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One afternoon in the middle of February, the phone in my office rang. I lifted the receiver and on the other end of the line was Joe Dobbratz, who informed me that he was 93 years old and had graduated from 涩里番下载 in 1951. He鈥檇 just finished reading our article about the greatest athletes in 涩里番下载 history and he had only one question: Had we lost our ever-loving minds? How was it possible that the great Lenny Ceglarski, who guided the men鈥檚 hockey team for twenty seasons, was not included on our list of 涩里番下载鈥檚 best coaches?

Dobbratz ran through Ceglarski鈥檚 impressive accomplishments, and explained that the coach had been his friend during their undergraduate years at the Heights. From there, the conversation turned lighthearted, with Dobbratz recounting his time on campus, including the many hours that he and a guy named Shorty Cellucci spent in a pool hall taking money off an enormously tall center on the basketball team named Elmo Morgenthaler who thought he was pretty good with a cue. It was a delightful story and I regretted that I would have to check the whole thing out. After all, what were the chances that, more than seven decades later, this Elmo Morgenthaler character was truly as colorful as Dobbratz remembered?

鈥夿y early 1962, Major Joseph R. Dobbratz, Jr. was a decorated fighter pilot in the middle of a most unusual Marine Corps career. He was an expert in the air, combat-tested and unflappable, and he had taken advantage of the less rigid structure in those earlier days of Marine Corps aviation to pilot an astonishing assortment of aircraft, something like nineteen different airplanes, jets, and helicopters. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know of anybody who flew as many different types of aircraft鈥攊t鈥檚 unbelievable,鈥� said Mike Hoeferlin, who served under Dobbratz as a public affairs officer before becoming a Marine Corps aviator himself.

What also set Dobbratz apart was that, even while exhibiting the spirited independence you want in a fighter pilot, he had distinguished himself as a military officer and leader. In fact, he is one of just a handful of aviators to ever command a Marine training battalion at Parris Island, where recruits go through boot camp. 鈥淭hat was almost unheard of for an aviator,鈥� Hoeferlin told me. 鈥淏ut he was hand-selected to do what he does best, and that is to motivate, lead, and make things work properly.鈥�

Joe Dobbratz was born in 1927 at St. Elizabeth鈥檚 Hospital in Brighton. 鈥淒o you know where that is?鈥� he asked me this past summer, his Boston accent still pronounced after forty-plus years in the South. I was sitting across from him in the living room of the home that he and his wife, Catherine鈥攚ho is known to everyone as Dinksy鈥攂uilt back in the 1980s in a golf course community near the Marine Corps air station in Beaufort, South Carolina.

St. Elizabeth鈥檚 is just a mile or so from the house on Kenrick Street where Dobbratz and his three sisters grew up. Their mother, Mary Ellen, worked for the MBTA as a subway cashier, while their father, Joe Senior, was an auto mechanic who鈥檇 started out as a blacksmith shoeing horses. The family home was located next to Chandler Pond and across from the old Cenacle Convent, where Dobbratz served as an altar boy. From an early age, he was drawn to airplanes. He would walk to the top of the hill where the convent stood and launch toy planes made of balsa wood. 鈥淲e鈥檇 fire them around until they got banged up, and then patch them back up,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淚 was just fascinated with planes. I used to have all these cards that came from Czechoslovakia鈥攖hey were like baseball cards but for planes.鈥�

Dobbratz graduated from high school in 1945, not long after VE day. An end to World War II may have been in sight, but the conflict was still months from its conclusion, so Dobbratz applied to every branch of the military. The Coast Guard was the first to respond and he immediately signed up. He learned to repair diesel engines, tended to buoys in Boston Harbor, and took care of a boiler on a ship that was so old the boiler was made of fire brick. But he was discharged in May 1946, less than a year after enlisting. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 need us anymore,鈥� he recalled. Fortunately, he qualified for the GI Bill, which was the only way he could contemplate going to college. His parents certainly couldn鈥檛 afford it. To cover emergency expenses, his father depended on trading his skills as a mechanic. 鈥淗e would more or less barter鈥攍ike fixing this tooth right here?鈥� Dobbratz said, raising an index finger to one of his front teeth. 鈥淚t got knocked out playing hockey. My father paid the bill with a tune-up for the dentist鈥檚 car.鈥�

Dobbratz enrolled at 涩里番下载 in 1947 and studied business administration. As graduation neared in 1951, he discovered that, because he鈥檇 served for less than a year in the Coast Guard, he would be required to register for the Korean War draft. Instead, on the day after commencement, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. 鈥淚 joined, Lenny Ceglarski joined. There were fourteen or fifteen of us from 涩里番下载 that all joined up at the same time,鈥� he said.

After enlisting, Dobbratz was sent to basic training and then to officer candidates school. From there he hoped to go to flight school but instead he was sent to El Toro, a large Marine base, since decommissioned, that was located near Los Angeles. There, as a brand-new second lieutenant, he was given his first command. 鈥淚 picked up a platoon of master sergeants, with a combined years聽of experience in the thousands,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淒eep down, I felt like they knew more than I鈥檇 ever know.鈥� But when the platoon boarded the USS Breckinridge in San Diego and set course for Yokosuka, Japan, Dobbratz was undeterred. Three days out, he ordered a rifle inspection. He was not pleased with the rust that he found. 鈥淚 told them, I want those damn things cleaned and oiled.鈥� When the next review left him equally disappointed, he scheduled six straight days of inspections, three times a day. 鈥淭hey got the message,鈥� he said.

