusual route. Instead of flying or sailing across the Pacific, Clarice suggested that they drive over the Asian continent towards North Africa. Thus began their incredible and quite dangerous journey to the Mediterranean Sea, via Siam (now Thailand), Burma, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Most border crossings were dangerous, because by 1948 most countries in Asia were undergoing political turmoil. Finally, after a journey of many thousands of miles on poor roads by Jeep
, Gerhard, Clarice and their dog "Mr Chips" arrived in Tel Aviv and were able to travel conventionally to New York City
.
Aircraft Gas Turbine Division, located in Lynn, Massachusetts
. There he drove many innovations in jet engine design, most famously the "variable stator" that fine-tunes air compression at the inlet. His J79 jet engine enabled aircraft such as the F-104 to reach air speeds of Mach 2. Yet even as a Vice President of General Electric, he piloted various jet fighters during the 1960s to personally understand the engines' performance.
A major success for GE was his guiding the design and development of the huge high-bypass turbofan
jet engines (or simply called "fanjets") that now power the largest commercial aircraft. These include the TF39
, CF6
, and (in 50/50 collaboration with SNECMA) the CFM56
.
and died on November 2, 1997.
The Gerhard Neumann Museum in Niederalteich
, Bavaria
, honors his contributions to aviation.
His autobiography "Herman the German: Just Lucky I Guess" chronicles his life.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
aviation engineer
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
and executive
Senior management
Senior management, executive management, or management team is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of organizational management who have the day-to-day responsibilities of managing a company or corporation, they hold specific executive powers conferred onto them with and by...
for General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
's aircraft engine
Aircraft engine
An aircraft engine is the component of the propulsion system for an aircraft that generates mechanical power. Aircraft engines are almost always either lightweight piston engines or gas turbines...
division (which today is called GE Aviation).
Childhood and education
Neumann was born in Frankfurt (Oder)Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
in the Prussian
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
Province of Brandenburg
Province of Brandenburg
The Province of Brandenburg was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Suevi. They were succeeded by the Slavonians, whom Henry II conquered and converted to Christianity in...
. His parents Siegfried and Frieda were non-practicing "Jewish Germans". As a teenager, Neumann apprenticed under a master auto mechanic, surnamed Schroth, who followed the traditional Prussian lifestyle of "First the work, then the pleasure." In 1935, Neumann entered the well-regarded technical college Ingenieurschule Mittweida
Hochschule Mittweida
The Hochschule Mittweida is a public university of applied science located in Mittweida, Germany, founded in 1867.-History:The University of Applied Sciences Mittweida is the second-largest university of applied sciences in Saxony. It has had almost 80,000 alumni from almost 40 countries worldwide...
and earned very high grades. With other students from the college, he learned to construct and pilot a one-person glider. His experience as an engine mechanic, an aircraft designer, and as a practical engineer would prove very useful in his career.
Off to China
The winds of war were growing in Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, and alliances were murky and shifting. In late 1938, Neumann saw a bulletin board posting at Mittweida saying that Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
needed engineers in his fight against Japanese invaders
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
. Engineers who got the jobs would receive deferment from conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the German army. Neumann decided to leave his family and embark on a long journey to the British colony of Hong Kong in May 1939. But upon arriving in Hong Kong, he found that the company for which he was to work for had disappeared. Fortunately, his skills as an auto mechanic were in great demand.
A few months later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
. On 3 September, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
declared war on Germany, and all Germans in Hong Kong were rounded up and interned in La Salle College
La Salle College
La Salle College is a boys' secondary school in Hong Kong. It was established by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a Roman Catholic religious teaching order founded by St...
, Kowloon, a Christian Brothers High School for boys. Neumann was interned in the school together with some 100 Germans for several months. The British in Hong Kong considered any German citizen a potential "fifth column" and revoked his passport. No embassy would talk to him.
Luckily, Neumann had a chance meeting with W. Langhorne Bond of the Chinese National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The company arranged for Neumann to enter China without a passport. He flew to Kunming
Kunming
' is the capital and largest city of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. It was known as Yunnan-Fou until the 1920s. A prefecture-level city, it is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of Yunnan, and is the seat of the provincial government...
, capital of the remote Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province, and there he contacted the Chinese Air Force. He worked as an auto mechanic until the Pearl Harbor attack, when he accepted an offer from Colonel Claire Lee Chennault
Claire Lee Chennault
Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault , was an American military aviator. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fight-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment...
, who had established the Chinese Air Force with Madame Chiang Kai-shek, to work in support of that Air Force.
As the war with Japan progressed, the Chinese Air Force became the American Volunteer Group
American Volunteer Group
The American Volunteer Groups were volunteer air units organized by the United States government to aid the Nationalist government of China against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War...
