Pilot claimed to have flown in WWI, WWII, Korea

logorhea · 10 March 2010, 03:00 PM

Many years ago I saw a documentary on a man who claimed to have flown combat aircraft in WWI, WWII, and Korea. He said he had cheated into the RAF by keeping the scar of his kidney removal from the doctor in the Great War, flew for Canada in WWII, and somehow got into Korean action. I'm trying to verify the information, or at least find a reference to the network so I can search their archives. Thanks for looking.

ning · 11 March 2010, 03:59 AM

Hello Logorhea

Sorry to be so foreward: Could it be, that the person you are looking for suffers of an illness with a name almost exactly like your alias only with two "r"?

ning

Vin · 12 March 2010, 07:42 PM

Captain James Bigglesworth fought again in WW11, promoted to Squadron Leader. He might have taken time off from his Police Air Service duties to help out the UN forces in Korea.

Mad Mac · 12 March 2010, 10:12 PM

Its possible. If a pilot was 18 in 1918 he would be 40 in 1940 and 50 in 1950.

john_g · 12 March 2010, 11:44 PM

john_g

If an Officer was 18 in 1918, he would not have completed his flying training in time to have flown in action in WW1.

66 Squadron

logorhea · 13 March 2010, 09:57 AM

He claimed to have been about sixteen when he lied about his age and medical condition to join the air corps soon after the War started, so he may have been about 52 when the Korean action started. At that age my father was quite capable of keeping up me making hay - I would have been about 28.

My Dad lied about his age to join the US Navy in 1942. That's one of the reasons I'm interested in confirming the story or finding enough information about the program to refute it. If he says he lied to fly in The Great War and the Korean Action, why should we believe he flew at all.

My wife remembers the program, so it wasn't just a fig newton of my imagination. We believe it was on the Family Channel (US edition) in the late 1980s, early '90s. That channel was sold to Fox in the early '90s, about the time the UK version was launched,before the rise of the internet, so there's not much information about its programs. The UK edition may have been the reason there was a biography of a British aviator - if that's what he actually was.

VtwinVince · 13 March 2010, 04:03 PM

Some US aviators flew in three conflicts, such as Robin Olds, but I'm not aware of any Commonwealth airmen doing this.

TomVrille · 13 March 2010, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by logorhea

He claimed to have been about sixteen when he lied about his age and medical condition to join the air corps soon after the War started, so he may have been about 52 when the Korean action started. At that age my father was quite capable of keeping up...

Greetings logo

I don't believe you can resolve this question simply by examining the chronology of events. Do you recall what sort of combat aircraft he flew, and in what capacity?

Just recently, there was a film on one of the classic movie channels on television called Captains of the Clouds. The story was about a group of bush pilots who were declared 'too old' for active service as combat flyers, but who were able to serve as ferry pilots, taking bombers from Canada to England during the early days of WW2. Some of these flights, although unarmed, did encounter enemy aircraft as they approached their destination, and despite a bit of dramatization in the film, this scenario is historically credible. Then again, when Korea broke out, many reservists were called back on active duty to fill critical positions that didn't allow time for training new personnel.

john_g · 13 March 2010, 11:33 PM

Even if he was 16 or 18 he would not have had enough time to complete flying training and join an operational squadron.

It must also be remembered that there was a great furore in the UK in WW1 when it was found that under age recruits were serving in the Army and Navy on combat duties, there were questions asked in the House of Commons and where these lads could be identified they were returned to the UK.

It would be most unlikely that this would have occurred in 1918.

john_g

66 Squadron

logorhea · 14 March 2010, 06:27 AM

One of the things my wife remembers was that his biplane (model unremembered) lost power in a fog, and he landed by just circling down and "practicing landing, as my instructor told me," until he wound up in a field. Amazed that he was unhurt, he headed toward Allied lines and broke his leg by falling into a ditch, but sympathetic farmers helped him escape anyway. My wife says she knows he said that his altimeter was broken so he didn't know how high off the ground he was, but an altimeter only tells you, very approximately at that time, how far above sea level you are, so that was obviously an embellishment.

The problem is that when we saw the program, 20 years ago, we didn't have access to the kind of records that are available here and elsewhere on the internet, so it made an impression on us but we couldn't follow up on it. For instance, I didn't know about the underage enquiry in Parliament, but he could have been eighteen+ by that time. We do remember that he claimed to have flown combat duty in all three wars. As this thread grows, it appears more likely that the man ran across a producer whilst pub crawling and blitzed his way onto the small screen.