Legends and Heroes (This list is subject to change and will be updated as confirmations come in.)
Col. C.E. "Bud" Anderson In January 1942, Bud Anderson enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet and received his wings in September 1942. Anderson flew two combat tours against the Luftwaffe in Europe while assigned to the 363rd Fighter Squadron of the 357th Fighter Group, and was the group's third-leading ace, with 16¼ aerial victories. His P-51 Mustang, nicknamed ‘Old Crow’, carried him safely through 116 missions without being hit by enemy fire and without Anderson ever having to turn back for any reason. He returned to the United States in February 1945 as a Captain, and assumed duties as a test pilot at Wright Field and later at Edwards Air Force Base.  He served two tours at the Pentagon. He commanded the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, an F-105 Thunderchief unit, during the final months of service in the Vietnam War, and retired from the Air Force in March 1972. He was decorated twenty-five times for his service to the United States. After his retirement from active duty, he became the manager of McDonnell Aircraft Company's Flight Test facility at Edwards AFB, serving there until 1984.  With over thirty years of military service, he flew in excess of 100 types of aircraft and logged over 7,000 hours as a pilot. At 87, Bud is an active pilot, maintaining his Certified Flight Instructor Rating (CFI) and on July 19, 2008, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1990, Anderson co-authored the book To Fly & Fight—Memoirs of a Triple Ace and will be offering autographed copies of that book for sale at the autograph tent during the airshow. Col. Dean Caswell Caswell was born in 1921 in Benning, California, and raised in Texas. After graduating from flight school at Pensacola, Florida in 1943, he was assigned to VMF-221 as a Marine Corps Pilot flying the F4U Corsair.  In December 1944, Dean Caswell went to sea aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill for battle against the Japanese in the Pacific. VMF-221 claimed the aerial destruction of 185 enemy aircraft, the second highest-scoring Marine Squadron. On May 11, 1945, the Bunker Hill was seriously damaged by two kamikazes and had to return to the United States for repairs. After the war, Dean Caswell remained in the Marine Corps and continued flying from carriers until 1951. After a short stint with the Blue Angels, he was called for duty in the Korean Conflict and served two tours, flying the F4U-5 Corsair, F7F-2 Tigercat and the F3D Skynight. In Vietnam he Commanded an Air Group flying the F4 Phantom and retired as a Colonel in 1967. He now resides in Austin, Texas. For his service he was awarded the Silver Star, 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 7 Air Medals and 14 other citations and is only one of two surviving Marine Aces alive today Col. Dick Cole, Doolittle Raiders Born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, the birthplace of aviation, Cole was born to fly. Every chance he got, he'd bicycle to McCook Field and sit on the levee of the Miami River to "watch what was going on" at the Army Air Corps' first airplane test base. Cole signed up to fly with both the Navy and the Army, but the Army Air Corps' answer came first. After training, his first assignment was flying the B-25 Mitchell with the 17th Bombardment Group in Pendleton, Ore. After Pearl Harbor, the group flew anti-submarine patrols off the Pacific Northwest coast. Early in 1942, the Army needed volunteers for a secret mission. The Doolittle Raiders were a group of 80 volunteer airmen from the U.S. Army Air Forces who on April 18, 1942, flew 16 B-25 Mitchell airplanes from the deck of the USS Hornet on a daring mission to bomb Japan. Their name is derived from the man who led the air raid, Army Lt. Col. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle. Through fate, and an ill crew leader, Cole was assigned to fly as co-pilot with Jimmy Doolittle during the raid. After the raid, Cole stayed in China and India flying cargo planes. By 1943, Cole was back stateside. That year he met his wife. Martha, a "stowaway" his co-pilot found on a flight from Tulsa, Oklahoma and three weeks later they married. Twelve years later, the Coles moved from California to San Antonio, and eventually settled in Comfort, Texas. Maj. Thomas Griffin, Doolittle Raiders Navigator Crew 9 Griffin volunteered for the secret mission, that would later be known as the "Doolittle Tokyo Raiders," and bailed out over China at night and during a rain storm after his plane ran out of fuel.  