Education
He then attended Purdue University.
Football player civil engineer
He then attended Purdue University.
Early World World War II
He was first inducted February 17, 1943 into the United States Army and went to basic training in North Carolina, where his bunkmate was Charles Clark. Others in his group included Wally Kokockis (Cicero Kid), Sergeant Nelphi, Sergeant(Porky) Thorton, Charles Clark, Jack Sather from Berkeley California, Jimmie Spallus from Wisconsin, and Ray Shaw.
All then went on to Janesville Wisconsin for flight training.
Ray Schumacher later was based at:
Hondo Texas for navigator training, and served as an instructor afterwards
Miami
Macdill Air Force Base in Tampa about 7/43
Lincoln, Nebraska where he trained navigators until mid-1945
Victorville, Ca. Tinian
Early in his training he accepted an Argus camera as payment for a debt, and used it to take hundreds of photos of United States Army training camps and around the Pacific theater, including the atomic bomb waiting on the runway on Tinian.
Near the end of the war B-29 crews did not always have exclusive use of a plane but rotated with another crew. His plane assigned while stationed on Tinian was known to have nose art of a lady and a name, but the number is unknown.
He flew in the formation over the treaty signing on the Missouri, was finally stationed in Tokyo until January 1946, and officially released March 17, 1946.
Final rank: First Lieutenant, Navigator, 20th Air Force, 313th Bomb Wing, 504th Bomb Group (Circle-East). Service: 17 February 1943 - 17 March 1946, #02068876
Football
He played in the 2 August 1947 College Football All-America Team vs Chicago Bears which set the record attendance (105,840) for American football. He went on to play two seasons as fullback before retiring with knee and other injuries.
Professional Ray spent most of the rest of his life as a civil engineer for the City of Chicago, responsible for planning on the Deep Tunnel Project and others in the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.