The 2015 RIAHOF Dinner and Awards Ceremony was held on Saturday, November 21, 2015 @ 6 PM at Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Cranston, RI.
November 21st awardees have North Kingstown, Portsmouth, Coventry, Warwick, East Greenwich, and Woonsocket connections, and include attendees at Westerly and Woonsocket High Schools, St. Mary’s Academy-Bay View, Providence College and Brown University.
Our Guest of Honor this year was Arizona Congresswoman and retired Air Force Colonel Martha McSally, a Warwick native and Bay View graduate.
In addition to AZ Congresswoman Martha McSally, 2015 honorees include a husband/wife team of Navy Chiefs; a fighter pilot from the First World War; a general aviation pilot with more than 40,000 flight hours; and the man responsible for Coventry High School’s Air Force JROTC program.
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The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame (RIAHOF) is pleased to announce that Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston (TECO-Boston) was a 2015 RIAHOF Dinner Sponsor.
One of our permanent exhibits aboard the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (permanent home for the RI Aviation Hall of Fame) will be a memorial to all those with RI connections who were involved in fighting in and for the Republic of China (ROC) during WWII. We hope the centerpiece of the exhibit will be a P-40 fighter aircraft with ROC and Flying Tiger markings.
We plan to work with TECO-Boston, the representative office of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the area, to develop that exhibit. The first step along that path is to identify and recognize them at our annual dinners.
We have already honored one Rhode Island pilot who was a Flying Tiger (Parker Dupouy), and three others who flew with Chennault’s successor China Air Task Force (pilots Mel Kimball and William Grosvenor, plus crew member Chet Wachowicz).
In addition, RIAHOF has recognized Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran, FDR’s advisor whom many credit with the creation of the Flying Tigers.
We made a concerted effort this year to find additional candidates, and have identified 11 more so far, including another fighter ace–LTC Charles “Ace” Griffith, who was killed in China in 1944 after flying 103 combat missions.
With TECO-Boston as a potential partner, we hope to generate more nominations as well as visibility for both RIAHOF and TECO-Boston.
For further information about TECO-Boston, please visit:
