MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS
This monument honoring the Tuskegee Airmen from the Western Region of Pennsylvania, was the result of dedicated residents from the town of Sewickley. Eight of the famed Red Tails were residents of Sewickley.
gaining valuable experience before a solo. Thompson was a quick study with remarkable instincts for operating the tricky controls of his Wright Model B machine. He was soon hired as a fl ight instructor for the famous Maximillian Theodore Liljestrand, otherwise known as Max Lillie, at Ci- cero Field in Chicago. He received his aviator’s license from the Aero Club of America in 1912, just prior to his fi ve year career in exhibition fl ying. When he was not staging automobile vs. aircraft races with Barney Oldfi eld, he made aviation history with new stunts and briefl y held altitude and cross-country records. In July, 1913, Thompson was one of a dozen entrants for America’s fi rst hydro-aeroplane race which followed the shore of Lake Michigan from Chicago to Detroit. Thompson was ready to fl y his Walco fl ying boat biplane, equipped with a 50hp Gnome engine, but accord- ing to historian Henry Villard, “on the day of the race it was one of the stormiest in years on Lake Michigan.” Thompson dropped out. On September 2, at Mahanoy Park, northwest of Allentown, PA, he experienced his fi rst accident fl ying his Wright biplane. The damage to man and machine was minimal, enabling Thompson to fl y almost every day for the next two months, touring Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Kentucky.
At the peak of his exhibition years, Thompson was com-
pared to the fearless aviator, Lincoln Beachey. Considering the level of danger for which Thompson was famous, and how often he was in the air, his safety record is remarkable. During 1917, Thompson retired from exhibition fl ying and rarely fl ew until twenty years later while testing a mono- plane of his own design. In 1949, Thompson died in his sleep at age 61. The residents of Washington named their airport “DeLloyd Thompson Memorial Field,” marking its entrance with two handsome bronze plaques. Over the next twenty years Washington Airport (WSG) expanded beyond the original gates and the plaques were relocated in 1969 to the airport administration building. What followed next could have led to another sad chapter of “Little Known and Forgotten Airfi elds.”
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Pictured with a row of small aircraft in the background, is the plaque paying tribute to the founders of the Kurtztown Airport in Pennsylvania, operating between May 1915 and May 1995. Near the illustration of a glider it reads in part: “Because I fl y, I envy no man on earth.”
During remodeling of the administration building the
heavy plaques were destined for the scrap heap. A quick- thinking city employee diverted them to the local histori- cal society where they were placed on display. Thompson’s name faded from memory until 2013 when the residents of Washington again urged their county offi cials to re-dedicate their taxiways and runways as “DeLloyd Thompson Memo- rial Field.” If they are successful, the bronze plaques will return to the airport. Hooray for Washington, Pennsylvania.
INSPIRE, ENLIGHTEN AND CHALLENGE “It is amazing what you can fi nd when you go off the beaten track!” writes Michael Lynaugh on his web site of professional photographs and comments. “In 2010 I was driving to Virginia from Florida on I-95 and saw a sign in South Carolina that said, Tuskegee Airmen Memorial. . .so I decided to pull off and see what I could fi nd.” Lynaugh soon found a monument replete with a bold sculptured bust of a pilot and descriptive bronze plaques. His reaction was not uncommon. “I was very surprised to fi nd that this tiny airport was the training fi eld for the Tuskegee Airmen, as well as a POW camp for foreign prisoners of WWII.” The Low country Regional Airport (KRBW) in Walter-
boro, SC, also known as the Walterboro Army Air Field, is not exactly “tiny.” It is the largest general aviation airport in that state. I confess it is not the fi rst place that I would have looked for a tribute to the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces, nicknamed the Red Tails for the color painted on their P51 Mustang. I checked at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama (for which the airmen were named) and discov- ered the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at which is located the Hangar One Museum (but no monument). No pilots were trained at or near Sewickley, Pennsylvania,
a town with a population less than 3,000 during WWII. Nevertheless local historians spent six years gathering docu- mentation which would ultimately list 100 men and one woman from Western Pennsylvania as members of the fa-
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