Yoda
Member
I've written several notes recently about my father-in-law. Let me also pay tribute to my father.
My dad is also a WWII vet. Before the war, he was a gunner on an A-17 (sort of like an American version of the Stuka), then he was a top turret gunner in one of the first B-17 units (303rd Bomb Group). However, since he was one of the few NCOs to have gone to tech school to maintain the turrets, he was reclassified as the group's armorer shortly after Pearl Harbor, when the USAAF was expanding as fast as it could.
In the late 1950s, we were stationed at Anderson AFB, Guam. The base had a pistol shooting competition, and my dad decided to compete. The commander of the air police (that's what the security forces were called in those days) was favored to win, because he had some custom-built match-grade Colt 1911.
My dad went to the wing's armory, and swapped out slides and barrels and such on issue 1911s, and that's what he used in the competition.
My dad took second place in the island-wide match. The squadron commander with the expensive Colt? He took third place. Top gun was another airman using a stock, off-the-shelf, issue 1911, which just happened to be the one the guy in the armory signed out to him on the day of the match.
Lesson? Obvious. It ain't the gun. It's the gunner.
Anyway, the first airplane my dad ever worked on was a Curtiss P-6 Hawk biplane, and the last airframe he worked on was a Titan II ICBM. He saw everything in between. He turns 90 next year, and he's still sharp as a whip.
- - - Yoda
My dad is also a WWII vet. Before the war, he was a gunner on an A-17 (sort of like an American version of the Stuka), then he was a top turret gunner in one of the first B-17 units (303rd Bomb Group). However, since he was one of the few NCOs to have gone to tech school to maintain the turrets, he was reclassified as the group's armorer shortly after Pearl Harbor, when the USAAF was expanding as fast as it could.
In the late 1950s, we were stationed at Anderson AFB, Guam. The base had a pistol shooting competition, and my dad decided to compete. The commander of the air police (that's what the security forces were called in those days) was favored to win, because he had some custom-built match-grade Colt 1911.
My dad went to the wing's armory, and swapped out slides and barrels and such on issue 1911s, and that's what he used in the competition.
My dad took second place in the island-wide match. The squadron commander with the expensive Colt? He took third place. Top gun was another airman using a stock, off-the-shelf, issue 1911, which just happened to be the one the guy in the armory signed out to him on the day of the match.
Lesson? Obvious. It ain't the gun. It's the gunner.
Anyway, the first airplane my dad ever worked on was a Curtiss P-6 Hawk biplane, and the last airframe he worked on was a Titan II ICBM. He saw everything in between. He turns 90 next year, and he's still sharp as a whip.
- - - Yoda
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