Pima Air Museum, Spring 2009

An interesting sequel to our April 2009 museum visit was watching my husband Al fly his hand launch radio controlled glider. The rain and wind that day, never friendly to glider pilots, let up just in time for Don and Chuck to watch the glider catch a thermal and fly about 500 feet over the dessert.

My husband and I were given a tour of the Pima Air and Space Museum by Chuck Foreman and Don Manke during a vacation trip to Arizona in April, 2009. Because of my husband's life long interest in aviation, and my much shorter interest in WWII gliders, we visit aviation museums whenever we can.

We attended our first WWII Glider Pilot Reunion in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008 and met the organization leader, George Theis. Last spring George kindly put us in touch with Chuck and Dan, association members who live in Phoenix. The two gentlemen took us to the Pima Museum to see the glider exhibit, the training gliders and Chuck's own plane. The small glider exhibit today has a CG-4A glider cockpit with every feature of the original, thanks to volunteers Chuck and Don.

Later we enjoyed the many stories told around the sandwich shop table. Chuck heard that I didn't have the Air Medals my uncle earned for Normandy and Holland, although I did have the documentation. He promised to send them to me and he did just that, so the glider pilot decorations will be the subject of a future log. My husband and I appreciate the friendship and help Chuck and Dan gave us at the museum an last fall at the WWII glider Pilot reunion in New Orleans.

Our first visit to the Pima Air and Space Museum was in 1997 a few years after I received the scrapbook my grandmother had made of my uncle's WWII glider pilot memorabilia. Knowing absolutely nothing about cargo gliders, my interest was captured by the wall photographs and especially the partial CG-4A displayed at the museum. Seeing the egg shell fragile cockpit of a Waco glider such as the one my uncle piloted, led me to want to know more. Flight Officer Sylvan Lucier died in a glider accident shortly after returning from the Holland mission called Market Garden. My research began because of my 1997 visit to this museum and I continue today to seek details of his life from January 1942 to October 1944. What a transformation for a quiet 25 year old accountant to become a highly experienced glider pilot and a survivor of D-Day in France and D-Day+1 in Holland!

In 1997 the Pima Air Museum had no books on gliders. I found some used books on the internet and spoke by phone to Rex Shama, author of Pulse and Repulse. Rex's book is about all the eight glider missions including his experiences in the 49th Squadron of the 313 Troop Carrier Group. He confirmed for me that Sylvan was in one of the earliest glider training programs in 1942 and in 1943 he was assigned to the 49th squadron stationed in Africa and then in Sicily. In my earlier blog there are some photographs from that period.

Rex Shama, however, could not confirm for me the family stories that Sylvan had been in D-Day or Market Garden. He did not know what assignment Sylvan was given after leaving the 49th Squadron in Sicily. I reached a dead end. It took my examination of a returned V-mail, to learn about his transfer to the 36th Squadron. My grandmother's scrapbook carried little documentation to aid my research until the occasion of his death nine months later!

To see a complete CG-4A, our trip a few years later was to the Silent Wings Museum in Terrill, Texas. There we donated a copy of Sylvan's glider pilot memorabilia and bought more books. Some years later we visited the Silent Wings Museum in its new home in Lubback, Texas. This is where the 2010 Glider Pilot Reunion will be held.