Driving by Fenway Park in the summer of 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts, Ivan Fleser looked at his daughter, Debbie Fleser, and said, “I played in that stadium.”
“What?” she responded in surprise. “That’s pretty fantastic.”
“And I also played on a team with Ted Williams,” he added.
His daughter didn’t even know had been teammates with the Hall of Famer or with former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.
The Cloudbusters assembled
It all started in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, back in 1943. More than 19,000 men trained at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s campus during World War II. They underwent intense preparation – like hand-to-hand combat drills and survival training in the woods, going from 5:30 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. six days a week to prepare their minds and bodies for what they might experience in the war.
A baseball team, the Cloudbuster Nine, was created from members of that pre-flight school training program. Composed of many Major League Baseball players, including Williams and Johnny Pesky, and football coach Bear Bryant. These athletes trained at the same time to become pilots at the Navy Pre-Flight School on UNC’s campus.
“I remember him [Ivan] telling me it was probably one of the hardest things he ever did, but one of the hardest things he ever enjoyed doing,” Debbie Fleser said.
A Cloudbuster, a type of airplane that bursts through the clouds, became the team’s nickname. At the time, there were only five Navy pre-flight schools. Often, the ballplayers would suit up against one another with their season lasting about three months during the summer. One time, the Cloudbusters played the Yanklands, the team managed by Babe Ruth, for a Red Cross benefit game, and demolished them 11-5.
To this day, the public might not know the story of Ivan Fleser or the Cloudbusters if Anne Keene hadn’t discovered her dad’s scrapbook. Her dad was the team’s bat boy at the flight school that shaped many great American heroes.
“To see pictures that you can put your fingers on, it just tells you a lot about a person,” Keene said. “We didn’t have Instagram, but the pictures are indelible, and they are forever.”
Fleser was very reserved and rarely shared stories from his life with family or friends. He finally opened up, after a little hesitation, on many stories from his life after being approached by Keene, who was writing a book – “The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.” Keene shed a light on the team that was forever tied to Chapel Hill after hearing about her father’s time there.
The Journey of Two Cloudbusters
Fleser grew up in Burnips, Michigan, in a town of less than 500 people. As a high school senior, he led his school’s baseball team to a district championship before attending Western Michigan University, where he was primarily an outfielder.
With a dream to be a pilot, in the middle of college he enlisted in the V-5 Navy Pre-Flight School and soon after, he received orders to report to UNC-Chapel Hill.
Fleser was selected as one of 30 cadets to the Cloudbuster baseball team, playing outfield and pitching on occasion. While he shared the field with Williams, he never boasted about it to others because the friendships were what mattered most to him.
“The people that he met throughout his career in the Navy were his lifelong friends,” Debbie Fleser said. “They really shared something that was special.”
The sentiment was mutual for other children of the Cloudbusters. Another Cloudbuster, Johnny Pesky, an MLB infielder for 10 years who later managed in the majors, was often known as “Mr. Red Sox” or “The Needle.”
Baseball changed his life, making it more interesting, and shaped Pesky’s career.
“He loved baseball and baseball loved him back,” David Pesky, Pesky’s son, said. “It’s that simple.”
Pesky missed three crucial years in his professional playing career during the war, possibly costing him a spot in the Hall of Fame, his family said.
“He lost out on a lot of playing time when he was in the war, and he said he would do it again in a second,” said Alison Pesky, Pesky’s daughter-in-law.
The almost-deadly accident
It was a normal day for the baseball player-turned-pilot Ivan Fleser.
But a routine flying day changed in seconds when his life flashed before his eyes. He was a navigator in a PB4-Y Liberator patrol bomber and one afternoon his plane went down into the water in the South Pacific due to engine failure, an accident that could have taken his life. Thankfully, no one died one the plane and they were rescued by a PBY Catalina that landed on the water. His daughter didn’t even know about it for years, since many WWII veterans didn’t share a lot of what they went through or their experiences.
“He had a watch and on the back of the watch when you unscrewed it, my grandfather had written, ‘This watch belongs to my son who the Lord saved from a watery grave,’” Debbie said.
After the war, Fleser returned to Western Michigan to earn his master’s degree. In 1951 he joined the Marshall School Systems, where he worked for more than 30 years in various roles, including teacher, baseball coach, assistant principal and guidance counselor before retiring in 1984. . He passed away at 98 years old in July of 2018.
Fleser’s lasting legacy
While his impact was felt on the field and in the military, Fleser never looked for any praise. He was a man of few words, who enjoyed ice fishing rather than sharing about his accomplishments. In fact, his grandkids didn’t even know he had played with Major League Hall of Famers until Keene’s book.
“Dad changed lives, and it wasn’t just because of his military experience,” Debbie said. “It’s just because of who he was, and I think that’s why he never put himself center stage. He was always more concerned about someone else and how he could impact their lives.”
Like many fellow Cloudbusters, Fleser served his country because he felt it was the right thing to do.
“Baseball is in America’s DNA,” Keene said. “When I found this baseball team, they represented all the good. They represented something familiar.”
In the 80 years since Fleser, Williams, Pesky, and former presidents assembled in Chapel Hill to represent their country, the history of those days was mostly unknown. Now, through Keene’s book, their first-hand experiences can be shared with their great-great-grandchildren.
Now living only 30 miles away from the park in central Massachusetts, whenever Debbie Fleser drives by Fenway every month or so, she cherishes the time her dad shared with her decades ago that he played with all-time great baseball players, but more importantly, with kind people.
