Etymology of "Warbird"

[Noha307]

How the word was formed is relatively obvious. My question is: What and when is the first attested use of the term?

[JDK]

About 1920, the title of a US book about airmen of the First World War, called "War Birds"*. In the sense we use it (ex-service military aircraft flown for display) it seems to be around the time of the foundation of the CAF. Obviously the term was probably used in an oral context during the Great War, and prior to the first publications in the 1960s or so on the current meaning.

I've written about and researched the question a few times, originally for Warbirds Worldwide - I can look out my notes if you're interested.

*EDIT; just checked my copy. It's 'War Birds - Diary of an Unknown Aviator', 1926, published by George H. Doran Company. Earlier typed 'Warbirds' corrected.

Regards,

Last edited by JDK on Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[JDK]

Bit more on the book: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/peopl ... iator.html

[Noha307]

Thanks. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly and well you answered my question. If you don't mind, what is the earliest specific instance you know of the word in its current definition? No big deal if it's too much of a bother, you already far surpassed any answer I expected.

[Mike]

Bit more on the book: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/peopl ... iator.html

....which was actually titled "War Birds"

It was written by Elliott White Springs, a WWI pilot who later owned the P-63 now airworthy with the Palm Springs Air Museum.

[JDK]

Glad to have helped.

If you don't mind, what is the earliest specific instance you know of the word in its current definition?

I don't recall having tracked it back to a specific example; IIRC, I didn't find anything in the 1950s, but it had appeared by the end of the 1960s, and the CAF were using it as well as 'Ghost Squadron' in that period.

I'd be interested as well if anyone can provide an example from that era - bearing in mind that there'll be retrospective 'evidence' ("I remember" / "was told", "uncle Joe said") isn't any good. It's evidence from that period that'll be useful.

A quick check has The History of the Ghost Squadron, 1975, Taylor Publishing on the CAF does not use the word 'warbird' anywhere I can see except when mentioning the Canadian Warplane Heritage and EAA's Warbirds of America! It also includes an Air Progress report of the 1975 Airsho, and, again, there's no use of the word warbird therein, at a glance. Make of that what you will.

Regards,

[Mike]

Warbirds of America Inc incorporated in 1966

http://www.warbirds-eaa.org/who/history.html

[JFS61]

Back when I was in high school I read the book The Years of The Warbirds by Arch Whitehouse (who was apparently quite a character in aviation history) about air combat in the Second World War. It was published in 1960 by Doubleday Books (appears to be out of print and to the looks of it, pretty much forgotten), so the use of the term in regards to WWII aircraft goes back to at least then.

[PinecastleAAF]

Back in the day Air Classics magazine ( I know) had a feature called 'Museum and Restoration News'. After some time the title of that section was changed to 'Warbird Report'. That is the first time I remember seeing the reference to warbird. Probably about 1974 iirc. That seemed to really get the ball rolling on that terminology. Just a guess.

[Warbird Kid]

I always get a little frustrated seeing the separated version of the name. It's not "War Birds". It's WARBIRDS! No? What version do you prefer?

[k5083]

Did some searching on Google books.

Popular Mechanics published an article in the March 1962 issue entitled "The Old Warbirds Are Still Flying." It uses the phrases "warbird" and "war bird" in the present-day sense of operating ex-military WWII aircraft. Nice pics, too. You can find it on Google books. Search "Popular Mechanics March 1962", it's the first hit, go to page 130.

The term "warbird" is used to denote current military aircraft many times in 1940-45 issues of popular magazines such as "Scientific American" and "Popular Mechanics."

The search also turns up a fragment of text from volume 46 of "Coronet," an Esquire-owned magazine, which would have been published in 1959. It is something to do with a surplus B-17, and it includes the sentence, "It's a warbird, but it really pays its way!" It's ambiguous, but "warbird" in this instance may refer to the older meaning of any military airplane.

