Aviation Autographs

[Zachary]

Does anyone know if Howie Keefe is still around? I would be neat to find out if that signature is really his or not, I am pretty sure it is but you never know!!!

Howie (short for Howard) is still around and lives in Florida. He was at the Sun 'n Fun fly-in in April.

Zack

[Tim Landers]

Hi BK, where did you get Dean Caswell's autograph?

[wendovertom]

I don't see a ton of ladies on the lists here - I'll have to scan these someday but I got DiDi Moorman and Dora Dorghty (sp?) - the two ladies that flew the socks off the B-29 for then Col. Tibbets to show the men that two little ladies could fly the plane so why were they complaining?

Tom P.

[BK]

Hi BK, where did you get Dean Caswell's autograph?

The Gathering of Corsairs in Indianapolis 2002. I had a ticket to get in the non-public show Friday. It was very difficult as I didn't know what most of these guys looked like. Several units had their reunion there so chances were more than good of running into a pilot. I just would start a conversation with someone and at the end of it ask for an autograph. Every time it was pilot, except once. So in most cases I didn't know who I was talking to until they signed their name. If then, some signatures were unlegible but to get to talk to these guys more than made up for that. That one guy that wasn't pilot told me "Oh, you don't want my autograph. I'm nobody, just part of the ground crew." I insisted and told him how important "I" thought he and all ground crew were. As he signed he chuckled "this is the first time I've ever signed an autograph."

I also attended the Symposium that night and met several pilots under more formal conditions. At least with the name tags I knew who I was talking too.

BK

[tom d. friedman]

fuchida!!! the coolest!! along with orrville wright too!!

[ZeamerB17]

Greg Boyington - MOH
Joe Foss - MOH
Jay Zeamer - MOH
Jim Swett - MOH
Eddie Rickenbacker - MOH
Alan Shepard
John D. Landers - "Big Beautiful Doll" P-51
Bud Anderson
Chuck Yeager AND "Glamorous" Glennis Yeager
John P. "Jock" Henebry -3rd BG
Philip Ardery - 389th BG - Ploesti
Owen "Cowboy" Roane -100th BG
Robert Rosenthal - 100th BG
Harry Crosby - 100th BG
Tony Starcer - Nose Artist Extraordinaire - 91st BG

Dave

[B17news]

These are my Father in Law's. This is Don Gentile's book "One Man Air Force" and a write-up sheet from one of his planes.

[K5DH]

Somewhere I have an air show program with Julie Clark's autograph on a picture of her and her T-34.

Not much compared to some of the very impressive collections that the rest of you lucky stiffs have. . .

Dean the humbled

[tinbender2]

My favorite autograph in my collection?

Definately Mitsou Fuchida. Will try and get a picture tomorrow.

Ryan

Ok, here's a trivia question...

Was this the gentleman, at the Reno air races, in 1986, selling autographed copies of his book?

I ask, because I had just gotten Pappy Boyington to autograph his book, and was walking over to purchase the one from a Japanese pilot, when he and Boyington got into a heated argument.

The language would have made a longshoreman wince. It included remarks about ancestry, and everything else imaginable. It almost escalated to a fistfight, with Boyington getting right in this guy's face and screaming at him. I waited, but when it appeared the argument wasn't going to stop, I left.

I always wondered who that Japanese pilot was, and what his book was about.

Please don't turn this into a Boyington thread, just identify the Japanese pilot, if anyone knows.

[PeterA]

I am not a particular collector of aviation autographs but I couldn't resist on this when it came up via an auction house.

A gift from 'Dolfo', Adolf Galland, to to his good friend and leading British 'Ace' 'Johnnie' Johnson.

I like to think that this picture hung in his study and that that is a beer stain in the lower left corner.

PeterA

[CAPFlyer]

I've never been huge on getting autographs. I've got a calendar from the 1991 (or 1992) Love Field airshow that was signed by the crews of all of the static airplanes present (the calendar had ink drawings of almost all them), Dick Rutan signed a hat from a museum who's name I can't remember right now (Heartland something Museum I think, has a Half-track on it and it was in Nebraska, I stopped at it while on my way home from college in North Dakota), and Joe T. signed a print of Crusader for me after I stood guard duty for a day with her at the CAF "preview" when they were trying to stand-up the Colorado wing back in 1999.

[tom d. friedman]

boyington probably got into it with masajiro "mike" kawato, the japanese pilot who supposedly shot down pappy. he was a real showboater after the war, & his claims have been more than scrutinized!!

[CAPFlyer]

Tom, do we really need to go down that road again in this thread?