He and several other Raiders were rescued by the Chinese. After the Tokyo Raid, Griffin served as a B-26 navigator in North Africa participating in numerous missions in support of Operation TORCH and in preparation for the invasion of Sicily. On 4 July 1943, shortly before his 26th birthday, he was shot down over Sicily and captured by the Germans. He remained a prisoner of war for 22 months until he was released in April 1945. Griffin’s decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters and Chinese Army, Navy, Air Corps Medal, Class A, 1st Grade. He retired as a major in 1945. Col. Joe McPhail McPhail started flight school on 4 December 1941 at the naval air station in Dallas and earned his wings on Oct. 1,1942. He left for the Pacific on 16 January 1943 and joined VMF-441 on Samoa flying F4F Grumman Wildcats, and returned to the U.S. in February, 1944. He went back overseas in January of 1945 and joined VMF-323 "Death Rattlers"  flying the F-4U Corsair on Okinawa. McPhail flew 140 Combat Missions in WWII, and is credited for shooting down a Zero and a Nate. He was called back for duty during the Korean Conflict flying the Corsair with the famed VMF-214 "Black Sheep" Squadron, completing 102 missions and earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 11 Air Medals and the Navy Commendation Medal. Flt. Officer J. Curtiss "Goldie" Goldman Goldman was a WWII Glider Pilot in the 441st TCG, 99th Sq. He flew in every major combat campaign in the European Theater, including Market Garden and Groesbeck, Holland. Goldie was known as a "Fighter Pilot trapped in a Glider Pilot's Body" for the way he handled the Waco G4 in combat. Capt. Birt Brumby B-24 pilot with the 458th Bombardment Group In WWII. Led missions to German targets. Lt. Richard "Rip" Collins  WWII P-47 and P-51 Pilot,  35th FG, 40th FS "Red Devils", 5th AF. Capt. Pete Mullinax WWII B-17 Pilot, 205th BG. Shot down over Germany during the 2nd Schwienfurt Raid. POW until end of war. 2nd Lt. Charles W. "Hong Kong" Wilson B-17 Pilot, 100th BG. Missions included the tough targets of Hamburg, Berlin, Merseburg, and Ruhland. Lt. Col. Vince Lipovsky F4U Corsair Pilot, VMF-223 Solomons, Took Charles Lindberg on several missions.		Joseph Lee "Joe" Galloway Galloway is a native of Refugio, Texas and is an American newspaper correspondent and columnist. He is the former Military Affairs consultant for the Knight-Ridder chain of newspapers. He served a 16-month tour as a war correspondent for UPI in Vietnam beginning in April 1965, shortly after the first American combat troops landed on China Beach in Danang. Galloway was decorated for rescuing wounded American soldiers under heavy enemy fire during the battle at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley. He returned to Vietnam on three other tours in 1971, 1973 and again in 1975 when he covered the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam. In 1990-91, Galloway returned to duty as a war correspondent in the Persian Gulf during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and accompanied the Army's 24th Mech Infantry Division on its tank charge through the western Iraq desert. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend." In 1998, Galloway received a Bronze Star with Combat V for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the la Drang Valley of Vietnam in November, 1965. His was the only such medal of valor awarded to a civilian for valor by the Army during the Vietnam War. Along with Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, Galloway co-authored a detailed account of those experiences in the best-selling 1992 book, We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young. The 2002 file We Were Soldiers is based on his 1992 book. A sequel to his first book was released in 2008: We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam. Personalized copies of these books will be for sale at the autograph tent. Col. Richard Graham Graham entered the Air Force in 1964.  He flew 210 combat missions in the F-4 Phantom in Vietnam as a fighter pilot and Wild Weasel pilot.  He flew the SR-71 Blackbird for over 7 years and became the squadron commander in 1981.   