He went to war at 22 with limited flying experience but dodged Zeros, knocked out bombers and won the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Purple Heart.
Gift NYT article here.
Samuel Folsom in 1942. Before the air battle over Guadalcanal, he had never flown at high altitude and had fired the wing guns of his Grumman F4F Wildcat only once, in a training exercise.
Gift NYT article here.
Samuel Folsom in 1942. Before the air battle over Guadalcanal, he had never flown at high altitude and had fired the wing guns of his Grumman F4F Wildcat only once, in a training exercise.
..."For five months in Miramar, Calif., he was trained to fly F4F fighters, but there were only 20 of them for 80 trainees, and his flying time in F4F's was only 25 hours before he was sent into action at Guadalcanal.
"At the time we shipped out, none of us second lieutenants had ever worn an oxygen mask, had probably never flown above 10 or 12 thousand feet," he said. "Our experience was more than limited. It was almost nonexistent. But we went."
...He made headlines in 1998 when at 77 he entered a bank on the Upper West Side and found a robbery in progress. He ran out, alerted two police officers and helped them subdue the suspect, pinning his arm so the officers could handcuff him....
"At the time we shipped out, none of us second lieutenants had ever worn an oxygen mask, had probably never flown above 10 or 12 thousand feet," he said. "Our experience was more than limited. It was almost nonexistent. But we went."
...He made headlines in 1998 when at 77 he entered a bank on the Upper West Side and found a robbery in progress. He ran out, alerted two police officers and helped them subdue the suspect, pinning his arm so the officers could handcuff him....
