Poking fun at senior officers and the Pentagon bureaucracy is not the recommended way one gets ahead in the Air Force.
Unless, of course, your name is Jake Schuffert.
Jake Schuffert was the Air Force’s unofficial “humorist”, beloved by junior airmen and general officers alike. He created cartoons that depicted everyday life in the military in an amusing, yet perceptive, way. They appeared in multiple military publications, including 50 years worth in Airman magazine.
Jake spent 23 years as a blue-suiter, retiring as a Master Sergeant, and another 23 years as a civil servant. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1940 and became an airborne radio operator-gunner, flying 50 missions in Africa and Italy while assigned to the 15th Air Force’s 464th Bomb Group. Between missions he applied his creative talents to the World War II tradition of aircraft nose art.
On one of those missions, Jake’s B-24 was shot down while returning from a raid over the oil fields near Ploesti, Romania, forcing the crew to bail out. Jake and his crewmates spent four unscheduled months evading capture by the Germans in Yugoslavia, eventually making their way back to Italy.
During the Berlin Airlift, Jake served as radio operator for the Airlift Commander, Major General Bill Tunner, and also began producing “Airlift Laffs” – a series of cartoons for the airlift's Task Force Times – highlighting humorous aspects of the mission and military life in general. Jake’s cartoons could sometimes push the envelope, but General Tunner was Jake’s biggest fan and supporter. When a base commander tried to ban the Task Force Times from his base, General Tunner overruled him.
“Airlift Laffs” was the start of a new career for Jake as a graphics illustrator and military cartoonist, and his work was frequently featured in the Air Force Times, Stars and Stripes, and Airman magazine. He spent time in the Pacific, including a Korean War tour, before retiring from active duty in 1963.
After his military retirement, Jake served another 23 years as a civilian employee specializing in military graphics. He called his office “Boondock AFB Headquarters”, where he continued to produce thousands of cartoons that were a huge hit throughout the Air Force.
For more about Jake's unique career, the Spring 1999 edition of News and Notes contains a profile of him, written by fellow AF PA Hall of Famer Chuck Lucas.
You can read Jake's obituary here.
And if you're interested in a deeper dive into military cartoons and the artists who drew them, John Correll, another Hall of Famer, wrote about them in Air and Space Forces magazine.