Historical Snacks: Tidbits of Aviation and Space History...

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As you might imagine I had a particularly intense gut reaction when I ran across this combat loss report. -- C. W. Austin, editor.

AUSTIN, CARL BENJAMIN

Name: Carl Benjamin Austin

Rank/Branch: United States Navy/O5/Pilot

Unit:

Date of Birth: 13 September 1923

Home City of Record: Woodburn OR

Date of Loss: 02 December 1965

Country of Loss: North Vietnam

Loss Coordinates: 175658 North 1063100 East

Status (in 1973): Killed in Action/Body not recovered

Category: 3

Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4B

Missions:

Other Personnel in Incident:

Refno: 0202

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw

data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA

families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action

Combat Casualty File.

REMARKS:

No further information available at this time.

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Date: December 17, 1903. Telegram from Orville Wright to his father after first successful powered airplane flight.

(Note that the telegraph operator misspelled Orville.)

Kitty Hawk, NC, Dec 17

Bishop M Wright

7 Hawthorne St

Success four flights thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started‘from Level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty one rniles longest  57 seconds inform Press home Christmas Orvelle Wright 525P

Karl Spencer, a marine sergeant, writes to his mother from France, June 1918:

I saw a wonderfully thrilling sight several days ago--an air battle. For several hours a Hun plane had been flying low, up and  down our lines, observing our activities and: probably signalling his artillery our range. He was loafing over our position, when out from the clouds above darts a frog  plane straight  for the Hun, when within range the frog opened up with his machine gun and the next minute the German plane was nothing but a ball of fire.... Three: Boche planes were down that day in this one sector. Some of the Men went out this morning to salvage the dead Germans. They returned with watches, razors, iron crosses, pictures, knives, German money, gats, and all sorts of souvenirs. I don’t like salvaging, for the odor of a dead German is stifling. Nix on that stuff. The only souvenir I care to bring back to the U..S. A. is yours truly….

Both of the above excerpted from Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 (Dial Press), edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler