In article <2016073121102495143-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom>, Savageduck says...
>
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>On 2016-07-31 20:29:40 -0700, Miloch <Miloch_member@newsguy.com> said:
>
>>
>>>
>>> Pre Pearl Harbor in Lancaster CA, my father was like a lot of guys who were
>>> interested in flying. Down the road was a flying service owned/operated by
>>> Pancho Barnes and he took his first lessons from her.
>>>
>>>After Pearl Harbor, he joined the Army Air Corps but came down & was bed-ridden
>>> with rheumatic fever just after graduation from flight school and was
>>> pronounced
>>> unfit for combat duty.
>>>
>>> At the time, 1942, there was a pilot shortage and he was kept on as a flight
>>>instructor (eventually for B-24s). He told me that one of his instructors was
>>> Jimmy Stewart. I remember him giving hilarious impressions of Stewart giving
>>> him instructions during flight training.
>>
>> OK! It was just that the way you wrote the above, it seemed to imply
>> that Zamperii was your father. ;-)
>>
>> My father flew P-47s, and P-38s with the 9th FS, 49th FG, and had on
>> occassion flown as wingman to both Dick Bong and Robert Johnson until
>> he became a flight leader.
>> He also has had the privilige of having Lindbergh fly as his wingman on
>> Lindy's South-West Pacific tour. After that mission some of the
>> participants signed a dollar bill for his "short snorter". On the
>> dollar bill Lindbergh is the clear signature followed by Tommy McGuire,
>> who was Lindy's handler for the tour, and #2 USAAF WWII ace, Maj. Bob
>> McComsey, and Robert De Haven an ace from 7th FS, 49th FG.
>> ---------------
>>
>>
>> My father stayed in and retired as Lt Col in 1962. He was a 2 1/2 pack a day
>> smoker and had a heart attack in '61. The Air Force grounded him permanently
>> but his attitude was that if he couldn't fly (he had over 10,000 hours) he'd
>> leave and he did!
>
>1961 was about when my dad gave up smoking cold turkey, and hasn't
>touched one since. He just turned 93 on July 23.
>He left the USAAF in 1947 as a Captain.
>At the end of the war, he had accumulated 156 missions and 400 combat
>hours with 4 comfirmed kills and two probables. He won a Silver Star,
>2x DFC, Air Medal + 4 OLC, Asia Pacific Campaign +5 Battle Stars,
>Phillipines Liberation Medal, Japan Occupation Medal.
>Also he was part of the escort for the Japanese surrender envoys and
>the "Surrender Betties" from Japan to Ie Shima.
>
>After the War he was stationed at Luke Field as an instructer.
>
>>The only pics I have of his flying days are attached...they all of him and some
>> of his buddies in flight school. Primary in '42 was in PT-22 Ryans and
>> advanced
>> was in AT6 Texans.
>
>Dad in his P-38L at Gusap, New Guinea, 1944.
>
Your fathers 'flight helmet' looks like my fathers...I have it somewhere around
the house...clothe, light tan in color and I also have the oxygen mask that went
with it...no goggles though.
When I flew helicopters in the VNam war, they issued 'sound-proof' helmets made
of hard plastic that were supposed to keep the outside noise out...but didn't.
*
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