October - December 2020 - High Flight - Selfridge Military Air Museum
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High Flight
October - December 2020
VOLUNTEER AWARD WINNERS
Volunteer of the Quarter Awards: Attention Team Chiefs, though award winners
have not been selected over the last couple of years, please keep on submitting your choice for
Volunteer of the Quarter and Volunteer of the Year according to the following schedule. To all
Team Chiefs, please make your nominations for the Volunteer of the Quarter awards to Wayne
Fetty no later than (NLT) the 15th day of March, June, September, and December. If we do not
receive nominations by the date above of each of the specified quarters, we will not name a
Volunteer of the Quarter. Please drop off the written nomination or email it to
director@selfridgeairmuseum.org
NEW VOLUNTEERS
We are continuously blessed with new people volunteering their time to help us here at the Museum.
Since the last issue of the WASSUP, we have not added to our team of volunteers. The Museum is
always looking for a “few good men & women” to add to our team. We have had some additional
“NEW” volunteers sign up in 2020, but they have yet officially not started volunteering so they will be
covered in future newsletters.
High Flight 1 October - December 2020
LONG-TERM MUSEUM VISITORS PASSES
For those who do not use a Government ID card to access the
Base, a revised list of volunteers has been sent to the Base
Access Control Officer for the new Defense Biometric
Identification System (DBIDS) card that will allow you access
to the base. This list includes the name of volunteer’s
spouses, if applicable, or the parent/guardian of volunteers
who have not already reached driving age. The Air Force-
mandated background check on the individuals listed will be
accomplished, at the Visitor’s Center when the DBIDS card is
issued. When you come thru the Gate, just show them that card. They will scan the bar code
on the back, and you will be on your way.
THINGS TO REMEMBER:
(1) DBIDS cards will be issued ONLY to the persons on the validated list allowing them
access to the Base.
(2) If your spouse needs unescorted access to the Base to drop you off or pick you up,
he/she will need to get his or her own DBIDS card. The DBIDS cards were requested for the
current period, BUT if you picked up a new DBIDS card before the expiration of the old one, the
new one will expire one year after the issuance of the new one.
(3) Keep your eye on that expiration date. Do not forget to get your “NEW DBIDS” card
before your current one expires!
(a) You will need to call Pass & ID, Bldg. 900, and make an appointment to renew
your DBIDS card. Phone Number is: 586-239-4159.
(b) Hours for Pass & ID are: Mon: 0800-1500; Tues thru Sat: 0730-1500
(4) Your Social Security number will be required to be confirmed before your DBIDS card
can be issued, so you will have to present either your physical Social Security card or a copy of a
physical IRS Form (such as a W-2) to confirm that number.
DBIDS cards are issued at the Vehicle Registration desk in the Visitor’s Center, north of
the Main Gate at the intersection of M-59 and Jefferson Avenue.
Due to staffing limitations, the Visitor’s Center is closed the Saturday before a Federal
holiday, Sundays, Federal holidays, and on Saturdays and Mondays for lunch (time varies
depending on their workload).
DBIDS cards have been requested solely for participation in Museum activities, the
performance of Museum business at other on-Base locations, and transportation to/from on-
Base eating establishments. Do not use this pass for any other reason!
High Flight 2 October - December 2020
Please, please, please! Recruit your family members and/or friends to volunteer @ the Museum. Our 2020 Season has ended, and even with Covid and a reduced season, we desperately need weekend docents, so please recruit your family & friends to sign up as weekend docents for our 2021 Season. Remember, if we get enough volunteers to serve as Docents, we will not have to do so many days! Our special Tuesday/Friday teams could also use more volunteers. We have a ‘NEW’ Volunteer Coordinator who will be organizing/scheduling the docents for 2021! High Flight 3 October - December 2020
Chuck Yeager, 97, pilot,
dies; his prowess broke
the sound barrier,
opened the skies
Chuck Yeager and "Glamorous Glennis," the speed machine
he piloted through the sound barrier in 1947.
