Foil: 14 Panel: Retired United Pilots Association Column: 2 Line: 31

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

I was born in Miami Florida on 14 April 1930 and lived in Miami Shores until graduation from Miami Edison Senior High in June 1948. I attended George Washington University in Washington, DC and graduated from there in June 1952 with a BA in Government (Foreign Affairs). While in college I was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. With the Korean War still on I enlisted in the Naval Air Reserve at NAS Anacostia on 8 October 1949 and attended monthly week-end drills and summer training until graduation when I was commissioned an Ensign in the Naval Reserve and reported for active duty aboard the USS Osberg (DE-538) in August 1952. After qualifying as Officer of the Deck I applied for and was accepted for flight training in October 1953 and was designated a Naval Aviator in December 1954. I served the next two years flying from the aircraft carriers Antietam, Tarawa and Valley Forge out of Quonset Point. R. I. with VS-39 (Air Anti-submarine Squadron) until released from active duty in December 1956. The following month I was hired by Capital Airlines as a co-pilot on 4 January 1957 and rejoined the naval air reserve flying out of Anacostia Naval Air Station on days off from the airline. In December 1960 I was recalled to active duty at Anacostia where I originally began my military career. During the next four years I accepted a regular Navy commission, was involved in the disestablishment of NAS Anacostia and the opening of Naval Station Andrews. I volunteered for Operation Deepfreeze in the Antarctic in 1962 and flew with VX-6 (Air Development Squadron) for two years and was honored by the US Board on Geographic Names for my contributions to the Antarctic Program by having Mt. Andes, located at 85.53 South, 146.46 West named after me. I was forced to resign my commission due to a medical problem in 1964 but upon successful removal of my tumor I regained a reserve commission and was hired by United Airlines which had acquired Capital Airlines by purchase. I resumed flying concurrently with the naval air reserve attaining the rank of Captain and commanding a VR squadron until retirement in 1972 and for United where I also flew as Captain until the mandatory FAA retirement age of 60 in April 1990. At that time I bought a 45 foot sailboat and began cruising with my wife. Two years later we crossed the Atlantic and cruised all around the Mediterranean for the next four years until we sold the boat in Palma de Mallorca in 1971. We returned to the US to settle down and take up the retirement life. When not on our own boat my wife and I crewed extensively on bare boat charters in the Caribbean, down the Suez Canal and the Red Sea as far as Oman and some of the canals of France and Holland. Retirement life now finds us living in Stuart, Florida, mentoring at Pinewood Elementary School, volunteering with the Stuart Police Dept. and trying to be respectable at the Willoughby Golf Club where we now live.