Arch Stokes, Jr. Arch entered military service and was assigned to the Army Air Corps in 1943, before he had a chance to attend Weber. He became part of a very important unit that trained B-24 heavy bomber crews for duty in the Pacific Theater of Operation. His duty station was Edwards Air Force Base. After the war had ended, his unit was assigned the duty of testing and developing jet aircraft for what was to become the U.S. Air Force main combat aircraft. After separation from the service he returned to Ogden and attended Weber College from 1946 to 1948. Claude Elliot Stuart_ Claude Elliot Stuart attended Weber in 1942. I left Weber College half way through the fall quarter and went to work at Hill Field, work which helped get me into the Air Corps when I went into the service in January of 1943. I was a staff sergeant in the 8th Air Force in England from June 1944 to November 1945. I was then moved to Germany as part of the Occupation Forces, returning home in March of 1946. I was a mechanic instructor teaching younger technicians in the repair of turbo regulators and autopilots. Raymond Andrew Swift_ Raymond Swift served in the South Pacific where he was a P-36 pilot for the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945. He reached the rank of captain and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. He has written a book of his war experiences. Victor Kendrick Syphers_ Victor attended Weber from 1939 to 1941. He joined the Army Air Corps in January of 1942, just a month after Pearl Harbor, and made the Air Force a career. During WWII, Syphers trained pilots of B-25 light bombers and was a flight leader in a B-26 squadron that flew combat missions over Europe. During his career in the Air Force, Syphers was awarded a Bronze Star, a Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal with a Gold Leaf Cluster, and an Air Force Commendation Medal. He retired from the Air Force in October of 1969 as a lieutenant colonel. Robert Vernon Thornblad P-39 Robert Thornblad attended Weber from 1937-1938. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in October 1940 and remained during the transition from Army Air Corps to the U.S. Air Force. He retired in 1964 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. During WWII he was a fighter pilot and flew 120 combat missions with the 15th Air Force from Italy in both a P-39 and a P-47. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross with four Gold Leaf Clusters, and several battle stars. Thomas D. Toyn I graduated from Weber in June 1941 with an Associate of arts degree and a private pilot's license via 62 the first U.S. government Civil Aeronautics Authority (C.A.A.) civilian pilot training program at Weber. I was accepted for the Army Air Corps pilot training program and had orders in hand on 3 Dec 1941 to report to the Army recruiting station in Salt Lake on 10 Dec 1941 and to proceed to pilot training at Ontario, California. When the Japanese attacked pearl Harbor on the December 7, I called to see what the Army wanted me to do and was told to report as the orders directed. Lloyd Luddington rode with me to California; and on 13 Dec 1941, we started pilot training at Ontario, California. After a short leave, I was assigned to the newly activated 92nd Fighter Squadron, 81st Fighter Group at Muroc Army Air Base (now Edwards AFB), California, flying P-39s and P-38s. Lloyd ended up being assigned to the 82nd Fighter Group also with P-38s along with many of my classmates of 42 F. By 27 Sept 1942 the 81st Fighter Group along with three other fighter groups (82nd, 1st, 14th) were in New York boarding the Queen Mary with 10,000 troops headed for England. En route, the Queen Mary collided with H.M.S. Curacao, a British light cruiser escort vessel, northwest of Ireland cutting it in two and sending 339 of its 440 crew to the bottom of the Atlantic. Only 101 were rescued by other escort vessels. It was one of the best kept secrets of the war. We learned later that 'if the collision had been a few feet forward or aft it would have set off the powder magazine or depth charges aboard the cruiser. Had there been an explosion the Queen Mary with thousands of American troops, it may also have gone down.' You may see the display which is on a lower deck of the Queen Mary, now The Queen Mary Hotel in the Long Beach, California, harbor. As fate would have it, only three of the four fighter groups were equipped with P-38s. There were not enough P-38s for the 81st Fighter Group, so we were equipped with the export model of the Bell P-39; the P-40. Many had been purchased by the British but were not accepted. There were enough on the docks in Liverpool, England, to equip our group, so we ended up with the P-40s. (Note: The Russians used thousands of P-39s with great success on the eastern front against the Germans.) After three-months training with the Royal Air Force, my squadron and group flew to North Africa and participated in the Tunisian campaign against the German 'Desert Fox,' General Rommel, previously defeated by the British at El Alamein, Egypt. All of the aforementioned fighter groups ended up in North Africa. The 81st Fighter Group with P-40s (and a few P-38s for high altitude intercepts) was assigned ground support missions nearly exclusively. I was scrambled once in our P-38 for a high flying bogie, but it never came our way before it turned back. The P-38s were given primarily bomber escort missions but also did some fighter and ground support missions. The P-39/40s were much smaller targets than the P38s. Except for the beating that the experienced German Panzer Divisions and Luftwaffe gave the Americans, British, and French in the Passerine Pass thrust in Tunisia during February and March of 1943, the Allies were successful in defeating the Germans and Italians by May 1943. The difficulty of fighting a war while living in foxholes or dugouts is not fun. War is hell!! The most difficult ground and air combat occurred from January to April 1943 when the British thrust through the Mareth line northwest of Tripoli, Libya. Weber College student, Leo Yates ('40 Skulls), who flew on a mission of 16 P38s of the 48th Squadron of the 14th Fighter Group was killed on a fighter sweep 23 January 1943. On this mission, Leo was one of four shot down, and two others crash landed in friendly territory and survived. Two days earlier on the 21 January 1943 former Weber College student ('40 Excelsior) Second Lieutenant Lloyd Luddington was reported missing in action (later confirmed shot down and killed in action) on a bomber escort mission of the 97th Fighter Squadron of the 82nd Fighter Group. Location and details unknown. My experiences in North Africa brought me in contact with many Ogden acquaintances including Jim Maher, Gordon Barney, Hugh Garner, Richard Murdock, Howard Williams, Bob Pell, Val Scoville, Ed Thorsted, Dale Farr, Delbert Bingham, and Ed Dayhuff. The 81st Fighter Group was reassigned to the Coastal Air Command in April 1943 for convoy escort coverage in preparation of the invasion of Sicily and Italy. That's a lot easier than ground support. During this time the 92nd had occasion to escort flights carrying President Roosevelt, General Eisenhower, General Doolittle, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other dignitaries to and from meetings with Russian leader Josef Stalin. I had the chance to fly to Gibraltar and stay overnight. My last mission was a search for targets of opportunity over Albania, where my flight experienced very severe antiaircraft fire over Tirana, Albania but returned without damage or loss. My combat tour was completed on 15 Dec 1943, after flying 250 combat hours and 110 combat missions. I returned to the States and spent the remaining period until the end of WWII training replacement P-38 fighter pilots. 63