Chuck Yeager, who piloted the Bell X-1 experimental rocket plane past the sound barrier
and thrust America into the dawn of the space age, died Monday. He was 97. His death on the
79th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, was announced via his official Twitter account, which
according to The New York Times, cited his wife, Victoria.
General Yeager’s 14- minute sprint over the Mojave Desert on 14 October 1947 is
considered the most important airplane flight since Orville Wright swept over the sands of Kitty
Hawk for 40 yards on 17 December 1903. There were, however, few accolades for the 24-year-
old captain. No ticker tape parades, no handshakes from the president. The flight occurred in
the early dark days of the Cold War and was filed away as top secret. The public would not
know of the feat for months.
Then Captain Yeager instead celebrated with a few slaps on the back and a round of
martinis at the Happy Bottom Riding Club near Muroc Air Base. For the unassuming aviator
from the backwoods of West Virginia – his first radio transmission after passing the elusive
Mach 1 and breaking the sound barrier was “Ah, we have problems. This ol’ Mach meter is
plumb off the scale” – that was plenty of praise.
Born in Hamlin, W.V., Charles E. Yeager developed an acute sense of machines, their
parts, and how they worked in unison from his father, a gas-well driller. Enlisting in the Army
Air Corps just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, General Yeager initially served as a warrant
officer maintaining aircraft.
By 1943, he was in flight school; by the next spring, a P-51 Mustang pilot, escorting
bombers out of England. On his ninth mission, he was shot down and eluded capture only with
the help of a French farmer and the Resistance. When he was ordered stateside to recover, he
successfully petitioned Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower to allow him to instead return to
the skies over Europe.
Blessed with 20-10 eyesight – his fellow pilots
swore he could see forever – General Yeager became
a top fighter pilot, shooting down in one day the five
planes needed for designation as an “ace”; one day a
month later, he downed four more.
After the war, General Yeager found himself
in the same place he was at the beginning of his
service; on a maintenance team. It proved to be the
High Flight 4 October - December 2020
opportunity of his lifetime. He worked on aircraft at Wright Field in Ohio, and after any plane
was tuned up or repaired, he made sure he was the pilot to test it. That way, he got to fly
almost every fighter on the flight line.
His flying ability caught the attention of Colonel Albert Boyd, who was trying to build a
cadre of top pilots for what became the military’s first test-pilot division. Boyd would soon get
to test the mettle of these recruits. Across the continent, at Muroc Air Base in California, Bell
Aircraft was testing its X-1 with civilian test pilots, who then were considered superior to
military “fly boys”. Bell engineers were confident the plane could break the sound barrier
(Mach 1 is 742 miles per hour at sea level; slightly less as altitude increases), but funding
problems threatened to ground the tests. The cost of hiring civilian pilots was too high for the
postwar US government. The Army Air Corps, soon to be christened the Air Force, assumed
responsibility for the tests.
The next task for Boyd was choosing the X-1 pilot. Some superior told Boyd the pilot
should be a West Pointer, others said he had to have an engineering degree. But Boyd and his
assistant, Colonel Fred Ascani, kept coming back to a junior officer.
“Though (Yeager) lacked a college education, Boyd considered him the best instinctive
pilot he had ever seen,” Air Force historian James Young wrote in the book, The Quest of Mach
One.
Ascani was more expansive: “Yeager flies an airplane as if he is welded to it – as if he is
an integral part of it. His ‘feel’ for any strange airplane is instinctive, intuitive and as natural as if
had flown it for 100 or more hours….” No one, earthbound or ethereal, will ever be a clone of
Yeager. Never, ever.”
As the flight team traveled to Muroc, the only doubts about the young pilot seemed to
be whether his superiors could rein in his sense of adventure. “He was a little hard to tame,”
said Jack Russell, crew chief on the X-1 program. “I’d flown with him before and we were never
right side up.”
