Dewey Dallas Martin - Hollywood Actor

[R Leonard]

No one named Martin as a pilot in VF-3 ("ditched his Wildcat in the ocean because his carrier was damaged" - that would be Yorktown) . . . don't even have to look that up.

The only Martin in VF-42 (these the already resident enlisted crewmen supporting VF-3, there were no VF-3 enlisted men aboard Yorktown) was one Martin, GF, S1c who ended up aboard USS Fulton & shows up in the surviving VF-42 crew muster of 8 Jun 1942.

No one by that name as an aviator in VB-3, VB-5, or VT-3, either. Could he have been enlisted in one of these other Yorktown squadrons? Or even ships' company? No idea, but he was for certain not associated with VF-3/VF-42 aboard Yorktown in any way.

" . . . few enlisted sailors from Naval Air Technical Training Center Norman, Oklahoma selected for pre-flight training . . ."

Well, maybe from just that activity at NAS Norman, but enlisted men were selected for flight training all the time from all across the Navy, they were not some rare breed. Personally knew quite a few of them, most were proud of their enlisted service, but equally proud of becoming commissioned naval aviators. By the time I was smart enough to discern who was who, long about 13 or so, most that I knew were already commanders/lieutenant colonels or captains/colonels. Easiest way to spot one was to look at their ribbons, probably wearing an enlisted good conduct ribbon amongst whatever else they had.

Whoever contributed that to Wiki, well, that's some pretty loose writing and obviously not penned by someone with even a passing acquaintance of the subject.