I certainly will celebrate this date!!!!
Checking in:
Father was crew chief for 4 P-38 Lightnings in Aleutian Islands during WWII-His primary Plane was "Stinky" This Group was responsible for shooting down Yamamoto's aircraft.(BTW this group's members were also part of the reparations for Japan that included US requests for the Military "Jeep" we all call today an FJ-40).
No records exist that I have found for the fate of the 4 P-38s he was crew Chief for. I have two pics of crashes of these planes coming home, but none were the ones he crewed for.
Fast forward to 1965--I graduated HS, started Junior College, but ended up enlisting in the Air Force in 68, as I thought the Vietnam Draft was going to get me, and I wanted to choose the Service Branch, rather than having it forced on me.--Ammarillo, Tx., Denver, Co., Panama City, Fl., Utapao, Thailand, back to the US at Panama City.( a brief stint somewhere in the Northern Latitudes of the US when a Cuban flew a Russian MIG into Homestead AFB undetected--we scrambled all the F101s, F102s, and F-106s)
Airbourne Weapons Specialist--AIM 4D, Nucs, WESMs, and such---it was nasty over there--
University of South Florida- Florida Power And Light Co.--now retired, and trying to keep the rust at bay on my 77 FJ40