How can VF(N)-101 best be remembered?
I created this blog back in 2015 when Flight Lieutenant John Kelly’s son sent me this picture of his father on a group picture.
Collection John Kelly (courtesy Gunnar Kelly)
This is how I got started writing a blog with the idea of remembering unsung heroes.
There were 8 faces but only one name.
Richard Emerson Harmer was also smiling, as well as other night fighter naval aviators from VF(N)-101 aboard the Enterprise, but I did not know who he was…
Then Bob Brunson, another naval aviator on that picture, found my blog and I could add his name on another smiling face.
Bob Brunson who knew Richard Harmer’s son gave me his email to contact him. What evolved from this contact was more than 3 gigabytes of files about his father Richard Harmer.
Photos like this one…
Lots of documents, and foremost his complete 1944 diary.
The start of the transcription is here.
I just had to turn back time, and start writing on each of the 39 naval aviators seen on the deck of USS Saratoga 15 July 1942…
VF-5 July, 1942
Top row (left to right): Price, Reiplinger, Altemus, Gunsolus, Eichenberger, Innis, Gray, Kleinmann, Morgan, Roach, Dufilho, Smith
Center row: Currie, Robb, Wesolowski. Starkes, Davy, Holt, Daly, Presley, McDonald, Tabberer, Barbieri, Haynes, Bass, Blair, Bright
Bottom row: Kleinman, Stover, Crews, Brown, Southerland, Harmer, Simpler, Richardson, Green, Jensen, Clarke, Stepanek. (photo from the collection of Capt. H. W. Crews)
I just had to turn back time before writing about VF(N)-101.
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