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Consolidated B-24 Liberator [5/8] - Dad in Flight School 1942 e.jpg (1/1)
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! 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. * |
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