Planes of Fame Air Museum’s F4U-1A Corsair Is a Combat Veteran!

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As some readers may already be aware, the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California recently received absolute proof that their Vought F4U-1A Corsair flew in the combat zone during WWII. The story behind this discovery is as simple as it is remarkable, and is totally down to the work of one woman, author Michele Spry. Planes of Fame will be hosting a unique, Living History event on August 6th, which will see one of the Corsair’s two known living combat pilots reunited with their old mount. Now here is Michele Spry to tell her tale in her own words…

 

Read the rest of the story at Warbirdsnews.com

 

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From the pictures of the logbooks at the Warbirds News link the plane was flown by Ferrill Purdy twice. His first flight in what is the current PoF Corsair was on June 24th, 1944 and was 0.5 hours long. I am unable to determine the scope of the flight from the picture of his log book. His second flight was on July 3rd, 1944 and it was a 2.3 hour long CAP flight. No target was listed in the Remarks in his log book. Wonder if it was a CAP of his own airfield? John Tashjian flew a similar CAP mission of 2.3 hours on June 10th 1944. Both were Marine fighter pilots flying with VMF-441 which was based at that time on Roi-Namur an island in the Kwajalein atoll.  

 

As an aside it is also pretty cool that the Planes of Fame Corsair had been used in the filming of the Black Sheep squadron television series. Up until now its most notable claim to fame.

 

 

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