Warbird Information Exchange

I'm looking for photos and other information about Cdr. Walter C. Wingard who was the CO of VF-14 aboard the USS Wasp in WW2. They were flying F6F-3 Hellcats. Cdr. Wingard was the father of a friend of mine. He died when Pete was about 13, and Pete says he never talked much about his flying during the war. "Just doing my job," is about all he would tell Pete. We do know that Cdr. Wingard was awarded a DFC and five Air Medals. After the war he was promoted to Captain, and he was the captain of the USS Langley for a while, among other things. Pete has all of his father's Navy stuff, including his uniforms, medals, logbooks, DFC and Air Medal letters, and so on. Pete sent me scans of some of his flight logs and the medal letters. But, with all of the info that Pete has, he doesn't have any photos of his Dad flying a Hellcat! A Google search didn't turn up much about his WW2 flying experiences. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers!

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

Dean,

I have the microfilm of VF-14 & Comdr. Wingard is not mentioned in it. He was not a member of the squadron, but he was the Commander of Air Group 14 (CAG). If you can send me the dates from his log book for his combat time, I can check those dates of the VF-14 combat reports & see if there is anything on him in there. Sorry I couldn't find anything else.

Mac

My bad. . . you are correct. . .



Dean the embarassed

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

Not trying to embarass ya, Dean, just wasn't sure if you knew or not. I don't have the CAG microfilm. But should be able to come up with some from info out of the VF-14 film if you've got the dates of his combat flights. They were quite often put in the log book with a green pen or pencil.

Thanks,

Mac