On his first test of the X-1, a glide test, the rocket plane and General Yeager were
released from the dark belly of a B-29 into the blinding sunlight at 18,000 feet. General Yeager
immediately piloted the plane into a series of unchoreographed rolls.
The danger of the mission, however, was always apparent. A few months earlier,
Britain’s top test pilot, Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., died as his plane disintegrated as it passed .9
Mach. The first X-1 pilot, Jack Woolams, died in a practice flight on another plane.
“Fatalities occurred at a rate that would be considered absolutely unacceptable today,”
Walter Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, said. As planes
approached the sound barrier, mysterious forces would freeze controls or shred the fuselage.
The culprit, theorists in aerodynamics said, was a phenomenon called “compressibility”. As a
plane flies well below the speed of sound, the fuselage pushes the air around it. As a plane
approaches the speed of sound, the air moving around the aircraft starts accelerating. When it
collides with the slower air, shock waves are created, building up on the wing and violently
shaking the plane. To counter this, the X-1 was designed in the shape of a .50-caliber bullet,
which breaks the sound barrier without losing stability. It was fueled by 600 gallons of ethyl
alcohol and liquid oxygen, as volatile a mixture as ever used before. “He was sitting on top of a
bomb,” said Bob Hoover, the X-1 backup pilot who would become one of the world’s leading
acrobatic pilots.
High Flight 5 October - December 2020
There was an escape hatch – directly in front of the plane’s razor-thin wings, which
would have sliced General Yeager in half if he had tried to bail out. General Yeager’s only
protection was a leather football helmet, which he adapted for the purposed with his penknife.
He dubbed the craft Glamour Glennis after his wife, as he had done with his combat fighters.
After three glide test flights, the team was ready for a powered test. After flipping on
one of the plane’s four engine chambers, General Yeager later recalled, “the impact nearly
knocks you back into last week…. We are no longer an airplane: We’re a skyrocket. You’re not
flying. You’re holding on to a tiger’s tail.”
After three glide and eight powered test flights, General Yeager thought he and the X-1
were ready to break the barrier. But on the morning of Oct 14, he had to overcome two
significant obstacles, one mechanical, one physical. Project engineer, Jackie Ridley solved both.
As the X-1 had approached the sound barrier during the previous test flight, a shock wave
rendered the tail’s elevator useless. Without this stabilizing device, General Yeager could not
control altitude well enough to increase speed. Ridley correctly surmised that the X-1’s
revolutionary moveable horizontal tail itself could instead be moved by the pilot in one-quarter
degree adjustments, having a similar effect as the elevator. Other project engineers disagreed.
“Chuck was aware, as I was, that the four Ph.D’s on the ground thought we were going
to kill Chuck and lose the airplane,” Robert Cardenas, the pilot of the B-29, recalled of that
morning. “I said, ‘Chuck, if Ridley’s right, you’re going to be a hero. But if he’s wrong, you’re
going to be dead.’”
The physical problem was more embarrassing. Two days before, General Yeager had
broken two ribs when his horse tossed him while riding with his wife. He secretly had a private
doctor wrap his torso for the flight.
After confessing to Ridley, he realized it would be too painful to close the X-1’s hatch
with his right hand and the cockpit was too confining to reach across and close it with his left.
The mission was salvaged by a broom stick, which Ridley fashioned into a lever that could close
the hatch. After being dropped from the bomber, General Yeager fired all four chambers in
succession, then shut off two of them. When, as expected, the plane started buffeting as it
passed .90 Mach, he tested adjustments of the tail. Satisfied, General Yeager leveled the plane
and fired a third cylinder. The buffeting stopped, the mythical sonic wall had been shattered.
On the way down, General Yeager did victory rolls. “I was thunderstruck,” he wrote in
Yeager, an autobiography. “After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a
perfectly paved speedway…. Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade.”
