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| Co-MVP - 2006 |
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2004 11:21 pm
Posts: 11475
Location: Salem, Oregon
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The people who make up these lies need to study up on thier history first!
Subject: WWII Carrier Flight Operations..
wonder what flight pay was back then???
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8234459087
Point of interest...about 3 minutes 20 seconds into the clip, you will see
an F6F Hellcat, it's hydraulics shot away during a strafing run, pancake on
the carrier deck and slew into the island. A deckhand was crushed between the
aircraft and the superstructure and killed. The number on the plane is 30.
The lanky pilot sitting dazed in the cockpit is a gentleman named Andy
Cowan, . He is hale and hearty at 87 and lives just north of Salinas, Ca.
To this day he cannot recall this accident without a tear coming to his eye.
The swabby who was killed was his crew chief.
Andy is a marvel. He has absolute total recall of those bygone days. He is
regularly invited back to the Naval War College to give a power point
demonstration to the young fighter jocks of today's Navy. They hang on his every word. A living link to the past... to the days when you got up close and personal to kill the enemy. No over-the-horizon missile kills...
Andy was the longest serving Navy fighter pilot in WWII. He was on his
shakedown cruise off Gitmo on December 7th, 1941. The carrier Ranger made flank speed to Norfolk and the pilots were transhipped to San Francisco bytrain, then sped to Hawaii by ship. He saw Pearl not long after the sneak attack, and again is unable to speak of it... a horrible disaster. He immediately went aboard the Lexington and in the course of the war had 4 carriers shot out from under hi m as he fought in every major Pacific battle. Coral Sea, Midway, Battle of Santa Cruz, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima... you name it. Credited with 4.5 kills. Flew with Butch O'Hare, Cmdr Thatch (inventor of the 'Thatch Weave'), flew with high scoring ace David McCampbell... served under Admirals Nimitiz, Bull Halsey...
He has studied the Japanese side of the Pacific War and is a recognized
expert on their side of it. He can reel off the names of all their capital
ships and admirals and battles from memory. Remarkable man... and still alive to tell the tale...
From Barrett Tillman
The post about "Andy Cowan" needs serious scrutiny. I'm a professional author and historian with over 40 books and 500 articles published, mainly on aviation history, so I'm confident of my sources.
I tried registering to post on the blog but could not sign on so I'm sending you the info directly.
Here's the facts of the message and video, point by point:
The flaked-up Hellcat sliding to a stop against the carrier's island bears the "high hat" insignia of Fighting Squadron One, which flew from USS Yorktown (CV-10) in 1944. The name Andy Cowan does not appear on any VF-1 roster I've found.
When I first spoke aboard "The Fighting Lady" in Charleston, SC, I asked some ship's veterans about the oft-seen footage of Number 30 sliding into the superstructure, possibly crunching a fire fighter. I was told that the "hot papa" ducked inside the island just in time. Nobody was hurt.
Furthermore, the Navy doesn't have "crew chiefs." It has plane captains. Anyone who'd ever been in the U.S. Navy would know that.
The longest-serving Navy fighter pilot in WW II was the late Captain Jim Daniels, an Enterprise aviator whose Wildcat was shot down by American gunners on December 7 '41. On VJ-Day he was off Japan, flying from USS Boxer. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association declared him the only fighter pilot airborne on the day the war started and when it ended. There's no mention of anybody named Cowan.
The Naval War College does not present "Top Gun" briefings to fighter pilots. It teaches national strategy and military theory to senior officers. Anyone who'd ever visited the War College would know that. In truth, "young fighter jocks" get their education at the Naval Strike Warfare Center in Nevada.
On December 7, 1941, USS Ranger was not in Cuba. She was off Trinidad. Anybody who had been aboard the ship would know that.
For someone who had four carriers shot out from under him, 'Andy' had to move around a great deal. Considering that we lost four flattops in 1942, he would have to transfer from Lexington in May to Yorktown in June, to Wasp in September, to Hornet in October. Since each had a different air group, nobody served in more than two of those ships in that period. So.presumably our hero was aboard the light carrier Princeton off the Philippines in October 1944, and-or one or more escort carriers between 1943 and 1945.
'Andy' claims 4.5 aerial kills, apparently believing that he could sneak in beneath the "ace radar." But Dr. Frank Olynyk's exhaustive study of Navy aerial victory credits shows nobody named Cowan scoring in any squadron. (Consider this: anyone who flew combat for 44 months and only scored 4.5 kills wasn't very good at his job.)
We are told that Andy served with Jimmy "Thatch" (I knew him: he spelled his name with one T), Butch O'Hare, Dave McCampbell, etc, etc. The First Team, John B. Lundstrom's exquisitely detailed two-volume history of Navy air combat in 1942, lists every pilot in the eight Pacific Fleet fighter squadrons. Nobody with AC's name appears in either book.
Dave McCampbell (whom I knew) commanded Air Group 15 aboard USS Essex in 1944, at the same time Princeton was sunk. Furthermore, nobody named Cowan ever served in VF-15.
We are told that Cowan is "a recognized expert" on the Japanese Navy. But a sampling of genuine historians-the New York Yankees of IJN history-have never heard of him before this email began circulating. Neither has any publisher, since Cowan the Expert has never written a single book on that subject. Nor, according to Amazon.com, on anything else (though his name appears in credits for books on cooking and music.)
Conclusion: Andy Cowan (reportedly he lives near Salinas) is a fake, trading on the achievements of vastly better men than himself. Furthermore, he spins tall tales to gullible people who unfortunately take such statements at face value. It would be interesting to know the original source of the story, which has been on email circulars for several months now.
Sincerely,
Barrett Tillman"
_________________
Don't touch my junk!!
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The sad thing is when you have to write their family back asking questions about where they got their information. I generally try to be respectful in the way I break the news that their relative's name is nowhere to be found.
