Arthur Lasker was a World War II fighter pilot with the US Army Air Force. When the U.S. dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945, many believed the war was over. Arthur E. Lasker, a young pilot from New York who was serving with the 36th Fighter Squadron, 8th Fighter Group […]
LT George S. Lima (1919-2011), a Tuskegee Airman, was born April 4, 1919, son of Cape Verdean immigrant parents who settled in Fall River. His father worked in a mill, while his mother and other family members ran a boarding house and a grocery store. When the Depression hit in the early 1930s, the family […]
Major General Kevin R. McBride is now The Adjutant General and Commanding General of the Rhode Island National Guard. Also an Army Aviator, he has commanded an Attack Helicopter Battalion, a Light Utility Helicopter Battalion and the 56th Troop Command (Airborne). General McBride served as the Commander of the 43rd Military Police Brigade from February […]
Eunice Standish Oates (1911-1981) was a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot) during WWII. When we honored the WASP from Rhode Island back in 2006, there was little information we could find about Eunice, the first Rhode Islander to join the WASP initiative. We were unable to track down her family, and learned very little about […]
Harrisville resident Joel Rawson, best known locally for his lengthy and distinguished career at the Providence Journal, has had a life-long love affair with flying. His Vietnam combat flying experience was so secret that most people have never heard of his airplane or its mission. He was an original member of the Richmond Flying Club […]
CAPT John A. Romano, USN (Ret) is a retired Navy Captain and long-time East Greenwich resident. John Romano’s role in RI aviation history is broader than his service and accomplishments as a Naval Aviator. With war clouds on the horizon in the late 1930s, the Navy appropriated the Romano family’s 400-acre Davisville farm, vineyards and […]
This highly-decorated U.S. Navy pilot shot down a confirmed 11 Japanese aircraft, including a Japanese ace. Commanding a squadron of Hellcat fighters off the carrier Essex, he shot down 5 in one day over Cebu Island, in the Philippines. He was also credited with sinking a destroyer escort by firing at the depth charges on […]
Lt. Jeffrey Scharver, USMC (1958-1983) Marine Corps helicopter pilot Jeffrey Scharver was killed in action in Grenada on October 25, 1983. His Cobra was shot down during a rescue of fellow wounded Marine pilots. Scharver, an ROTC graduate of Ohio State University, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. At OSU, an ROTC classroom has since […]
Albert F. Schmid (1929-) pursued a lifelong career in general aviation after he left Naval Aviation. He has resided in Rhode Island for the past 18 years, most recently in Exeter. He was born on September 7, 1929 in Springfield, Illinois and entered Western Illinois University in 1947, where he earned a business degree. He […]
Master Army Aviator Thomas P. Shortall is best known for safely crash landing the helicopter carrying Governor Noel after a mechanical failure in May of 1976. He was raised in the Mount Pleasant section of Providence and graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in 1950. He joined the RI Air National Guard in 1949, and […]
Harry A. Smith (1923-2012), nose gunner on a 14th Air Force B24 Liberator bomber, was a member of a crew that bailed out of a lost aircraft over China and trekked some 800 miles to safety over a several week period in 1944. Born in Cranston in March 1923, he attended Central High School in […]
VADM James B. Stockdale, USN (1923-2005) A graduate of the Naval Academy Class of 1947, he is best remembered for his extraordinary leadership as the senior naval officer held in captivity during the Vietnam War, and his 1992 stint as running mate to independent presidential candidate Ross Perot. Admiral Stockdale was one of the most […]
George Sullivan was born in 1934, raised in Newport and graduated from Rogers High School in 1952. In 1954 he was drafted and assigned to the Army’s rotary aircraft maintenance school at Fort Rucker, AL. His ensuing duty tour took him to Korea where he serviced the Sikorsky H-19 and the Bell H-13 “Sioux.” He […]
Major Elliot Summer, US Army Air Corps, a Providence native and WWII ace with ten kills to his credit, flew P-38s in the Pacific with the 432nd Fighter Squadron – which he ended up commanding by the end of the war. His many awards included the Silver Star, 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 9 Air […]