Over the next decade, General Yeager cemented his reputation as the greatest test
pilot, both for repeatedly setting speed and altitude records and for coolly maneuvering
through catastrophic failures. His stature soared on 12 December 1953. Moments after setting
the speed record again – at Mach 2.44 (1,650 miles per hour) – his X-1A started an out-of-
control spinning and tumbling plunge of about 10 miles in a little more than a minute. The
violence of the descent slammed his head against the fuselage, cracking the glass canopy, and
generated G-forces of plus 8 (more than twice what space shuttle astronauts felt during
ascent.) Yet General Yeager was able to regain control at 20,000 feet. Rival test pilot Scott
Crossfield called it “the fasted and wildest airplane in history.”
In 1961, General Yeager was named commander of the new Aerospace Research Pilot
School, designed to transform military test pilots into astronauts. Because a college degree was
High Flight 6 October - December 2020
required to be part of the astronaut corps, General Yeager never made it himself. Glennis
Yeager died in 1990. They had four children: Donald, Michael, Sharon and Susan.
General Yeager stayed active, mainly by hiking, including climbing 14,494-foot Mount
Whitney every year for many years. He broke the sound barrier again in an Air Force plane at
age 74 in 1997 as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of his X-1 flight. He married Victoria
Scott D’Angelo in 2003.
For much of his life, General Yeager was a footnote in history. That had changed in 1979,
when Tom Wolfe’s epic book, The Right Stuff was released. In his account of the early days of
America’s space program, Wolfe cast the young Yeager as the cowboy of the modern age, a
strong, virile, independent sort who let his actions do his talking. “Tom got a little emotional,”
General Yeager said.
Few however, would downplay the flight that shattered both the sound barrier and the
myths surrounding it. “This was undoubtedly the most significant event in the history of
aerospace that took place between the Wright brothers and the landing on the moon,” said
Richard P. Hallion, a leading Air Force historian. “It started a revolution in high-speed flight. And
that revolution opened up the world as we know it today: a world of international global air
transportation and international, global military air power.” The flight’s pilot put it more plainly:
“Break Mach 1, don’t bust your ass, and don’t screw it up. That was it.” (Michael Bailey, Boston
Globe, 8 December 2020)
High Flight 7 October - December 2020
Museum Happenings
Note from the Editor:
If you have photos or articles on happenings at the Selfridge Military Air Museum, please share
them with Lori @ library-archives@selfridgeairmuseum.org. Also, we are trying to highlight
“new” volunteers in each newsletter. Team Chiefs, if you have a “new” volunteer on your team
that has not been highlighted in the newsletter in the last couple years (2018-2020), please ask
them to write a short bio and send a photo to Lori at above email.
ALL VOLUNTEERS: If you have any updates to your information that you provided at the time of
submitting your application, please send the updates: email, phone, address, emergency
contact person and their phone number, etc. to the above email address so that Lori or Pam
can keep the Volunteer Register and Emergency Contact List up-to-date. Thank you.
Lori Nye
Newsletter Editor/Library-Archives Team Chief
High Flight 8 October - December 2020
Museum Happenings (cont.)
Go-Fund-Me
The Selfridge Military Air Museum has launched a “Go-Fund-Me” initiative
to raise funds for improvements to the Museum’s infrastructure. We are
hoping that we will be able to build a “new” home for the USMC FG-1D
Corsair that is currently being restored by our restoration team and the T-6 ‘Texan’. Please help
if you can!! For more information, watch the video by clicking on the link below or copying and
pasting the link into your URL bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCoHEr0GNy4. If
you’re interested in helping us out with this project, you can make a donation by clicking on this
link or by copying/pasting the link into your URL bar: https://www.gofundme.com/f/7tqvzq-
maghaselfridge-military-air-museum?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-159966432152-
8c49a1875e334fda&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_email%2B
1137-update-supporters-v5b
Kroger Community Rewards Program
HELP Support the
Selfridge Military Air Museum!