After being promoted to captain, in 1955, Dobbratz at last got his opportunity to fly when he was sent to the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida, for flight training. On his third solo flight, he lost the engine. Relying on his training, he quickly identified a field suitable for an emergency landing and brought the plane down. 鈥淚 had that sucker made,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut the tail caught on a barbed-wire fence in the field.鈥� Dobbratz struck his head on impact but escaped with little more than an injured shoulder. Still, the engine malfunction was just the latest frustration at Pensacola. Dobbratz had spent nearly a year at the base but hadn鈥檛 been able to complete the flight certification course. There simply weren鈥檛 enough instructors, planes, or parts. But around this same time, the Marines had begun incorporating a new type of aircraft. 鈥淗elicopters were kind of a new thing,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淭hey said that anybody that goes helicopter would get their wings in two months. So I went helicopters.鈥�

鈥奤nlike its polar opposite the Arctic, which is an ocean surrounded by continents, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean. It is the coldest region on Earth, with temperatures in some areas having been recorded below minus-90 degrees centigrade. Snowfall, however, is actually quite light, meaning that what past explorers have described as the great Antarctic blizzards were actually high winds whipping ground snow into blinding storms. The discovery of Antarctica is credited to Russian explorers in 1820, though humans wouldn鈥檛 pass the first winter there until nearly eighty years later.

For its part, the U.S. military has long been interested in Antarctica, with Admiral Richard Byrd establishing a naval base in 1929, and then leading a series of expeditions into the continent over the next two decades. The Navy later launched Operation Deep Freeze, in 1955, as part of a multi-nation research effort known as the International Geophysical Year.

Deep Freeze was in its seventh year when Joe Dobbratz signed on. Several research stations had been constructed in Antarctica, and it was part of the military鈥檚 job to keep them connected and supplied. After provisions and equipment were brought in via cargo ships following ice breakers, the supplies were loaded onto planes that would fly them to the research stations. An array of aircraft were used for the deliveries, including some that depended on runways made of ice and snow. But such landing strips weren鈥檛 possible at all of the stations, or in the areas where research was being conducted by smaller field parties. For this reason, the Navy had begun using a versatile new plane for Deep Freeze, one that could take off and land in untouched snowfields. The C-130 Hercules was an enormous four-engine turboprop that was outfitted with skis and could accommodate jet boosters on the rear of the fuselage for extra power during takeoffs in especially deep snow. So before Dobbratz could depart for Antarctica, he first had to spend a month in Tennessee learning to fly the C-130. After mastering the plane, he and his crew departed Rhode Island in September 1962 and began the long flight to Antarctica. The route required stops in California, Hawaii, Kanton Island (a tiny isle in the middle of the Pacific), Fiji, and New Zealand, but the trip itself was quite pleasant. 鈥淚 used to call the C-130 the gentleman鈥檚 airplane,鈥� Dobbratz said. 鈥淏ig old seat, and after the plane took off, you put your hand out and you got a cup of coffee from the crew chief. They also had a way of jury-rigging something similar to a microwave. So about two hours out, you got steak and eggs.鈥�

Upon returning from Antarctica, Dobbratz enrolled at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated in 1965, and then it was off to Parris Island, where he became one of the few aviators to ever command a battalion of Marine recruits. It wasn鈥檛 long, though, before he was back in the air, and back in choppers.

In 1968, Dobbratz was sent to Vietnam. 鈥淚 got a command,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was a helicopter transportation squadron.鈥� That鈥檚 how he described the HMM-364. Ike Bullard, who served under Dobbratz in the squadron, described it this way: 鈥淚 tell people today and they sit there with their mouths open鈥�You were a Purple Fox in Vietnam? It was one of the most decorated units in the history of the Marine Corps.鈥�

Dobbratz鈥檚 squadron included twenty-four CH-46 Sea聽Knight helicopters and thirty-eight pilots, most of them right out of flight school. They transported troops all over Vietnam, getting Marines into and out of combat areas and conducting medical evacuations. The choppers regularly took fire while in landing zones, so the pilots tried to limit their time on the ground to fifteen or twenty seconds. The Marine Corps generally preferred that its squadron commanders stay out of the action, but Dobbratz insisted on flying missions nearly every day. 鈥淭here were some commanders over there that just flew 鈥榙esk鈥欌�攖hey didn鈥檛 go out and fly with their squadron,鈥� Bullard said. 鈥淏ut if we were doing it, he was going to do it. So he got out there with us and flew some pretty hairy missions himself.鈥�

In 1974, Dobbratz was sent to Japan, where he served as commanding officer of the Marine Wing Service Group of the 1st Marine Air Wing.聽A year later he was assigned to the Quantico Marine Corps base, in Virginia, where he eventually became chief of staff to the base鈥檚 top general. He retired in 1981 at age 54, and he and Dinksy returned to Beaufort.

You may have noticed that the many instances of Dobbratz鈥檚 extraordinary aviation that are described in this article鈥攁 successful crash landing following the loss of an engine; two helicopter ditches, necessitated by mechanical malfunctions, in which everyone emerged unscathed; taking off and landing while under fire in combat zones; and hundreds of hours spent flying in Antarctica鈥檚 dangerous conditions鈥攁re presented rather stoically. That鈥檚 because, for the most part, that is what I was able to get from Dobbratz. When I asked him questions such as what it felt like to pilot an aircraft to safety during a panic-inducing emergency, he would simply reply, 鈥淚 never thought about it. That鈥檚 how we were trained to do it, and that鈥檚 how I did it.鈥