T J Johansen wrote:
I was just looking at Paul Freeman's wonderful abandoned airfield site
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/ and while checking out the Montana West entries I found a place called Missoula - Hale Field. In it there is a photo from ca 1945 in which there is an F6F. The text describes the following:
Quote:
A circa 1945 aerial view looking south showing a considerable number of planes & hangars at Hale Field.
Charles Bloom noted, “You will see in the lower left part a military 'Hellcat' [Grumman F6F] parked on the turf.
That was given to the airport by the military after WWII. The military just flew in it, gave it to the city & left.
I was 9 or 10 years old at the time & used to ride my bicycle out to the field & play in the plane.”
Which leads to the $100 question, whatever happened to this one? I tried looking at Goodall's directory to see if any of the known survivors have spent time in Missoula, but no such luck.
T J
Or, it was as the eyewitness recalls: "That was given to the airport by the military after WWII. The military just flew it in, gave it to the city & left." In other words, obtained by the city or local organization as a war memorial and transferred as such by the RFC, as was the case with dozens of other communities obtaining surplus warplanes in 1945-1946. Many of these war memorials never ended up on the civil registry and records of them surface unexpectedly every once in a while. Most were eventually just scrapped by the communities when they went derelict. Granted, most of these transferred aircraft were AAF but Navy aircraft were also available under the same RFC/WAA program. Could have been a local Navy vet was involved in locating a war memorial aircraft.
There were hundreds of surplus F6Fs at Clinton, OK, as well as several other fields, in 1945.
A thorough search of the Missoula paper during that period might provide the answer.
_________________
Scott Thompson
Aero Vintage Books
http://www.aerovintage.comWIX Subscriber Since July 2017
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