While this may not be KR related, it is certainly Aviation related. ? This Monday I spent the day with an old friend that I have known for many years. ?He is 92 now and stopped flying 6 years ago when he realized he was no longer flying with the precision and skill he has always prided himself in executing. I have been working with his son to dispose of Jack's many aircraft before they get tied up in his estate when he passes on. ?
This guy is a real piece of history, and absolutely fascinating to visit with. ?As a teenager in the 1930s, he worked as a line boy in Albuquerque and fueled the likes of Jimmy Doolite, Roscoe Turner and Amelia Earhart as they were criss crossing the country in their various cross country flying contests. ? Jack enlisted in Army Air Corps in 1940, knowing there was a war coming and wanting to be a part of it. ?When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Jack was a Flight Engineer/Gunner on B-25s in a squadron based in Oregon. ?His crew was credited with the first Japanese sub sinking off the west coast. ?As Jack tells the story, they war had just started, they were all young and excited, and more than likely, they bombed the heck out of some poor whale. Jack's B-25 squadron was one of the squadrons asked by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle to volunteer to train for an unknown dangerous mission they were likely not to survive. ?Jack was one of the volunteers. ?Now many of you know there are few left of the Doolittle Raiders and you know Jack isn't one of them. ?As the story goes, there were 25 planes and crews that trained for the mission. ?There was only room for 16 on board the carrier. ?Before loading the planes on the carrier at Alameda, they did a careful run-up and check out of each aircraft. ?Jack's plane had a prop governor fail that day. ?Jack refers to that as "The luckiest day of his life". ? Jack left the B-25 squadron and was tranfered to the "Widowmaker" B-26 Marauders for the North Africa campaign and spent the next 2+ years flying out of North Africa supporting the North Africa and southern Europe campaigns. ?On D-Day, they were the distraction from the main campaign as they wer bombing southern France. While in North Africa, Jack ran across an interesting charactor out on the flight line. ?This guy was sitting backwards on the handlbars of his bicycle riding it around the flight line backwards. ?Jack refered to him as one of the cockyest fighter jocks he had ever met. ?This charactor when returning from a successful mission would make a pass under a bridge just outside of the base, pull up into a loop, and pass under the bridge again while finishing the bottom of the loop. ?This cocky young charactor was none other than Bob Hoover. After his time in Europe, Jack came home to work on smoothing out some of the nightmare maintenance issues of a new heavy bomber just coming off the line, the B-29. ?He was given the option of joining a B-29 squadron, but opted to stay stateside to work on the maintenance issues. ?The squadron he was asked to join ended up in the Pacific, and is the squadron that dropped the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Recently Jack's son found Jack's box full of WWII memorabilia. ?In it he found awards for 4 bronze stars and a letter awarding Jack a 100% disability upon his discharge from the Air Corp in 1946. ?Jack never asked for or collected a cent of disability. ?None of us, including his sons knew anything about his varous military awards. ?It just wasn't what was important to him. ? I have had the pleasure of calling Jack my friend for the last 25 years, which is only a small part of his colorful history. ?Guys like Jack aren't going to be with us much longer. ?I can't tell you how much I enjoyed sitting down with him and letting him give me one last walk through history through his eyes this last week. I hope you all will forgive me for being a bit off the KR topic here. ?But I also felt that a few of you might enjoy reading about this guy. ?I'd also like to hear about some of the old timers some of you might know as, while they won't be with us for long, these people are true living treasures. -Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Larry&Sallie Flesner > Sent: 10/19/13 06:45 AM > To: krnet at list.krnet.org > Subject: KR> KR honored > > Another local WWII hero passed away last week. He was a fighter ace > flying F6F fighters off a carrier in the Pacific. My KR was honored > to fly lead in a four plane formation to perform the missing man > formation at the cemetery. We're fortunate as a country to still > have young men willing to pick up where these heros left off. Thanks > to all of you serving or have served in the military. > > http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thesouthern/obituary.aspx?n=robert-duncan&pid=167538990&fhid=19151 > > Larry Flesner
