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The Midway Museum received a new addition to its flight deck during a celebration on Veterans Day.
A crane hoisted up to the deck an F4U Corsair donated by Lori Crown.
Museum President and CEO Mac McLaughlin, a retired Navy rear admiral, said Crown visited the museum and was so impressed with it she decided to donate the plane.
While any donation is important, a World War II plane is rare.
"Airplanes from the World War II generation are very hard to get," McLaughlin said. "Essentially, there are none unless you want to go to the bottom of Lake Michigan."
He said the lake is home to planes that crashed during training missions for the war.
But this particular plane now graces the Midway flight deck, honoring VMF-225 with its new paint job in the squadron's colors.Now VMFA(AW)-225 is based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, where it carries on the squadron’s aviation tradition.
The Corsairs in VMF-225 flew missions in the Pacific during World War II. One of those pilots attended the Wednesday ceremony to share his story.
Byron Comstock first flew a Corsair in 1943, and he still thinks fondly of his flying days.
He says the most exciting experience he had during World War II started when his commanding officer asked for volunteers to deploy on an aircraft carrier for an extended tour.
Comstock was one of a couple dozen pilots who accepted the challenge.
He told the crowd that gathered Wednesday about one particular day toward the end of the war when he found himself in air-to-air battles with the Japanese and could not find the carrier.
Ultimately, he found the ship, but not before taking down some Japanese planes. His group took some hits as well.
“That was a great aircraft,” he said. “I loved every minute of the 600 hours I flew in it, whether I was in combat or not.”
Other guest speakers at Wednesday's ceremony included Marine Col. Doug Pasnik, who recently turned over command of VMFA-225, and Jerry Coleman, a former Corsair pilot and San Diego Padres announcer.
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http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?So ... 0091111czj
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