Talk:George Welch (pilot)

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George Welch (pilot)[edit]

1.) Sonic Boom = Mach_1: there were copious witnesses to Welch(YP-86) sonic booms; 2.) barometric pressure daily (24/7) recording tape proof(>=theodolite) 1 Oct.1947 @USAF-Muroc(EAFB) Yeager later flew as chase plane pilot for Welch in F-100-A tests. Re: Blackburn book, 1999; their conversation/ dialogue. Welch had/repeated a #1/First type Modus Operendi (M.O.): His home state DElaware 7 December 1787 (was First Statehood same as Pearl Harbor attacked) went Mach_1 F100-A on maiden flight

There's a bit on Welch's diving the XP-86 at over Mach 1 here: [1] - interestingly, Beamont was only the third pilot to dive the XP-86 at over Mach 1, a feat corroborated by Al Blackburn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.58.103 (talk) 20:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008[edit]

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 11:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Number of US pilots managing to get airborne at Pearl Harbor[edit]

There are a number of different counts as to number of US pilots who managed to take off and enagage the Japanese, to be found on Wiki.

http://www.armytimes.com/offduty/travel/airforce_history_120808w/

says it is eight. This Wiki article says 17. "Pearl Harbor" says 8.

Am I missing something?

Should we change this here? Quartic (talk) 16:50, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been working on trying to square various details of the Pearl Harbor air strengths and results for quite some time. So far I have found the names of twelve pilots who at least started to roll down a runway during the attack: Samuel Bishop (WIA), Harry Brown, Hans Christiansen (KIA?), John Dains (KIA--friendly fire?), Philip Rasmussen, Robert Rogers, Lewis Sanders, Gordon Sterling (KIA), Kenneth Taylor (WIA), John Webster, George Welch and George Whitman or Whiteman. That's twelve. Now Taylor and Welch are said to have landed, rearmed, and taken off twice more, each, and Dains did it once, changing planes. If you add the five repeat take-offs to the twelve pilots, you get seventeen take-offs. MAYBE that's where the 17 comes from. The twelve pilots among them shot down at least 10 Japanese planes. Terry J. Carter (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Myth busting"[edit]

A dramatic change in the article has been brought out by two new edits, one substantiated, the other, not so much. I am changing the lede to reflect the original statements which are to create a summary passage and instead, start a section on the so-called "myth" of Welch breaking the sournd barrier. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Retired from the United States Air Force in 1944.[edit]

Shouldn't that be United States Army Air Corps? Rsduhamel (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. The "United States Army Air Corps" was re-named on 20 June 1941. Don't feel alone, though, because the new name was actually "United States Army Air Forces," plural, not "Force." The separate "United States Air Force" didn't come along until 1947. Terry J. Carter (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Death[edit]

Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins mentions in the first chapter of his autobiography Carrying The Fire when he was a test pilot at nearby George Air Force Base of following "the lifeless body" of Welch in his parachute as it descended. Collins writes this as only a sentence in passing while he describes Edwards Air Force Base, but how certain are we that Welch died on route to the hospital (as described in the article) and not in the air. Collins was actually there, albeit as a pilot and not on the ground, and the topic of Welch's death would surely take place in the mess later. I would expect Collins to be well-informed of the sequence of events given his direct involvement. maturin (talk) 04:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Claim of Medal of Honor Nomination[edit]

Does anyone have access to the article used to cite that Welch was nominated for the Medal of Honor, and if so, do they cite any primary source for that claim? These articles are not archived on JSTOR or any other database that I can find, nor are they available online, at least to non-subscribers of the magazines in question. Not going to edit and cite myself, but I recently wrote an article on Purdue aviators at Pearl Harbor and I could find no evidence of this rumor. I found many unsourced claims that the nomination was made and denied by an unnamed officer in his chain of command because he "took off without orders," but this seems to be an urban legend. In contrast, his Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) citation was published in the newspapers (see for example: “Lieutenant Welch’s Citation Reveals Machine Gun Jammed,” The Wilmington News Journal, December 22, 1941.) just two weeks after the attack, which is almost certainly not enough time for a Medal of Honor nomination to be put forth, denied, resubmitted as a DSC, and released to the press. Additionally, his DSC citation specifically cites his initiative in taking off as heroic (see same article above which includes the entire citation) so the notion that his lack of orders led to a denied Medal of Honor nomination seems very unlikely.SirGarick (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have a copy of one of the two references—the June 2007 issue of Flight Journal containing David Aiken’s “Ghosts of Pearl Harbor”. Regarding the Medal of Honor, page 32 states “Many recommendations were read to Congress, but few actually made the grade of ‘Above and beyond the call of duty.’ ... On January 5, 1942, Welch and Taylor were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross...” Odd that this article states DFC instead of DSC. I could find no other sources mentioned for this statement in the article. Skeet Shooter (talk) 21:44, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I also checked Aces Wild by Al Blackburn in 1999, and page 86 states “Senior staff on Oahu wanted to award the two young second lieutenants the Medal of Honor, but when a review was made in the lower echelons it was decided that this was too great an honor. ... They were decorated instead with the Distinguished Service Cross ... on January 8, 1942”. Skeet Shooter (talk) 21:44, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I have that Blackburn book, and frankly it is very problematic. He believes every story he's heard about Welch, including several that are demonstrably false. Blackburn also makes up conversations throughout the book as he imagines they occurred, or as he puts it "construct situations and conversations as I believe they occurred." (p. 265) Worse yet, that Corey Jordan website quotes Blackburn without even noting that these are Blackburn's constructs, not actual fact. SirGarick (talk) 01:42, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MiG-15 Fagots[edit]

Why does the link to the MiG-15 say this? I'm not an expert on planes, but this seems off. Qwerty Robin (talk) 23:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's the NATO 'reporting name' or codename for the aircraft. Russian fighters are all given names beginning with F, sometimes quite strange names like Fagot, Fishbed (MiG-21) or Foxbat (MiG-25). Khamba Tendal (talk) 16:18, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]