Aviation firsts were being established all the time during these pioneering days of vertical flight. The picture below is from a newspaper article in 1944 where Jack is landing a helicopter, a Sikorsky R-4B, at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida that had never seen such a machine. The R-4s were the only U.S. military helicopter to be used operationally during WW2. About 100 R-4s were built in total, units going to the U.S. Army, Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, the RAF and the Royal Navy.

The newspaper caption reads: U.S. Navy Photo 9/8/44. "Flying Windmills" visit Pensacola - Two helicopters, flown by Lt. Jack L. Zimmerman of Chicago and Lt. Robert L. Boyce of Elbe, N.Y., paid a visit to the Naval Air Station of the Naval Air Training Bases, Pensacola, Fla., this week. The machines were flown here from Bates Field, an Auxiliary of Brookley Field, Mobile, Ala., where Lts. Zimmerman dna Boyce are stationed.

Following training, Jack was assigned to the Aircraft Repair Unit Floating (ARU-F) out of Mobile, Alabama. The concept of the ARU-F was to create a floating repair facility for Army Air Corps aircraft and use the helicopter as a logistic arm flying parts from ship to shore. The US Army and not the US Navy developed the initial use of helicopters at sea. Some of the Liberty freighters had the small postage stamp landing field near the bow of the ship. Censors deleted all mention of this tiny landing platform during the war due to security reasons. It was believed that the kamikaze pilots might single out the ARU-F's if they knew of the ships mission. The unit went aboard a Liberty Ship, the S.S. Major General Olds, which was manned by merchant marine sailors, commanded by an Army Colonel and had a full machine shop which enabled it to maintain and manufacture aircraft parts at sea or in port.

Some scenes of the ARU-F and a typical flight operation to deliver a part for B-29s at Tinian Island are shown below. Jack flew a photographic mission on Tinian to record the Enola Gay although he didn't know the purpose at the time. Note: The ARU-F mission for the R-4B during WW2 is not well researched in existing publications and web-based articles on the wartime use of helicopters (the R-4B) - several hours of web search could turn up no mentions of this Army mission on Navy ships.

Larry writes that, "The scout motto 'be prepared' served my Dad often and once while landing the helicopter on the ship's small 40 X 40 foot flight deck the helicopter was caught in the ship's downdraft. The helicopter crashed but due to his scout training he saved his passengers life and was awarded the Soldiers Medal. Jack receieved the following citation:

" For heroism displayed in rescuing an enlisted man from drowning in the Pacific Ocean on 1 November 1944. While taking off in a Helicopter from the flight deck of the SS Daniel E. Garrett, Lieutenant Zimmerman with Private William K. Troche as passenger was forced to land at sea. Lieutenant Zimmerman at the risk of his life made several dives into the plane when his passenger had difficulty in extricating himself from the craft. When Private Troche's life preserver failed to operate properly, Lieutenant Zimmerman supported him in the water for approximately 30 minutes and afterwards pulled him to a life preserver, which had been thrown from the ship. The heroism displayed by Lieutenant Zimmerman on this occasion reflects great credit upon himself and the military service."

Some Air Sea Rescue demonstations were carried out at Okinawa in January 1946. A Sikorsky R-6A, a refinement of the R-4B, is shown below during the operation.

After WW2, Jack worked as a helicopter pilot doing commercial work in various locations including Alaska, prior to becoming a test pilot for Seibel Helicopter and then Cessna. In 1963, Jack went to work as a test pilot for Hughes Helicopters where he retired in 1982 after test work on the new AH-64 Apache. 39 years of test flying, 1943 to 1982 - quite a career!

Hal Zimmerman has provided the following photos showing some of Jack's involvement with Hughes helicopters.

Jack Zimmerman set many FAI records in the YOH-6A helicopter in 1966 including time-to-climb, distance over a closed course and altitude, several of which are still valid. A listing of Jack's record flights may be viewed at the FAI website by clicking here. The photo above was taken at Edwards AFB following a record flight in 1966.

Hal and Larry Zimmerman presented eulogies for Jack in 2002; these may be read by clicking here. Larry Zimmerman wrote an article for the scouting publication Eagleletter concerning his dad's life as an Eagle Scout; click here to read the article.

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