From this point on, whenever a Cranford 86 story involved a jet or a plane, it never went to press without Art reading it and offering his expert advice. His edits were always spot on, and he really enjoyed being a crucial part of our writing team.

Art lived in his home, taking care of himself into his nineties, he was actually a pretty good cook and would love to tell me what he was planning on eating each day when I would stop by to check on him. On several occasions he offered to cook my wife and I dinner at his home, which we accepted. His linguine in white clam sauce with shrimp was restaurant quality, and his crab cakes, with his own fresh caught blue claw crab meat from traps on the docks of his Normandy Beach bayfront home were spectacular. On several occasions my Cranford 86 teammate Barry Mazza and I would go to Charlie Brown’s for his favorite, prime rib and chopped liver, or several other eateries. He loved to talk over dinner, but even with his hearing aids, he struggled to hear. We’d often ask for a table far away from anyone so we could yell so he could hear. He’d smile all night, he really loved to get out like that.

When Art reached 94, his driving skills started to deteriorate and his ability to climb stairs was declining. His daughter Jane arranged for some in-home care with the help of the VA, but his health was failing. It soon became necessary to move him into the Veterans Hospital in Lyons NJ. It was very clean and the people there were very nice, but Art couldn’t cook for himself anymore and trips to Charlie Brown’s were not possible. It took a while for him to get settled there, but it got better. We were able to sneak his red wine in on occasion, but his cigars were not allowed in the smoke free environment, so it never really became home for him, and that made both of us sad.

Leading into the most recent year of Cranford 86 stories we decided to have the four stories follow a theme that was inspired by the Apple TV series Masters of the Air, a story of a World War II B-17 flight crew. We have so many Cranford 86 heroes that lost their lives as aviators and we had an expert advisor in Art Snyder, so it was a great window of opportunity. We knew Art’s days with us were numbered, so taking on this theme now was important. Art advised us and proofread the first two stories. Anthony Johnson a Vietnam B-52 Bomber navigator and John Prescot a WWII night fighter pilot, but for the third story of Robert Tuttle a WWII B-29 bombardier, Art had read our research but had become ill through our writing schedule. I was able to read our preliminary work to him but he was unable to contribute. Upon completion of the story I called Art’s daughter from the Lyon’s Hospital parking lot, to see if he was up to having visitors. She told me that it wasn’t a good day for visitors. I drove away, disappointed at not being able to read our story to him. I received a call from his daughter Jane as I was driving home, sadly Art had passed.

By his own plan, he had the simplest grave side service at Fairview Cemetery with a small gathering of close friends and the color guard provided by the VFW Post 335 that included taps and a volley of rifles.

After his death two oral history interviews with Art were provided to me that helped me put the timeline of Art’s life together. I have listened to them several times and continue to be amazed at the life that he lived. I will do my best to summarize his long life here, but the two interviews are located on Rutgers website—part 1 and part 2.

Born in 1929 in a classic Great Depression life story, his dad was a talented carpenter that never made any money that accumulated to more than 4 thousand dollars a year and a hard working mom that did seamstress work for a meager amount of money. They grew most everything that they ate on their Sayreville farm and bartered a neighbor for a pig that they slaughtered each year. The resourceful young Art would raise a couple hundred chick to maturity for poultry and eggs that he would sell along with his vegetables that he’d wheel around the community, he bragged a bit about his lima beans that were famous in their neighborhood. He worked after school and on weekends at Johnson and Johnson and a local Sayreville brick manufacturer to help support the family.

Blessed with natural intelligence, Art was the only boy in four years of is high school that made the National Honor Society. He was awarded a scholarship to Syracuse University in 1947 but was forced to leave in his first year for lack of funds. He then came back to NJ and enrolled into Rutgers where he commuted on multiple busses daily. His senior year would coincide with the outbreak of the “Korean Conflict”, as he was classified in the draft as 1-A, meaning as soon as he graduated, he would be drafted as a private in the Army. As luck would have it, as he progressed through his senior year, he was notified that Rutgers had committed to a prescribed number of ROTC graduates but two candidates had failed their physical. A hundred grads applied all taking a competitive exam ,Art and another man slipped into the graduating ROTC class. He never learned to march or handle a gun. He said he was a sight to see on the parade field.

Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, Art was assigned to Montgomery Air Force Base in Alabama as the base salvage officer. He described it as the safest place to spend the war. The Air Force recycled everything, and Art was in charge of that operation for the entire base. He describes the boredom and in the self-proclaimed stupidest move he ever made, requested to be moved into a combat position in Korea. He was told that the only way to get into combat in the Air Force was to enter flight training. So that’s what he did. After a series of aptitude tests his natural skills and intelligence moved him again into the top of his class and he was placed in pilot training at first in B-25s and quickly into the difficult to master B-26, the Widowmaker of WWII fame. In one of his funny stories, he would tell me regularly. He was training over Smithville Va. When his trigger finger slipped, he accidentally fired his 50 caliber machineguns over a farm. Luckily, he didn’t hurt anyone, but the farmers reported that their cows wouldn’t give milk, the pigs weren’t gaining weight, and the chickens wouldn’t lay eggs. They were going to charge him, but his class was shipping out and they thought his services in Korea outweighed the need to discipline him.

In Korea, Art was a pilot on a B-26 night flyer, on nightly raids he and his crew would search for moving troops or supply truck convoys and trains. With Napon and explosive 500-pound bombs and 50 caliber machine guns they would neutralize, as Art would say, “anything that moved”. He would successfully complete 37 missions on his way to 50, which would give him the ticket home. On his 38th, he crashed in Thailand and was concussed. After his recovery he was assigned to a secret CIA operative called the 581st Air Resupply and Communication Wing. They would fly 10 covert B-29 Superfortress missions behind enemy lines out of Clark Air Force base in the Philippines into Russia and China. Their missions were top secret, and the planes were painted black with no USAF markings, the crew wore no uniforms that would identify them as US military, all against Geneva Convention regulations. They would drop leaflets to encourage enemy pilots to surrender themselves and their aircraft, in return for US citizenship and a hundred thousand dollars. According to Art, two pilots did surrender, one attained a PHD in an American University. It was while with the 581st that Art Flew with the famous WWII pilot James McGovern “Earthquake McGoon”, of Elizabeth NJ an original Flying Tiger member that went on to an incredibly colorful career known for carrying out near impossible missions.

Art finished his combat career flying an additional 65 secret missions with the 581st to French Indochina pre-America’s involvement in Vietnam in a mixture of aircraft including the F-84 and F-86 that Charles Harker had flown. A combined total of 113 missions, 63 more than were required for a complete tour. The covert nature of the additional flights allowed him no reward of a ticket home for reaching the required 50 missions that a conventional pilot’s career would aspire to. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross as well as two Air Medals as well as the medals that a pilot of his era would receive. Art was invited and attended the prestigious military burial at Arlington National Cemetery of his comrade and friend 6”4” 260 lb., James McGovern after his crashed CIA cargo plane was recovered in Laos in 2007, after being MIA for 53 years.

Art refused promotion in his last days of service, declining any offers to extend his term of duty as a member of the Air Force Reserves. He had met too many WWII pilots that were forced into service in Korea as members of the reserves, and he wanted no part of that. He spent his remaining time in service as a flight instructor at Randolph Air Force base in Baltimore where he trained young pilots to fly the predecessor to the B-26, the B-57 Canberra, which according to Art was an inferior aircraft. Two months prior to his discharge, in August of ’55 he would marry Nancy, the love of his life and would have three children with her and settle in Cranford NJ. Classified as disabled at 100% three times over for his hearing loss, and lack of feeling in his hands and feet from high altitude frost bight and PTSD for what was described as too much combat, he was considered unemployable. Unwilling to accept that diagnosis, Art trained to be a stockbroker and started a company of his own that pioneered a new business idea of marketing stocks exclusively to small banks. He became extremely successful and after a 30-year career, passed the business on to his son. Art spent his retirement pursuing his passions of fishing and destination skiing where he skied in the mountains of Europe and all the American western mountain ranges.

After caring for his wife Nancy in their home she passed leaving Art in an isolation created by his lack of hearing, he did enjoyed getting out with his VFW mates and would take part in Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day events, where he dressed in his Air Force uniform, which he proudly still fit into nicely. I often wondered if his neighbors on Manor Ave knew the level of service that Art had provided to our nation, or did they just see Art as a sometimes-angry old man that seldom came out from the comforts of his TV room. Whenever I would meet one on my many visits, I made sure to tell them.