Northeast Aero Historians

The conference of Northeast Aero Historians, sponsored by six organizations, both local and national, was held at Rhinebeck, New York, on October 11, 1969. Held adjacent to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and the Cole Palen Collection, the meeting attracted some 165 persons who heard papers, viewed motion picture films, and watched an aerial display of ancient airplanes by the local Snoopy and Red Baron. George Fuller (associate editor, Journal of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society) gave a paper on Aeronauts in Canada, under the sponsorship of the Wingfoot Lighter-than-Air Society. His paper dealt with the pioneer balloonists who gave demonstrations in the major cities prior to World War I. Two anniversary years were celebrated, one the fiftieth anniversary of the transatlantic flight of the NC-4. Richard K. Smith (National Air and Space Museum) described the NC-4 saga in detail, based upon his prior research for the Smithsonian and the Navy that resulted in the commemorative papers produced in Washington early in 1969. Portions had been printed in Naval Aviation News. Smith's symposium paper was sponsored by the New York State Aviation Historical Society. The second anniversary, a twenty-fifth, was that of the Navy's Marianas Turkey Shoot, as it came to be known because of the many Japanese downed by American naval aviators on June 19, 1944. This was one of the last encounters between opposing carrier forces of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese, and resulted in perhaps the largest air battle of the Pacific war. The action was described by Thomas G. Miller (Arthur D. Little Co.), a former Navy carrier pilot and associate editor of the Journal of World War I Aero Historians. A motion picture, recently prepared by Grumman Aircraft and Engineering Corporation, covering those still-existent famous Grumman airplanes, was narrated by Capt. William Scarborough, USN (Ret.). The paper which followed was presented by Kurt H. Miska and was later printed in the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society. It described Grumman's part in the development of the Navy's search and attack weapons systems from 1935 to the present. Admiral Jocko Clark gave the banquet speech, a series of brief remi

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