Kroger Community Rewards Program:
This program will link purchases made with your Kroger’s Plus Card to the Selfridge Military Air
Museum so that a portion of the sale is donated back to the Selfridge Military Air Museum. Directions
for signing up with this program can be found on the Museum’s website:
https://selfridgeairmuseum.org/museum-fund-raising/
Last quarter the Museum earned over $140. So, if you have not signed up the Museum to earn
money from your Kroger purchases, please check out the website (link above) and sign up your Kroger
card to help out the Selfridge Military Air Museum.
Amazon Smile:
For information about the Amazon Smile Program that the
museum is enrolled in, check out the website:
https://selfridgeairmuseum.org/museum-fund-raising/
Just received notice that the Museum earned about $38 through this program. I
know that we could earn a whole lot more since everyone seems to be buying online these
days instead of in the brick-and-mortar stores. So, if you purchase from Amazon on a regular basis or even on
an irregular basis, please, please, please remember to make your purchases through the Amazon Smile
Program and list the Selfridge Military Air Museum to benefit from your purchases. See the link above to see
how to do this on the Museum’s website.
High Flight 9 October - December 2020
Museum Happenings (cont.)
PRINTS FOR SALE IN GIFT SHOP and by SPECIAL ORDER
Starting in the Museum 2021 season, ALL volunteers will receive a 25%
discount on merchandise purchased in the Museum’s Gift Shop, excluding
soda/water/chips. This discount is good only in the Gift Shop.
Per CMSgt Wayne T. Fetty, Executive Director, Selfridge Military Air Museum
With our eyes on a future home for our beloved FG-1D Corsair that is currently
undergoing restoration by our team volunteers, we have available in the Gift Shop or through
mail order using the order form from our website prints or Giclee canvas of ‘Corsair Over
Grosse Ile’ for sale. The Museum is still in need of funding for the advancement of the
proposed “new” hangar to house our beloved FG-1D Corsair and T-6 “Texan”. These prints and
canvases would make a great addition to your military art collection in your ‘man cave’ or ‘she-
shed’.
Our FG-1D Corsair, when it finally makes it out of
Restoration, will be painted in the markings of
USMC Squadron VMF 251, who flew the Goodyear-
produced FG-1D Corsair from Grosse Ile Naval Air
Station from 1946 through 1950. In 1950, the unit
was activated for the Korean War. Before
deploying to Korea, VMF-251 converted to the
Douglas A-1D Skyraider.
Corsair over Grosse Ile
‘Miller Time’: Lt. Col. Don Miller’s flight to the Smithsonian F-4C ‘William Tell Final’
We also have a print of the Sherman tank ranging in price from $15 - $125. Check out the website for more details.
High Flight 10 October - December 2020Museum Happenings (cont.)
Prints of the Corsair over Grosse Ile are available in the Museum’s Gift Shop. Prints on Canvas
of these aircraft are available as special order. Please see the Museum’s website at:
https://selfridgeairmuseum.org.
The Museum Gift Shop has coffee mugs to match or visit ‘the Shop’ on our website!
Other merchandise available from the website:
Kudos from VP-93
Facebook page on our 1st
annual calendar:
Greetings Shipmates and
Happy Holidays from
Subic Bay P.I. My
retirement home . I
just received my 2021
Calendar that I ordered
from the Selfridge Air
Museum. Well done to all
involved in its pub. I was just wondering where the
photo of the P-3 came from. Wouldn't it be nice to see our famous Fly-by the Renaissance
Center in the next calendar? Just throwing it out there. As you were! From Jack Van
Kuren
High Flight 11 October - December 2020Museum Happenings (cont.)
Gift Shop/Museum Host Team:
This team is taking a well-earned break after the 2020 season, though shortened by a
couple of months, it was still a fairly busy season. Looking for some great Christmas ideas, stop
by the Museum on a Tuesday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and see either Pam or Lori. Pam, our
fairly new Admin. Volunteer, can be found most Tuesdays in the outer office inside the back
entrance to the Museum building. Lori can generally be found in Building 1008, Library-
Archives (door faces the Air Park). Or, you can visit the Museum’s website at:
https://selfridgeairmuseum.org.
