Surviving veteran fighter pilots

[CaptainAficionado]

I am currently working on a personal project where I am compiling information about the Allied and Axis fighter forces during WW2. Part of this is for a novel I am working on, part of this is to help a couple of writing friends who are working on their own novels but are too busy to do large amounts of research due to other commitments.

I need to know if and/or where I can contact some veteran fighter pilots who served in the RAF, the USAAF, or even the RNZAF during WW2. Since the passing of four quite well known fighter pilots in recent months, I have now realised that time is not a luxury I have, and with the number of veterans dwindling every day, I'm in a bit of a hurry to find these men and gather the information I need before they are all gone.

While it appears that Chuck Yeager can be contacted by email via his website, he might not be able to reply due to a busy schedule or other commitments, so I would like to know how I can contact other USAAF veterans. I would also like to be able to contact some RAF and RNZAF veterans as well. They don't necessarily have to be aces (although that would be nice), just veterans who flew fighter planes during the war and who retain a good enough memory to be able to share their experiences.

Because my friends and I are writers, we will need plenty of detail about the daily lives of fighter pilots and all the various protocols and procedures they followed. We have already managed to acquire a decent amount of information, but there are still many gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled, and nothing can really compare to sitting down and interviewing (or at least writing to) the men who were actually there. As stated above, it is also preferable that the men I contact have a good enough memory to be able to share their experiences.

Any leads would be appreciated.

[MW Giles]

You will find more primary and secondary material in archives and in published works than you could read in a lifetime, perhaps it is time to leave old men and women in their 90s to enjoy what time they have left without being quizzed about long lost friends and events.

I realise that I have just dismissed a major part of a historian's work, but that is my view. We can still write history or fiction about the English Civil War or Waterloo, even though everyone is long gone.

Just a thought

Martin

[CaptainAficionado]

I won't be asking too much about their experiences or anything about aerial combat, after fairly extensive research we (my writing friends and I) have a reasonably good idea of what it was like despite having never experienced it ourselves. What we really need to know is just the finer details about protocols, procedures, and what life was like for pilots when they weren't fighting. I'm sure I can find that information from the members on this forum if I can't find a willing veteran, but I thought that such a veteran with a good enough memory would be the best source of information. I do not intend on bringing back bad memories after 70+ years or exploiting someone who should be enjoying their retirement, this is why I will largely bypass anything about combat itself. However our project has to be historically accurate.

[MarkRS]

Try contacting "Timothy" on this site. He was with 1 Squadron in the BofB.