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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Sponsor

Honored by:
Mr. Kenneth W. Parent

Warren Parent enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces pilot cadet training program six weeks after Pearl Harbor. He spent the next two months at Keesler Air Base, Biloxi, for basic training. Once basic was completed he was officially made an Aviation Cadet. He completed six months of flight training in fighter aircraft, graduating to the P-40 Warhawk and completing a course in both aerial and ground strafing gunnery. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and was awarded his pilot's wings in the summer of 1943 with class 43-1, 70th Army Air Forces Flight Training Detachment, South East Army Air Force Training Center, Lafayette, Louisiana.

Most of the class was sent on immediate assignment to fly a huge backlog of newly assembled P-47 Thunderbolt fighters from the assembly plant in Lafayette, Indiana, to the Atlantic Overseas Service Command for shipment to Britain. Our group delivered over 300 planes in one month without the loss of a single plane.

Parent was then sent to Little Rock for instrument flying rating and upon completing the course spent the next six months ferrying the new, modified P-51D Mustang to various air bases all over the country.

He promoted to first lieutenant and was sent to Homestead Air Base, Florida for 4-engine transition into the C-87 cargo plane. After completing the course, he was assigned to the "Green Project" in Miami, officially named the Air Transport Service. Our mission was to fly supplies to North Africa and Europe via the South Atlantic Ocean. This resulted in "crossing the pond" 26 times. Return cargo was high-ranking officers, who were to be trained for the invasion of Japan. Most all of them were deathly afraid of flying and made our 14-16 hour flight back to the States a nightmare.

Parent was again assigned to Homestead Air Base for transition flying into the B-29 for the Pacific theater. After the atomic bomb, this job was over. He was promoted to captain and given an honorable discharge in January 1946.