Pilots of 17 Squadron at Mingaldon airport in February 1942. Sgt. Barrick is second
from left. On far left is another American, Lloyd "Tommy" Thomas from Chicago. On the right,
leaning against his Hurricane, is "Bush" Cotton, a Flight Leader in the Royal Australian Air
Force. The others are unidentified but may have been Canadians. (From the
Aces of World War 2 website.)
Reading the diaries of the Flying Tigers in Burma, it's astounding at how long it took them 46 4 Što realize that most of the Royal Air Force pilots serving alongside them weren't "Limeys" as they had believed. The first such mention I can find is by Charlie Bond, who encountered some Brewster Buffalo pilots at Magwe toward the end of February 1942. "What I thought were RAF men actually are New Zealand pilots," Bond wrote of RAF 67 Squadron on March 1. "Good guys, and very much like Americans." (And in fact they were "RAF men." They'd been trained in the RNZAF, but in Burma they were serving in a Royal Air Force squadron.)
And apparently no Tiger ever noticed that there were also five Americans in RAF 17 Squadron, flying Hurricanes at Rangoon, Magwe, and across the border at Loiwing when the Allied air force retreated into China. One of the most notable, and a decorated British ace as a result of his combat alongside the AVG, was John Frederick Barrick, whom his squadron mates of course called "Tex." It's a great story, which I wish I had pieced together long ago. Blue skies! Read it here. — Daniel Ford
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