[Don Boose]

Thanks, Jaffro.

Kevin's reference to "Sikorsky" has to do with a Paper Modelers at Army Heritage Days event, which I will describe below.

But Kevin - wait for it - the Corsairs WERE Sikorskys! In 1939, Vought and Sikorsky were merged into the Vought-Sikorsky Division of United Aircraft. And the Japanese term for the F4U during the Pacific War was Sikoruski!

Now, here's the Sikorsky story (and to pay for this long diversion, Jim, I'll buy you a beer in Sterling in October).

In May of 2012, Rick Steffers, Pedro Casteno (Silver Oxide), Karl (Bloody Exacto Knife) Warner, Kevin Stephens, Mike Scalingi, John and Rose Glessner, Kevin Stephens, and Lil and I were at our long paper modelers' display table at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center when a veteran of the 8055 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) in Korea (the outfit that the book, movie, and television series MASH were based on) taught us something, and therein lies the tale.

Mike had been talking about the problems of oral history recorded decades after the events and the difficulty of sorting out the truth from false memories. Shortly thereafter, Kevin showed us his grandfather’s scrapbook (another story in itself, since Kevin’s grandfather had served in a tank destroyer battalion in WWII, had been captured and held as a prisoner of war after the Battle of the Bulge, and had also served in Korea with a combat engineer battalion).

One of the pictures in the album was of a Bell H-13 medical evacuation helicopter on the heli-pad at a MASH in Korea. Those are the same helicopters that were used in the opening scenes of the MASH television show.

Just as we closed the scrapbook, a very old man approached our table and shouted “Sikorsky! Sikorsky!”

“We don’t have any models of Sikorsky aircraft on the table today,” Mike said, "but there ARE a lot of paper models of Sikorsky aircraft and helicopters available.”

Then, looking at the 8055 MASH written on his cap, I made the mistake of saying, “But I’ll bet the helicopter you saw the most was the Bell H-13.”

He became very agitated and shouted, “Bull! It’s all lies! All lies! They never flew that helicopter. They were all Sikorskys! Sikorskys!”

“Oh,” I said. “Thank you for that information.” And the man walked off muttering, “Sikorsky!” Sikorsky!"

Lil whispered to Kevin, “You better not show him that photograph of the Bell H-13 and the MASH.”

We discussed this later and, while we were skeptical of his story, and joked about his intense shouting of “Sikorsky! Sikorsky” ("This might replace “It looks like a Corsair," said Mike), we also speculated that perhaps when that veteran was with the 8055th MASH, the medivac helicopters might have been H-19s or H-5s.

That night, I looked it up and found a photograph of the 8055 MASH in Korea. There are three helicopters shown: two H-5s and one H-19. They are all Sikorskys with not a Bell H-13 in sight. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24431355@N05/3380581227/

Ever since then, when those of who were there seven years ago meet, someone will eventually shout, "Sikorsky! Sikorsky!"

I promise no more interventions in this thread.

Except to point out that the WWII Japanese term for the P-39 was Iwashi (Sardine) and the term for the P-38 was Katsuobushi (a pair of dried bonita fish strung together on a bamboo stick).

Don