(AVG), nicknamed the "Flying Tigers
Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, famously nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army , Navy , and Marine Corps , recruited under presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The ground crew and headquarters...
." Neumann was part of the Headquarters Squadron as a Propeller Specialist. While with the Flying Tigers, Neumann was nicknamed "Herman the German". When the AVG was replaced by the U.S. Army Air Corps, Neumann was inducted into the Air Corps in July 1942 although he was not yet a U.S. citizen. He helped the effort against the Japanese in many important ways. He led dangerous supply convoys, he performed all types of mechanical repairs on P-40 aircraft, he translated to and from Chinese, he assembled a working enemy Zero fighter from crash parts to assess its flight characteristics (the other such Zero was the Akutan Zero
Akutan Zero
The Akutan Zero, also known as Koga's Zero and the Aleutian Zero, was a type 0 model 21 Mitsubishi A6M Zero Japanese fighter plane that crash-landed on Akutan Island, Alaska Territory, during World War II. It was captured intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first flyable Zero...
), and he even directed bombing attacks from the ground while disguised as a Chinese coolie
Coolie
Historically, a coolie was a manual labourer or slave from Asia, particularly China, India, and the Phillipines during the 19th century and early 20th century...
.
Eventually Neumann was dispatched to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he met his future wife Clarice. Yet for all of Neumann's heroism in China, as a German he was still considered an enemy alien. It took an act of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to correct this. After the war, he was finally permitted to work for Douglas
Douglas Aircraft Company
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer, based in Long Beach, California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas...
Aircraft Research.
Return to China
In late 1946, Chennault offered Neumann an engineering position with Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Airline, a new airline Chennault was forming using war-surplus C-46 transports. Neumann accepted, and on their way to China he and Clarice were married.In the year that followed, the Chinese Communist army was taking over China. The Neumanns had no choice but to attempt to return to the United States. They chose an unusual route. Instead of flying or sailing across the Pacific, Clarice suggested that they drive over the Asian continent towards North Africa. Thus began their incredible and quite dangerous journey to the Mediterranean Sea, via Siam (now Thailand), Burma, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Most border crossings were dangerous, because by 1948 most countries in Asia were undergoing political turmoil. Finally, after a journey of many thousands of miles on poor roads by Jeep
Willys MB
The Willys MB US Army Jeep and the Ford GPW, were manufactured from 1941 to 1945. These small four-wheel drive utility vehicles are considered the iconic World War II Jeep, and inspired many similar light utility vehicles. Over the years, the World War II Jeep later evolved into the "CJ" civilian...
, Gerhard, Clarice and their dog "Mr Chips" arrived in Tel Aviv and were able to travel conventionally to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Jet engine innovator
In March 1948, Neumann began work as a simple test engineer for the General ElectricGeneral Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
Aircraft Gas Turbine Division, located in Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...
. There he drove many innovations in jet engine design, most famously the "variable stator" that fine-tunes air compression at the inlet. His J79 jet engine enabled aircraft such as the F-104 to reach air speeds of Mach 2. Yet even as a Vice President of General Electric, he piloted various jet fighters during the 1960s to personally understand the engines' performance.
A major success for GE was his guiding the design and development of the huge high-bypass turbofan
Turbofan
The turbofan is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used for aircraft propulsion. A turbofan combines two types of engines, the turbo portion which is a conventional gas turbine engine, and the fan, a propeller-like ducted fan...
jet engines (or simply called "fanjets") that now power the largest commercial aircraft. These include the TF39
General Electric TF39
|-See also:-External links:*...
, CF6
General Electric CF6
The General Electric CF6 is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines produced by GE Aviation. A development of the first high-power high-bypass jet engine available, the TF39, the CF6 powers a wide variety of civilian airliners. The basic engine core formed the basis for the LM2500, LM5000, and...
, and (in 50/50 collaboration with SNECMA) the CFM56
CFM International CFM56
The CFM International CFM56 series is a family of high-bypass turbofan aircraft engines made by CFM International , with a thrust range of . CFMI is a 50–50 joint-owned company of SNECMA, France and GE Aviation , USA. Both companies are responsible for producing components and each has its own...
.
Retirement
Neumann retired from GE on January 1, 1980, after 32 years of service. He remained active in retirement, until he developed leukemiaLeukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
and died on November 2, 1997.
The Gerhard Neumann Museum in Niederalteich
Niederalteich
Niederalteich is a village on the Danube in Bavaria. Germany. It is best known as the location of Niederaltaich Abbey....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, honors his contributions to aviation.
His autobiography "Herman the German: Just Lucky I Guess" chronicles his life.