Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Did our Uncle Leslie ever meet Uncle Fester?

As I have reported here, a couple of times, I am looking for war records of my Uncle Leslie.
Not having much luck so far, but it is always interesting the things you find out along the way.


As I have stated before, our Uncle Leslie
served with the Chindits in WW2 in Burma.
And beyond that I have not been able to find anything else out about his time in service.
But while again doing some digging today I found out 'Uncle Fester', actor 'Jackie' Coogan also spent some time with the Chindits in 1943, flying them into remote sites during the war.

Here, from Wikipedia; Coogan enlisted in the United States Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he requested a transfer to United States Army Air Forces as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. After graduating from glider school, he was made a flight officer and he volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group. In December 1943, the unit was sent to India. He flew British troops, the Chindits, under General Orde Wingate on March 5, 1944, landing them at night in a small jungle clearing 100 miles behind Japanese lines in the Burma campaign.





No comments:

Post a Comment