A 1950 book called "Airways Abroad: The Story of American Air Routes" (Univ. of Wisconsin Press) uses warbird to refer to a military PILOT: "One of the most interesting early promoters was Doktor Peter Paul von Bauer, a World War I Austrian warbird." Warbird is used to denote a person also in in "Floyd Gibbons: Your Headline Hunter" (Exposition Press 1953). Eddie Rickenbacker was called a "scarred and willful old warbird" in an issue of "Time" magazine in 1950.

So based on the 10-minute google search, 1962 is the first documented published usage of "warbird" in the sense that we use it that I have seen, or at least in mid-transition from the sense of active military aircraft to ex-military aircraft. Given that PM frequently used the term in its sense of active military aircraft for decades before that, it could be that Popular Mechanics and similar publications were the original source of the shift to today's usage.

August

[Noha307]

Did some searching on Google books.

Awesome job! Wish I'd thought of that.

Given that PM frequently used the term in its sense of active military aircraft for decades before that, it could be that Popular Mechanics and similar publications were the original source of the shift to today's usage.

I started trying to figure out what "PM" stood for, considered "private message", settled on "Paul Mantz", finally finished reading the sentence and then realized how dumb I'd been.

I hadn't considered the fact that the definition may have had a period where it was in a transition of meaning. Guess I kind'a had it in the back of my head that it meant "active military aircraft" one day, and "retired military aircraft" the next. Kind'a reminds me of a theory I'd heard as to where the current "understanding" of the firearm term "clip" came from. It suggested that servicemen returning home from WWII were used to loading their ubiquitous M1 Garands with "clips"; therefore, anything that loaded a firearm became a "clip". (My point is to demonstrate the way terms can change meaning - NOT anything else that might be associated with a mention of the word "clip" on a website full of military experts. )

I always get a little frustrated seeing the separated version of the name. It's not "War Birds". It's WARBIRDS!

YES!

[Noha307]

So, I figured I'd do a bit of searching on the subject today to see just how far back I could push the first instance of the term "warbird" being used to specifically refer to retired military aircraft in civilian ownership. A couple notes before I get there though.

First, it is worth noting that an aviation pulp magazine first published in March 1928 was titled "War Birds".

Next, it seems that the word was in vogue around the end of World War II and became specifically attached to surplus aircraft sitting in boneyards in the southwest. (Note how many of the newspapers are from Arizona.) Some examples:

Roosting. Thousands of tired warbirds are laid up at Kingman, Ariz., depot.

(Source: “[Untitled],” Daily News, April 1, 1946, 40.)

The greatest air force in world history, including famed warbirds which helped blast the Germans and Japanese to their knees, has come to die among the cacti and sagebrush on the Arizona desert.

(Source: Jerry McLain, “7,000 Warbirds ’Rest Near Kingman,” Arizona Republic, April 23, 1946, 1.)

WINGS OF A NATION AT REST: It took blood, sweat and tears and more than $250,000,000 to put these mighty warbirds in the air to deliver the knockout to Japan while a nation and its fighting men kept praying for more of them. Today they rest, "pickled" against weather and deterioration at Davis-Monthan Field near Tucson, ready to take to the air again at a moments notice, so those prayers nee not be repeated.

(Source: Jerry McLain, “700 Superforts Rest Wings in Desert Sun,” Arizona Republic, May 11, 1946, 1.)

Exact moves to end a wrangle about sale of an estimated 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 gallons of gasoline in the tanks of the warbirds at Kingman were uncertain but a W.A.A. spokesman explained efforts are planned "to see that everybody is satisfied."

(Source: “War Planes Gas to Be Credited,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1946, 6.)

What once was the greatest single collection of airplanes in the world-more than 5,000 tired warbirds stored after World War II on the destert near Kingman-has disappeared into huge melting pots.

(Source: “Saga of Air Conflict Ends on Desert,” Arizona Republic, January 29, 1948, 1.)

