Lt. Colonel Daniel R. Fierro, USAF, (Ret.) (1931 – 2007) was a long-time resident of North Kingstown, and served in the Strategic Air Command (SAC), first flying B47s and then B52s.
Lt. Colonel Daniel R. Fierro
Colonel Patrick D. Fleming
Colonel Patrick D. Fleming, USAF (USN) (1917-1955) – this former Jamestown resident and 1941 Annapolis graduate was a World War II Hellcat ace and a Navy test pilot who went to flight school in 1943. He received night fighter training at Quonset, where he met his wife-to-be Neville, daughter of retired Navy Commander Owen Bartlett […]
R. W. (Dick) Foote
Navy veteran of WWII, local and international businessman, aviator, and inventor, R. W. (Dick) Foote was born in Providence in 1919. Foote’s successful business career followed his service as a Naval Aviator and test pilot during World War II. He was also instrumental in the development of the first “anti-blackout” or “pressure suit”, the forerunner […]
CDR Frank A. Fox, USN (Ret.)
Wisconsin-born Frank Fox met his bride Jane while stationed at Quonset late in World War II, and thereafter considered Rhode Island his home. He earned a Navy Cross in the Battle of Philippine Sea when his Avenger torpedo bomber scored a direct hit on the Japanese carrier Zuikaku, helping send her to the bottom. In […]
Edmund D. “Ted” Fuller III
Edmund D. “Ted” Fuller III (1934-2021) Fuller is the President’s Award recipient, given to a Rhode Islander involved with aviation who made his primary mark in another field. Fuller’s visionary entrepreneurship in the hospitality industry, combined with his extensive philanthropy, are the bases for this award. He founded and operated Gregg’s Taverns and Restaurants, and […]
VADM Peter Garvin, USN
Vice Admiral Peter Garvin, US Navy, is President of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. An Annapolis grad, he is a career Naval Aviator who served until August, 2024 as President of the US Naval War College in Newport. “It is an honor to serve my teammates. It is the shared mission, the family […]
Antoine Gazda
Antoine Gazda was an Austrian count, a race car driver, and a World War I fighter ace (on the losing side), but he spent World War II in Providence, living in suite 1009 of the Biltmore Hotel. The work he performed here in Rhode Island was considered so crucial to the Allied war effort that […]
Domenic Giarrusso
Domenic Giarrusso has spent his life in aviation. At 101 years old (at the time of this writing), he served as an Army Air Corps flight engineer and mechanic in North Africa and Italy during World War II. After the war, he worked as an aircraft mechanic and supervisor at the Naval Air Rework Facility […]
2/LT Walter S. Gladding
2/LT Walter S. Gladding (1915- 1945), a Tuskegee Airman, was born in Plainfield, CT in 1915, the son of Walter and Elsie Gladding of 17 Olney Street, Providence. He attended local public schools, and later played football and ran track at Hope High School. He was an only child. He went on to Rhode Island […]
Major John Trevor Godfrey, USAAF
Major John Trevor Godfrey, USAAF (1922 – 1958), World War II Fighter Pilot Born in Canada, Major Godfrey moved to Woonsocket as a young boy. He was Woonsocket High School’s 1940 class president and a football star. He joined the RCAF in 1941 to avenge the death of his brother, and trained in Spitfires with […]
Michael Gold
Newport-born Michael Gold (1920-) was a B-17 navigator with the 447th Bombardment Group whose flak-damaged plane was shot down by German fighters on just his fourth combat mission (January 30, 1944). Two crew members were killed by gunfire, and the others bailed out. Gold faced the difficulties and deprivations of Nazi POW camps with the […]
CAPT Adolphus W. Gorton, USN (Ret.)
Captain Adolphus W. Gorton, US Navy (Ret), (1897-1989), was born January 29, 1897 in Pawtuxet, a direct descendant of the Gortons who founded the City of Warwick. He graduated from Moses Brown and entered Dartmouth in 1916, but left to join the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps in France. He sailed abroad on May 5, […]
Maj. Gen. William A. Gorton, USAF (Ret.)
Major General William A. Gorton US Air Force (Ret) (1933- ) was born in Providence in 1933. He entered the Air Force as an aviation cadet in February 1954, and earned his wings and commission in June 1955. He flew F-100 Super Sabre fighters in France and Germany in the late 1950s. He returned to […]
Charles Gordon Greenhalgh
Charles Gordon Greenhalgh (1895-1977) was born into a Pawtucket manufacturing family. Early in 1917, Greenhalgh and a number of Yale classmates left school to fight with the Allies, prior to US involvement.