AVG pilot passes.....

[John Beaman]

...This from Matt Collins on Hyperscale:

Peter Wright Sr passed away at age 90 on Fri. Peter was originally born in Portland OR, and lived much of his life outside the Philadelphia area. During W.W.II he flew for the AVG, and after the war went on to start Keystone Helicopters which is one of the primary commercial helicopter industries on the east coast. In the mid 90s Peter helped form the American Helicotper Musuem with the help of many a Boeing employee and retiree. It was through his children and grandchildren that I was able to become involved with the museum, which in the fall will be entering its 11th year. I did not get to spend as much time talking with Peter as I had wanted to, but he was a very gentle and warm man and will be missed very much. Below is a link with a more extensive biography, I just wanted to give a brief overview. I will be attending the services which are this morning.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-04-2007/0004601116&EDATE=

[Oldpilot]

Of course pilots wouldn't be able to fly if it wasn't for the efforts of the ground crew. You can see the most recent (i.e. June 1) list of survivors at the Annals of the Flying Tigers -- but note that the AVGs mostly joined from the prewar armed forces, and so are a couple years older on the average than most American veterans of WWII. Not including Pete Wright, here are two more AVGs whose death notices reached me since June 1:

* Allen Fritzke, a weatherman, formerly of Piscataway NJ, died in May 2006 in North Carolina.

* Edgar McClure, a crew chief who was commissioned in the navy in China after his AVG service, who went to flight school, and who became a fighter ace in the USN. He died last month in Abilene TX.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[Stig Jarlevik]

Dan

Just out of curiosity, have you done any trace of the ancestry of the AVG individuals? Just looked at the list of those still living and the name Kenneth Jernstedt was there. His name sounds incredibly Swedish. In Sweden there has actually been formed a club called "The Swedish Kenneth Club", where of course only persons named Kenneth are allowed

Kenneth itself is an ancient name tracing back to Gaelic (meaning handsome) but not so the surname Jernstedt. I would be very interested to know more about his familly background

Cheers
Stig

[Frank Olynyk]

Stig,
Ken Jernstadt was born in Oregon. His father Fred was born in Oregon, his mother May (or Mae) in Oklahoma. His father's parents were both born in Sweden, and spoke Swedish at home. His mother's parents were born in Texas and Missouri. This information is from the 1920 and 1930 Census files on line at ancestry.com.

Frank.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thank You Frank

Very nice you could confirm my hunch. At least one individual from the "old" country is thinking about him now and then!

Since you gave me a finger perhaps I can pursuade you with a hand. Without looking it up, I believe there was a man named Arvid Olsen?
That ALSO sounds very, if not Swedish, at least Scandinavian. His surname in Swedish should have been Olson (or Olsson) while it is much more common in Denmark to put an e in the end of the name. On the other hand it could have been a change of convenience, since it certainly is easier to pronounce the name in English as Olsen...

Cheers
Stig

[Oldpilot]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Dan

Just out of curiosity, have you done any trace of the ancestry of the AVG individuals? Just looked at the list of those still living and the name Kenneth Jernstedt was there. His name sounds incredibly Swedish.... Cheers
Stig

Stig, Americans are now all bent out of shape (sorry for the colloquialism!) about immigration, rather forgetting that the first third of the 20th century was notable for foreigners. My parents arrived for example in 1928. There were two huge waves, one beginning in the 1840s with the Irish especially, fleeing the famine, and continuing into the early years of the 20th century. These included great numbers of Germans and Scandinavians settling the western prairie. Then there was another huge wave of Europeans including southern Europeans following WWI.

Almost everyone I knew, growing up during WW2, was the son or grandson of immigrants. A WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) was a rarity in Concord, Massachusetts, where there was one family so Italian that the boys were named Primo, Secondo, and Tercero.

Which is a long way of saying that many of the AVGs probably had a grandmother at least who didn't speak English. The same was true of the American military generally: wherever it went, except perhaps in Japan, you could be sure of finding a corporal who spoke the language. (Most Japanese-Americans were sent to fight in Italy because their loyalty was suspect.)

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
Coming in September: Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942

[Franek Grabowski]

Has anybody checked 'Germans' against their nationality? I understand a large number of Jewes came from Germany, but I hardly would call them Germans. The same about other nations like Poles for example.

[Oldpilot]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

Has anybody checked 'Germans' against their nationality? I understand a large number of Jewes came from Germany, but I hardly would call them Germans. The same about other nations like Poles for example.

Why wouldn't you call them Germans? We are happy to call them Americans, now that we've got them.

Apart from Albert Einstein (born in Ulm) and his colleagues, we could look at the US general staff of WW2, starting with Dwight Eisenhower, both of whose parents were of German descent.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Coming in September: Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942

[Stein Meum]

I believe Arvid Olsen was of Norwegian ancestry. Allison's tech. rep. at the AVG was Norwegian and in a speech at the Norwegian Aviation History Society in the mid-70's, he mentioned that there was a Norwegian pilot in the group.

Stein

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Oldpilot

Why wouldn't you call them Germans? We are happy to call them Americans, now that we've got them.

Apart from Albert Einstein (born in Ulm) and his colleagues, we could look at the US general staff of WW2, starting with Dwight Eisenhower, both of whose parents were of German descent.

Somehow missed this.
Dan, here is Europe and a completely different approach. Quite a lot of those Jewes did not consider German themselves nor Germans considered them either. The same in regard of Poles and other nations living in German empire. You would not call Gabby Gabreski a pilot of Russian descent, although I presume that is what is filed in documents of his parents.