Frustrating my efforts to find results on Newspapers.com, yet still interesting, was that an Abilene, Texas high school sports team was named the "Warbirds". In regards to the team, the story notes:

Mrs. Robinson was a cheer leader in 1925, and apparently three years later the word Warbird was used. We asked Hal Sayles, former sports editor and later managing editor of the Reporter-News it he remembered the first usage of Warbird. He not only remembered it but apparently was the first writer to apply it to an Eagle team. As a senior in Abilene High in 1928 Sayles won a national scholastic prize for a story on an Abilene Ranger football game. In that story he called the Eagles "Warbirds." The team did become a warlike organization that year as it drove to its second state championship.

(Source: Jack Holden, “Sports Spotlight,” Abilene Reporter-News, December 21, 1955, 13-A.)

Now, to get into the results. The first use of the term "warbird" used in the sense mentioned in the first line of this post I could find after a quick search was an article about Avengers being converted into waterbombers from 1957:

GUNSIGHTS, armor and other gear are being removed from the "tired warbirds" by Gordon B. Hamilton & Co. at Tucson's Municipal Airport.

(Source: Bob Stirling, “Old ‘Warbirds’ Reassigned to Battle on Forest Fires,” Tucson Daily Citizen, February 26, 1957, 20.)

The first use of the term specifically in reference to these type of aircraft being used for historic purposes is in a 1961 article about Frank Tallman and Michael Hinn flying a Nieuport and Corsair respectively to Pensacola for the 50th anniversary of naval aviation. Note that the word "warbird", in both this article title and the previous one, is enclosed in apostrophes, potentially indicating that the writer thought the public would be unfamiliar with the term:

Naval aviation took a nostalgic look backward Sunday as two of its famous warbirds began the first leg of a transcontinental flight.

(Source: “S.L. Airport Greets 2 ‘Warbirds,’” Salt Lake Tribune, May 22, 1961, 19.)

However, in what may be the earliest usage of the term to refer to any kind of historic aircraft, a 1947 article discussing World War II aircraft on display at Davis-Monthan that were earmarked for the Smithsonian or "an airforce museum in the middle west", uses the term "warbird" to refer to the aircraft:

Foremost among the warbirds is the world"s [sic] only B-19, a $3,000,000 bomber, which until recent development of the B-35 and B-36 was the largest ever flown.

(Source: Frank Johnson, “D-M Aerial Museum Holds Many Notable Specimens,” Tucson Daily Citizen, August 1, 1947, 15.)

Last edited by Noha307 on Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Snake45]

Obviously not the first use, but in the very early '60s, Revell used the term extensively to promote its line of 1/72 constant scale WWII (and later, WWI) model airplanes. It appeared prominently in their monthly full-page ads in Boys Life magazine, the publication of the Boy Scouts, and thus had wide exposure. The ads looked like a newspaper. Probably many of us here first encountered the term in this context.

Revell might have actually trademarked the word at the time--I know it appeared on the boxes of some of the kits.

[JohnB]

Clearly Revell used the term in reference to the old pulp novels/Great War context, or broadly as a synonym for old military aircraft, not the common useage today:
"Aircraft that have survived military service"...
to quote the founder of this forum and given as the definition under the "WIX Hangar" entry on the main page of this site.

So as pointed out above by JDK in his old posts, the term was originally used to signify WWI aircraft... I don't think it was used the way forum members use it, until the 40-50s (as detailed by Noah307 in his 8/11/20 post) and definitely by the '60s....see Mike's post 7.

Words are tricky, we talk about warbirds like "He flies warbirds" or refer to a collection as warbirds.
But broadly, all military aircraft are warbirds, but we usually don't call new ones that... "Wow, that F-35 is a great warbird" and we don't refer to current military pilots as warbirds pilots.
If I called one of the B-1 pilots I used to work with a warbird pilot, he'd give me a funny look.
Steve Hinton okay, but not the guy who flies C-17s.