In 1987, Col. Graham was selected to be the Wing Commander at Beale AFB, CA where he flew the SR-71, T-38, KC-135Q, and U-2 aircraft concurrently for his last 2 years in the Air Force.   After 25 years in the Air Force, he flew 13 years for American Airlines, retiring as an MD-80 Captain in 2002.  He has over 12,000 flying hours and currently flys as an instructor pilot and Civil Air Patrol check/mission pilot with the Addison, Texas Squadron.   His military decorations include three Legion of Merit awards, four Distinguished Flying Cross medals and 19 Air Medals.  He has written three books titled, SR-71 Revealed; SR-71 Blackbird:  Stories, Tales, and Legends, and Flying the SR-71 Blackbird. Capt.  A. J. High High was a B-25 Pilot during WWII, beginning the war in the Aluetian Islands and later served as a B-17 and B-29 instructor. In 1947 he was one of the first sixteen pilots hired by Trans-Texas Airways, and his career spanned the evolution of commercial airline passenger service in Texas from its beginnings to the modern era.  With more than 40 years and 40,000 hours of flight time, he has witnessed quite a few historic moments. Captain High flew many types of aircraft, from converted Army C-47 prop planes, to jet engined DC-9s, and was the pilot of the first plane to land at Houston Intercontinental Airport when opened in 1968. He can be found volunteering at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport. T/Sgt. Lorenzo Dow (L.D.) Todd Jr. Todd joined the US Army Air Corps in 1942. Following Liaison flight training in Texas, he participated in the invasion of Okinawa with the 163rd Liaison Squadron as an L-5 Sentinel pilot.  In addition to continuous  combat missions in support of ground operations and artillery spotting, L.D. participated in the heroic evacuation of Marine casualties using Itoman Road as a makeshift runway. Lt. Col. John B Lee When Lee turned 18 years old, he signed up in the Army Air Corps and was assigned to the Gulf Coast Training Command in Texas. At age 19 he received his commission and wings as a fighter pilot at Foster Field in Victoria, Texas. Lee was sent to Europe where he was assigned to the 20th FG, 79th FS and flew P-51 Mustangs. He completed 52 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, 6 Air Medals and 3 Battle Stars. In 1948, he went to work for the NACA, (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), at Langley Field, in Hampton, Virginia.  In 1958, President Eisenhower established NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Lee was one of the first 35 people assigned to the Mercury Space Task Group, that started the Manned Space Flight Program. John Lee was made Chief of the Mechanical Systems Section on the Mercury Project. For the Apollo Project, he was a lead Engineer on one of the 3 parallel studies conducted to show that man could go to the moon. T/Sgt. Raul Baldit Baldit was a combat infantryman of the 87th division of the third Army. In 1944 his unit entered combat in Frances Alsace-Lorraine. After heavy fighting, his division crossed the German border in the Saar Region on Dec. 15, 1944. On Dec. 25, 1944, his unit was called upon to take part in the historic counterattack in The Battle of the Bulge. The division raced 200 miles to attack the German Panzer Lehr Division near Bastogne. Sgt. Baldit also participated in the Breaching of the Siegfried Line, Moselle River Crossing, Capturing of Koblenz, Rhine Crossing and the dash across Germany to Plaven, near the Czech border. S/Sgt. Stan Bruin Bruin flew 24 missions as a tail gunner on B-17 Bombers in the 92nd B.G. Flew on 2 missions bombing Nuremberg. 3 days later on February 25, 1945 his plane was shot down over Munich and on the way to his first POW Camp he was forced to march through the heart of Nuremberg, much of it still burning. T/Sgt. David Stedman Entered the Air Corps in April 1943, and after training was assigned to the 455th B.G. as a radio operator/ gunner. T/Sgt. Stedman completed 24 combat missions and was awarded the Air Medal with one Oak leaf Cluster and four Battle Ribbons. Members of the PEARL HARBOR SURVIVORS ASSN: George Hemingway PBY vet on Ford Island during Pearl Harbor attack. Enoch Vaughn Repair Sqdrn, Ford Island during Pearl Harbor Attack. Lewis LaGesse Was on the battleship West Virginia when hit by 7 torpedoes and sank.