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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. Raymond A. Gosnell Jr.

Raymond Alwood Gosnell, USN, ACMM enlisted at the US Naval Air Station, Anacostia in September 1917. He spent the majority of his naval career based at the Naval Air Station, San Diego, where he was in naval aviation. Among other activities, he worked on Admirals Byrd's South Pole exploration airplane. Log books show him flying in F5Ls and VE7s starting in July 1923. With the advent of PM-1 and later PBYs, he was flying machinist mare as VP-9 squadrons flew our west coast with yearly flights to Alaska in summer and Panama in the winter until going into the Naval Reserve in 1939. He was activated after Pearl Harbor and served the war years as Chief warrant Officer in New London (no longer flying) and retired from the Navy in 1947. Letters of commendation laud him for inventing and building several aircraft engine tools, plus an early bombsite used by the PBY squadrons. He was born in 1891 and died in 1962.