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4th Quarter 2008 Hi
Twirly Birds, Hope
you all had a busy summer and
didn't miss receiving the 3rd Quarter T-Bird Newsletter. We recently
returned
from a four month Motor Home trip throughout the north, east, and
mid-U.S. The
travel, plus a new computer server and accompanying problems, precluded
the
time and ability to get a letter put together. I
am sad to report the passing of two
Twirly Bird Legends this past summer; i.e., our most senior T-Bird,
John M.
Miller and our most highly decorated T-Bird, Medal of Honor winner, Ed
(Too
Tall) Freeman. John Miller, an
aviation legend, born
in 1905, passed away this summer at the age of 103. John started his
aviation
career early in life, having soloed on his 20th birthday on December
15, 1923,
flying a Curtis JN-4. John was a Founding Member of the Twirly Birds, a
test
pilot for Kellett Autogiro, and made the first transcontinental flight
with a
rotary wing aircraft in 1931. Other “firsts” in the rotary wing
business
included operating the first scheduled autogiro service from the roof
of the Philadelphia
Post Office in 1939 and 1940 completing nearly 3000 air mail flights,
and
performed the first loop-the-loop in an autogiro at the National Air
Races in
Cleveland, Ohio in 1932. In
addition to his rotary wing
experiences, John flew for United Air Lines on their transcontinental
run,
flying a Boeing 247D. He was a Captain for Eastern Airlines for 25
years,
retiring at 60 years of age, and to keep himself busy, purchased a Bell
47G
operating in the New York State area under part 135. John won his Naval
Aviator
Wings (#4821) and signed on with the U.S. Marines (USMC-R). He was
recognized
and awarded the “Honorary Fellow, Society of Experimental Test Pilots”.
In
addition to the all of the above,
John was awarded the coveted Twirly Bird “Les Morris” award in 1992. John flew in his own Beechcraft Bonanza until
he was well over 100 years of age. When I called John to wish him a
happy 100th
birthday, he told me that he was going to renew his Instrument Flight
Rating,
but that he was not going to fly his Beech to our T-Bird meeting in
Orlando, FL
as the fuel prices were too high. I believe it was Slats who told me
the story
that one day John flew his Beech into LaGuardia Airport in New York
City, one
of the busiest airports in the U.S. He taxied up to the General
Aviation
Terminal, and went in to rent a car. The auto rental agency asked for
his drivers
license, and upon reviewing it told John that they were very sorry, but
they
could not rent him an auto because he was too old. John
protested that he had just flown his own
airplane into LaGuardia, but his protesting was to no avail, as the
clerk said
he could do nothing for him, as it was company policy not to rent an
auto to
anyone as old as he was. Guess John had
to take a taxi from that time on ‘till the end. Ed (too tall) Freeman—a
giant of a
man, a man of renown. Bill Yarber
reported that it was his privilege to know Ed Freeman for the past 30
Years.
Bill first met him when he was a Bell salesman covering the Northwest
States
and had the opportunity to fly with him one time. He was a real
salt-of-the-earth character, not given to political correctness in many
cases. Bill knew that Ed had been involved
in the Ia
Drang battle, but not until he read his Medal of Honor resume did he
realize
all that he had done. Ed’s
Medal of Honor Award was delayed
by political differences with Clinton and until he was out of the
office of
President. The recipient can determine
when he wants to receive the medal. Ed’s explanation for his delaying
the award
presentation was that he didn’t want Clinton’s filthy fingers touching
my
medal. What is generally not known is that Ed was a veteran of
three wars:
WWII, Korea, and Vietnam and that be won a battlefield commission in
Korea
fighting on Pork Chop Hill. Bill Yarber
obtained permission from Joe Galloway to reprint the following article
in our
newsletter. FAREWELL
TO AN AMERICAN HERO By Joseph
Galloway McClatchy
Newspapers For
the
better part of 60 years, two old Army pilots argued over many a meal
and drink
as to which of them was the second best pilot in the world. The two
shared the
cockpits of old Beaver prop planes and Huey helicopters; they shared
rooms in
military hooches all over the world; they shared a love of practical
and
impractical jokes and they shared an undying love flying and the Army. They
also
shared membership in a very small and revered fraternity of fewer than
105 men
who are entitled to wear around their necks the light blue ribbon and
gold
pointed star that is the Medal of Honor, America’s highest decoration
for
heroism above and beyond the call of duty. Their
story was told in a book my buddy Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and I wrote 15
years ago
titled, “We Were Soldiers Once—-and Young” and in the Mel Gibson movie,
“We
Were Soldiers”, released in the spring of 2002. ‘Too Tall’ and ‘Old
Snake’ were
ably portrayed in the movie. Their argument over which of them is the
Best
Pilot in the Whole World sadly came to an end when our friend and
comrade-in-arms Major Ed (Too Tall to Fly) Freeman slipped the surly
bonds of
earth and headed off to Fiddlers Green, where the souls of departed
cavalrymen
gather by dispensation of God Himself. Too
Tall
Ed was 80 years old when he died in a hospital in Boise, Idaho, after
long
being ill with Parkinson’s disease. He turned down a full dress hero’s
funeral
in Arlington National Cemetery in favor of a hometown Service and
burial in the
National Cemetery in Boise, close to the rivers he loved to fish and
the
mountains he flew through in his second career flying for the U.S.
