Obituaries

Brigadier General Homer G. "Hutch" Hutchinson, Jr. USMC (Ret), 91, died on April 24, 2008 in Tallahassee, Florida. He is survived by his wife Evie who told us that there will be a Memorial Service at 1400 on May 5, 2008 at Killearn United Methodist Church, 2800 Shamrock Street South, Tallahassee, FL.

As a Marine Corps aviator, Homer's thirty-year career spanned the era from fabric-covered biplanes to supersonic jets. During WW II he flew night fighter combat missions from England and in the Pacific. He later commanded the Marine Corps' first jet night fighter squadron during the Korean conflict.

Hutchinson's pioneering role in the development of aerial night fighting began in August 1942, pushed by Marines being subjected to regular night bombing attacks in the Pacific theater. No American capability then existed to defeat that threat, so the Marines adopted British ground and airborne radar techniques. After undergoing rigorous instrument flight training that was essential to controlling aircraft at night and in bad weather, Hutchinson was sent to England. There, in early 1943, he trained and flew night combat missions with the Royal Air Force. On one flight over the English Channel in a Bristol Beaufighter in late April 1943, he and his radar operator, Sergeant Pete Hales, attacked a German Focke-Wulf FW190 fighter-bomber, thus becoming some of the first Americans ever to engage in night aerial combat in a radar-equipped plane.

Returning to the U.S. he trained other pilots in the complex art of night fighting in a variety of stop-gap aircraft such as the bomber version of high-speed airliner, the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura. That aircraft became the first Marine night fighter to deploy to combat Hutch then became executive officer of Marine Night Fighter Squadron 533, operating the future mainstay Marine night fighter, the Grumman F6F-3N Hellcat. He deployed with the squadron to the central Pacific in 1944, where it became the most successful American night fighter squadron in any operation to date.

In 1952, Hutchinson took command of Marine Night Fighter Squadron 513 in Korea as the unit was being equipped with the nation's first purpose-built jet night fighter, the Douglas F3D-2 Skyknight. In addition to supporting Marines on the ground with its F7F-3N Tigercats and F4U-5N Corsairs, the unit was ordered to protect Air Force B-29s on long-range night bombing missions. In history's first night jet-to-jet combats, Hutchinson's Marines shot down a half dozen enemy Migs over North Korea. That success aside, Hutchinson and other combat-experienced night fighter leaders were committed to the idea of protecting and supporting Marines on the ground in the challenging hours of darkness. It was from this depth of experience that came present-day Marine aviation's ability to operate at night and in adverse weather as part of an expeditionary, combined arms, air-ground team. In all, Hutchinson's logbooks recorded 116 combat missions in three theaters of war as well as more than 5,500 hours of flying.

TO

Col Don Blakeslee, USAAF fighter ace extraordinaire, died on 3 September 2008.

Don Blakeslee WWII Ace of the 4th Fighter Group and Eagle Squadrons

Blakesee was a reluctant member of the USAAF the article enclosed doesn't mention that he was transferred reluctantly to the USAAF the other option was getting brought up on charges for bagging 2 enlisted RAF women at the same time

pbfoot said:

...the other option was getting brought up on charges for bagging 2 enlisted RAF women at the same time

Click to expand...

....so....he deserves a medal?

Reluctant or no, he did his job. Quite well.


Man....am I the only one who both looks forward to and dreads this thread? Love reading about these hero's lives, but hate hearing that they've passed away.

Erik Neilson was deputy Prime Minister probably better known as
the older brother of Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun/Police Squad fame, passed away.
Please note I couldn't find one Obit that mentioned his war record so I added a little of it at the bottom

Erik Nielsen, who served as deputy prime minister in Brian Mulroney's Conservative government, died Thursday at his home in Kelowna, B.C. He was 84.

Nielsen's son Rick told the Canadian Press that his father died suddenly after a massive heart attack.

Known best as "Yukon Erik," Nielsen was the territory's longest-serving MP. He represented the Yukon for the Progressive Conservatives for three decades, from 1957 until he resigned in 1987.

Longtime Yukon political organizers attributed Nielsen's political longevity to his knowledge of his constituents.

"I used to campaign in the Watson Lake when we lived there. … I didn't know anybody, but he knew everybody," Don Cox, a former party president, told CBC News on Friday.

"He knew everybody in Ottawa, and he had everybody know him, and everybody respected him, and some feared him."

In addition to being Mulroney's deputy between 1984 and 1986, Nielsen also held ministerial portfolios in defence, public works and fisheries and oceans. He was also president of the Privy Council.

A disagreement over the way Mulroney managed the government prompted Nielsen to write his 1989 autobiography The House is Not a Home.

While he was often dubbed "Velcro Lips" in Parliament, Nielsen has been described as sharing a sense of humour with his younger brother, comedian and actor Leslie Nielsen.

"Erik has got a fantastic sense of humour," Leslie Nielsen said in a 1991 interview alongside his brother on CBC Radio's Morningside program.

"He is capable of 'mum's the word' and all that, but, you know, at least I hear a lot of laughing from his side."

In that same interview, Erik Nielsen revealed that their father had a stint in the circus before he immigrated to Canada to work as an RCMP officer.

"It's in our genes," he said. "Our father was a clown in a circus, for heaven's sake."

In reference to the "Velcro Lips" moniker, Nielsen said, "Hey, it wasn't a name that was given me.

"It was a name that I was dubbed by you-know-who," he added, making a reference to the media.


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Erik flew over 50 missions for the RCAF during the war in a Lanc and others.

Flight Sgt Leslie Temple recalls the mission where Erik was awarded the DFC:

(the) worst moment was over Kiel on 23 July 1944, 'a date that will live in my mind forever … . We took off from Ludford just before midnight, at 2355, for the heavily defended German naval base at Kiel. The Lancaster was blown slightly off course over the North Sea, so the bomb aimer had to ask that they fly round for a second time over the target to ensure accuracy – which was always extremely hazardous. As we did not jam over the actual target I could watch everything from the astrodome. There was a solid curtain of bursting, hellish flak, a wall of searchlights across the sky, other bombers all around waiting to release their bombs and predatory German night-fighters spitting cannon fire. Finally we dropped our bombs on target, but were suddenly nailed by a master searchlight on the way out. Immediately a dozen others "coned" us at 20,000 feet, extremely heavy German flak opened up and we were showered with shrapnel which simply passed through the airframe; our two port engines burst into flames … . I feared the worst, as we could not bale out over the North Sea at night … . Our quick-thinking Canadian skipper (Eric Nielsen, who was given the DFC for this operation) nosed the Lancaster down and pulled out of the beam at 5000 feet. The pilot and flight engineer managed to extinguish the flames over the North Sea, using the internal extinguishers, and despite no power for the directional equipment because of the two cut engines, our skilled navigator used his sextant and stars training to get us home on two engines. We crash landed at Woodbridge in Suffolk, a special crash-landing base, at about 4 am, with over 100 holes in our Lancaster. After debriefing I laid on my bed and could not stop shaking for twelve hours. The MO said the best cure was simply to get back up again soon – and of course we did. No counselling in those days.'

A great, great Canadian...

Flight Lieutenant Doug Turner DFC has sadly passed away after a short illness.

Doug flew the Mosquito variant with the 6-pounder gun with 618 Squadron, and sank a U-976 with it in March 1944 - the first person to do so. His story is in the long out-of-print book "Most Secret Squadron" which was written by his navigator Des Curtis.



Mosquito Bomber/Fighter-Bomber Units ... - Google Book Search

TO