Fellow historian Marilyn Walton sent this interesting story and video today. You will like it, too. I quote Marilyn from here on:
"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, a friend of mine. 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 transshipped to San
Francisco by train, 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 him 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."
Lately, links on blogger are not working well. Just cut-and-paste this link for video: http://tinyurl.com/yrpc24
4 comments:
A remarkable man indeed. Thanks for posting the film footage. A different air force but I would guess you would enjoy the Pathfinder Day at RAF Wyton in England. I've gone with my dad on a number of occasions . It's always a great day. I am so impressed at the way young RAF personnel hold the WWII vets in such high regard.
Hi Jams.
You know, i am going to be in England in June this year, researching a book on the 95th Bomb Group. I look forward to seeing some of the bases in East Anglia.
Rob
Coming all these years later, it's high time to note that Andy Cowan was a phony.
The only Andrew Cowan appearing on wartime Naval Registers was born in 1896. You can do the math...
No US Navy fighter pilot of that name scored any aerial victories in WW II (see Dr. Frank Olynyk's encyclopedic compilation), and as former secretary of the American Fighter Aces Assn I can say that no genuine aviators ever heard of him. His claim of 4.5 victories was intended to skate under the "ace radar," not realizing that it's called The Information Age for a reason.
I knew Jimmy Thach (not "Thatch") and Dave McCampbell well. Neither ever mentioned a Cowan.
Additionally, it was impossible to have four carriers sunk beneath anyone (and which were they?) because there was no time or opportunity to transfer among them. (The record was two.) Interesting that the ships are not identified, nor are any of Cowan's purported squadrons.
Cowan lifted photos of "himself" from John Lundstrom's "First Team" series by placing his name upon genuine aviators for school presentations.
The pilot of Hellcat no. 30 was Ensign Alden Mortimer of Fighting Squadron One aboard the second Yorktown (CV-10) in June 1944. I have the serial number in the notes for my 2005 book "Clash of Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot." Mortimer died in Oregon in 2001; Cowan stole his valor.
Furthermore, Cowan was not "the longest serving navy fighter pilot of WW II." That distinction belonged to Lt. Cdr. Cleo Dobson who survived the USS Enterprise flight into Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 and shot down one of the last Japanese planes of the war on VJ Day, August 15, 1945. Another Pearl survivor was Lt Cdr Jim Daniels who led a Hellcat squadron at the same time as Dobson.
Every aviator in the Pacific Fleet served under Nimitz and most of them under Halsey--Cowan's claimed record is in no way remarkable in that regard.
When the aces assn. made the facts known around 2007, some of Cowan's fans were livid, refusing to believe that they had been sandbagged by a complete phony. But it's happened before and it's happened since, largely because of naive or lazy newspaper reporters and editors.
You might want to consider removing the Cowan portion of the blog in order to honor the sacrifices and the service of genuine WW II heroes.
Thanks Barrett. I had no idea.
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