We are looking for “new” faces to help fill out our Host Team for 2021. If you have
some free hours and wish to help us out, check out the Museum’s website at:
https://selfridgeairmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Museum-Volunteer-Packet-
Application.pdf, and fill out the Volunteer Application and mail it or bring it to the Museum.
Address is: 27333 C Street, Bldg 1011, Selfridge ANG Base, MI 48045. We try to have our hosts
dedicate at least 8 days throughout the season, but if that is not something that can be done,
sign up for only what you can do. Please consider volunteering for our 2021 Season, which
(hopefully) begins 3 April 2021 through 31 October 2021.
Restoration Team:
Our Restoration team continues its work on our Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, FG-1D Corsair
WWII fighter, which required extensive restoration work. The historic aircraft was originally
stationed at nearby Grosse Ile Naval Air Station. The Corsair restoration project will also have its
own dedicated display hangar on the museum grounds and is expected to be completed as
early as 2022 (hopefully).
Air Park Team:
Our Air Park Team will manage to keep themselves occupied with other projects over the
Winter months when it will not be possible to work on maintenance/restoration issues with the
aircraft and other vehicles in the Museum’s air park. Cleaning and painting the C-130 was the
primary project for 2020 so that at least the left side, nose, and tail was finished in time for Lt
Col Nigro’s Memorial Service. Both sides of the fuselage, belly, underside of the wings and tail
along with engine nacelles were completed before the season ended and the weather became
too cold to work outdoors. Starting in the Spring of 2021, the Air Park Team will start working
on washing/painting the vertical tail, top of the fuselage and wings and add the stencils that still
need to be applied. One of the Air Park team members who helps out on the displays in the
museum during the winter months is Jim Ashford, pictured below with a brief bio. Jim started
out volunteering and working on the 107th Observation Squadron display of the air base at
Membry Field, England, though he only became an official member of the Museum Volunteer
Team in July 2020.
High Flight 12 October - December 2020Museum Happenings (cont.)
Ed Cuneo, Air Park Team Chief assisted BG Rolf
Mammen in laying a wreath at the grave of Lt Col Louis J. and
Susan Nigro as part of the Wreaths Across America program.
Jim was born in 1952 in Highland Park and spent part of his
youth in Nankin Township/Westland, graduating from Bentley
High School in Livonia in 1970. Six months later he joined the
USAF, working for 20 years as a long-range air defense radar
operator. He spent time serving in Okinawa, West Germany,
Philippines, California, New Mexico, New York, and Louisiana
retiring from the Air Force in 1991 when he returned home to
Michigan.
Following his return home, he worked for an
automotive stamping plant and then went to work for TSA in
2002 as a Transportation Security Officer, working at Detroit/Metro Airport. He finally retired
for good in 2017 and became an active volunteer at the Selfridge Military Air Museum in the
Summer of 2020.
His main hobby is building scale plastic models and he belongs to two clubs in the Metro
Detroit area: IPMS Warren and IPMS Livonia, chapters of the International Plastic Modelers
Society/USA. He also enjoys reading, air combat and sci-fi subjects mainly.
