“Here is a little known story for you.  It is one that I don’t know what the end of the story was and always wondered.  I had replaced the [Public Information Officer] PIO officer, the I & E and the Special Services Officer.  That was two first lieutenants and a captain.  I was sitting in my office down by the…

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“The stop at Hawaii was a welcome change and it seemed as if there could be no better place to have something go wrong with one of the engines. We were delayed by an engine change and it gave us an opportunity to look the island over. Going from the airport, one could see The University of Hawaii on the…

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“I believe the Shooting Star was the best ground support plane made at that time. It could be shot all to pieces and still fly. I’ve seen as much as four feet shot off the wing of one and the pilot would still get her home. It could sneak up on the enemy and clobber them before they could even…

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“The first F-80 Shooting Star I ever saw was at an air show at Carswell Air Force Base in the late forties. It was flown slick-without tip tanks or bomb pylons (after all it was a high altitude interceptor design) and was painted with white enamel. The pilot would make low passes-pull up into loops or Immelmann turns-or seemingly climb…

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“I was in Korea from July 1950 to April 1951. On several occasions I had the opportunity to exchange firepower with the Mig-15s. At that time the Mig pilots were terrible gunners despite the sizable advantages of the Mig over our Shooting Stars. About the seventh of December, 1950, I was leading a flight of four F-80s flying top cover…

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“When I was in Korea, it was strictly bare bones. We lived in Quonset huts that had never been painted and had no insulation or covering of any kind on the inside walls, all you saw or felt was the cold, corrugated steel. There was one flight to a hut. The hut was heated with fuel oil furnaces made of…

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