Forest
Service. A
few days
before the end, his old buddy Lt.Col. Bruce (Ancient Serpent 6)
Crandall came
to the hospital to say his good-byes to Too Tall Ed, and to enjoy one
last round
of arguing with Ed over that question of which of them was the best
pilot in
the world. In a fine display of the
sort of gallows humor that has always helped men who know the horrors
of war
keep some of their sanity, Bruce told Ed that he intended to settle the
question once and for all by borrowing a helicopter, sling-loading Ed’s
coffin
below it and then lowering it into the grave where Too Tall will
rest---
something that only the Best Pilot in the World could do. Something that only the best friend in the
world could tell a dying man. These
two
men received their Medals of Honor long after the deeds that earned
them in the
furious battles of the La Drang Valley in November of 1965 at the dawn
of our
long, bitter war in Vietnam. President George W. Bush presented Too
Tall Ed
with his medal in 2001 and hung the medal around Old Snake Crandall’s
neck in
2007. When
their
friends in the l Battalion, 7th U.S. Cavalry were surrounded and
fighting for
their lives near the Cambodian border and needed ammunition and water
and
helicopters to carry out the gravely wounded, Bruce and Ed flew their
Huey
helicopters, again and again, into a small clearing swept by North
Vietnamese
machine gun and rifle fire. I rode into landing zone X-Ray sitting atop
a case
of hand grenades on one of Bruce Crandall’s missions after dark on
November 14,
1965, wondering if one of those bullets might turn us all into a puff
of greasy
smoke. I rode out of X-Ray after the battle ended on Nov.16th, again on
Bruce’s
helicopter. In
later
years, Bruce, Ed, and I would joke about the love-hate relationship
that I and
the infantrymen had with the chopper pilots: Hated them for flying us
into Hell
and dumping us off; loved them for coming back to get us when it was
time to
leave. Mostly we laughed ourselves silly
as first Ed, then Bruce, recounted tales of one escapade after another;
of
moonlight requisition raids against the U.S. Air Force for needed or
merely
desired goodies unavailable from Army supply; of the time Bruce was
caught
trying to sling-load a 10 kilowatt generator off its pad on an air base. Now,
Too
Tall Ed Freeman, a much larger than life-size hero at 6 feet 7 inches
tall and
a much better friend than we deserved, is gone, and we are left with
too large
a hole in our hearts and in our dwindling ranks. Cleared
for Takeoff, Ed! Received
a great letter from Stuart
Gregg, Jr. regarding his visit to the T-Bird meeting in Orlando—-his
first
meeting in 40 years. Stu had hoped to meet and greet some of the
Founding
Members, but unfortunately we were not blessed with their attendance at
that
particular meeting. The meeting was somewhat unusual as one of our most
consistent, favorite Twirly Birds, Wes Lematta and his companies,
Columbia
Helicopters, were celebrating their 50th anniversary right across the
hail from
our meeting. Wes and Jim Lematta attended the T-Bird meeting and after
the
important presentations, they invited all T-Birds to come across the
hail and
help them celebrate. Needless to say, a motion to adjourn, seconded in
a split
second, followed by a unanimous vote to adjourn, we all went over to
help
Columbia Helicopters celebrate their 50th. Great
party! Anyway,
referring back to Stu’s letter
in which he corrected the T-Bird listing of the first T-Bird flights.
Stu
enclosed a copy of his Army Air Force log showing his first flights in
a YR-4B
and that Stu soloed on December 8, 1943. A few months before this the
445
Fighter Tactical Test Squadron of the 50th Fighter Group at the school
of
Applied Tactics at Orlando Air Base had been tasked by Wright Field to
provide
two pilots to go up to Lansdowne, PA to the Kellett Aircraft factory to
check
out in the YO-60 Autogiros for field testing. Dave
Driskill, the Kellett test pilot
(the job that John Miller had held some years before) checked out Stu
and his
Lt. in this strange aircraft and they flew these aircraft back to
Orlando.
Following the testing of the YO-60s, Major Frank Gregory of Wright
Field asked
that Stu be sent up to the Sikorsky factory to check out in the YR-4B
to bring
back to Orlando. When they got to the factory, the aircraft had been
sent to
India. He was then sent over to Frank Erickson at the Coast Guard
Station
(Floyd Bennett Field) where Stu Graham checked him out. Stu then flew
the YR-4B
for 26 hours or so, but went back to Orlando without an aircraft. These
were
some of the early activities of flying and testing rotary wing aircraft
with
most of the manufacturers up until about 1960. Thank
you Stu for the
addition/correction to some of our very early T-Bird records. I hope
that you
will find your way clear to join the Twirly Birds at our gathering in
Anaheim
next February. We have some really old pioneers in the west and I’m
sure you
will enjoy meeting and greeting all the younger Twirly Birds and
possibly some
of your Founding Twirly Bird acquaintances as well. Speaking
of our next Twirly Bird
annual gathering, I would like to alert you to the dates: February 22nd
through
the 24th. Traditionally our
meeting is the first evening of the convention, so mark your calendars
and plan
to meet with us on Sunday the 22nd of February, 2009 at 5:00 PM. Bill
Yarber is
already in meetings with HAl and will get our reception/meeting room
assignment
as soon as the decisions are made. I will include all details in the
next
letter, which you should receive the first week in February. We
were understaffed, and thus
overwhelmed with all the new members we accepted this past year, and as
a
result, all new members did not receive the T-Bird lapel pin, the
T-Bird patch,
and the (suitable for framing) Twirly Bird Certificate. Any member who
does not
have these items, please contact me at the address below. jimchris@gvtc.com
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