Library Research Team, Archives & Uniform Shop:
The Library-Archives Team, minus the Team Chief and Joe Mazzara, is taking a brief hiatus
because of Covid. Hopefully, they will be back after the holidays in January 2021. Our newest
volunteer, Dawn Dobbelaer, who is working on the re-cataloging of the library’s book collection
will be starting college in January. She’ll still be volunteering, though her hours will be
somewhat reduced to her college schedule. Lori is continuing to relabel and photograph the
High Flight 13 October - December 2020Museum Happenings (cont.)
museum’s artifacts (those currently on display, those recently removed from display, and those
in cold storage. Hopefully one day soon, the Artifact Inventory will be organized with photos
and everything will be labeled properly. Lori has also taken over the artifact lists of uniforms in
the Uniform Storage area of Building 1008 with the retirement of Jerry Dressig. Joe Mazzara is
continuing research, writing and organizing our information in our Aircraft Accident Files for the
archives, a slow process! Joe is currently working on this project from home
Grounds Team:
The Grounds Team volunteers continue to work their magic and keep the Museum Air Park and
grounds looking nice, though they’ll be taking a break for the winter months, except to maybe
keep the snow from the driveways and sidewalks in the museum complex, a task that was
always adequately handled by Bob Hudson, previous Assistant Director, before his retirement.
Maintenance & Operations:
Our Maintenance & Acting Operations Team Chief, Gerry Ridener, is still taking it easy for a
while due to some health concerns. Hopefully, all will be well with him soon and he’ll be able
to return in the very near future. Until then, Roger Krings who retired as Assistant Director
several years ago, and serves on the Museum Board of Directors, has stepped in to try to fill
Gerry’s shoes. Gerry did make a few appearances @ the museum, but is back on leave for a
little while longer.
Other teams available to volunteer with for the Museum are the: Weekend Host Team
(Docents), IT, Maintenance, Air Park, and Visual Information. So, looking for something to do
in your spare time, consider filling out a ‘Volunteer Application’ from the Museum’s website
(http://www.selfridgeairmuseum.org) and start your career as a Tuesday/Friday volunteer or a
weekend docent. Come on, join our team!!
Please sign up today!
High Flight 14 October - December 2020From the Archives
By Joseph N. Mazzara
CHARLES LINDBERGH AND THE PARSON PILOT
In 1917, Canada would celebrate its 50th year of confederation on a low key due to the
Great War still smoldering oversees. Ten years later, with the war behind them, Canadians
were ready for a party. Canada celebrated its 60th year with a three-day Diamond Jubilee
beginning on July 1, 1927. Dignitaries filled grandstands and the halls of Parliament, while
parades, floats and other festivities entertained the huge crowds. Most of the VIPs were home
grown, including Freeman Freeman-Thomas (not a typo, that’s his name) the Viscount of
Willingdon and Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King. Perhaps the biggest draw of all,
however, was the appearance of American Col. Charles Lindbergh, who had only weeks earlier
completed his famous transatlantic flight. Lindbergh was to fly his Spirit of St. Louis Ryan
aircraft over the streets of Ottawa accompanied by a squadron of Curtiss P-1 pursuit planes
flown by army pilots from Selfridge Field in Michigan.
Lindbergh and the squadron of twelve P-1s took off from Selfridge early on the morning
of July 2, the second day of the Jubilee. They arrived over the skies of Ottawa at about one
o’clock in the afternoon – an hour later than expected because no one had informed the fliers
that Canada was on daylight savings time. After flying around the capital a few times,
Lindbergh landed to sign autographs while the Selfridge fliers wowed the crowd of thousands
from above.
The twelve Selfridge planes were arrayed in small V-patterns with four groups of three
planes in each formation. The leader of the fourth formation was Lt. J. Thad Johnson,
commander of the 27th Squadron at Selfridge Field. He
was a seasoned flier who, before joining the United
States army, had been a Presbyterian minister in
Dallas, Texas. Known thereafter as the Parson Pilot, he
was well-liked and respected by his men. Six years
earlier, he had gained his fifteen minutes of fame after
he bailed out of his stricken plane at 3,000 feet over
the Alleghany mountains in New York, and parachuted
safely to the ground. It was one of the earliest
demonstrations of the effectiveness of a parachute in
a real emergency.
Behind Lt. Johnson in the formation was Lt. H. A. Curtiss P-1B Hawk
Woodring. As the pilots completed their
demonstration, and were about to head for the landing area, a horrible mistake occurred. Lt.
Woodring was following closely behind Lt. Johnson when Johnson’s plane dipped down and to
the left as though preparing to land. Seeing this, Lt. Woodring advanced to fill the void when Lt.
Johnson’s plane suddenly rose back up again. Woodring’s plane hit the back of Johnson’s craft,
shredding the elevator and sending Johnson into a nosedive at about 100 feet. Lt. Johnson
managed to jump out of his plane but with such little time and distance the chute never
High Flight 15 October - December 2020opened. Lt. Johnson hit the ground with such force that he left an “eighteen-inch” deep crater
in the ground and died instantly.
The crowd of thousands was horrified. Lindbergh, who was supposed to be whisked
away to Parliament Hill for various ceremonies, first came to the scene and paid his respects to
the fallen airman. Later reports described Lindbergh’s face as “ashen” and his address to
Parliament was shortened.
Canada grieved deeply for the American Parson Pilot, and honored him greatly. The flag
at Parliament was lowered to half-staff and bells tolled throughout the city of Ottawa. Lt.
Johnson was given a full military
funeral, his body lying in state in
Parliament, guarded by men of the
Royal Canadian Air Force. Tens of
thousands watched solemnly as his
body was drawn slowly through the
streets on a British gun carriage
displaying the stars and stripes. The
cortege stopped in front of the
Chateau Laurier hotel where seven of
the Selfridge airmen swooped down
from the sky and soared back up again
in tribute to their lost friend and
commander.
Lt. Johnson’s funeral cortege in Ottawa Lt. Johnson’s body was sent by
train back to Michigan where he was
transferred to the care of U.S. Army officers at Union Station. As the funeral train left the
station for Selfridge Field, Col. Lindbergh flew his Spirit of St. Louis over the train, dropping
peonies over the scene as a final tribute to this fallen pilot. The next day, Lt. J. Thad Johnson,
the Parson Pilot was buried in a cemetery in Fenton, Michigan. To this day, there is a road in
Ottawa named Thad Johnson Private.
Joe Mazzara is a weekend docent, Library-Archives volunteer, and researcher at the Selfridge Military Air Museum
High Flight 16 October - December 2020Michigan Activity Pass:
The Selfridge Military Air Museum has joined the Michigan Activity Pass.
The pass will be: Buy one Adult, Get One Child (ages 4-12) Free. Check
the Michigan Activity Pass website: https://tln.lib.mi.us/map/ for
locating the Museum’s available pass for our 2020 Season. If you
haven’t checked-out the ‘Michigan Activity Pass’, you really are missing
some wonderful opportunities. There are some really great places to
visit for free or with reduced prices with the pass.
If you have never explored this website and used the Michigan
Activity Pass to locate a museum of interest to visit, it’s definitely something to explore!
Macomb County Heritage Alliance
Passport Program
The Selfridge Military Air Museum participated in the
Alliance’s ‘Passport Program’ at its debut a couple years
ago. The Alliance has restarted this program and passports
should be ready to be picked up at the Selfridge Military Air
Museum during our ‘open season’, which begins on
Saturday, 13 June 2020 through Saturday, 31 October 2020.
So, grab your Passport and travel through history by visiting
the local area’s museums and historical sites. For more
information on the program, visit:
(https://www.macombcountyheritagealliance.org/).
If you have never participated in this Passport Program that was first offered in 2018, it is
something to consider doing with your wife, children, grandchildren, or extended family
members. Passports are “FREE”, though there may be a small cost to visit the various
museums. Our Passport Program has ended for 2020, though the booklets are still available in
the Gift Shop and other historic sites and museums may still be open through December 2020,
if you’re interested in participating. Of course, visits will be under “new” restrictions due to
Covid.
Editorial Board:
Executive Director: Wayne T. Fetty
Editor: Lori Nye
Contributing Writers:
Joseph Mazzara
High Flight 17 October - December 2020MAGHA MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
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