Postcard draft!

Sharing our postcard draft to announce Fogg in the Cockpit!

US Army Air Corps Training Center

Be it known that Howard Lockhart Fogg

United States Army, has satisfactorily completed the course of instruction prescribed for Pilot.

In testimony whereof and by virtue of vested authority I do confer upon him this

-- Diploma --

Given at Foster Field, Victoria, Texas, this tenth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and forty-two.

H. H. Van Auken,

Colonel, Air Corps,

Commanding

Attest:
Sam A. Carnes,
Major, Air Corps,
Adjutant

Air Cadet Howard Fogg - June 1942

“One of the greatest hazards in flying is fog in the cockpit.”

As told to Richard Fogg by his father Howard Fogg, this phrase was uttered by a meteorology instructor to a class of student pilots in 1942. A gale of laughter, led by Howard, followed this pronouncement.

Air Cadet Howard Fogg at Parks Air College in East St. Louis, June 1942.
Lettering on Fuselage reads:
U.S. ARMY-PT-I9
AIR CORPS SERIAL NO.40-2609
CREW WEIGHT 400 LBS

Photo Courtesy of Peter Fogg

Foster Field, Victoria, Texas: Class 42-J Flight B

Drafted into the Army on May 15, 1941, Howard Fogg was assigned to the 4th Armored Division at Watertown in upper New York State. But the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed his life. The Army Air Corps needed pilots, so with his keen vision and sense of duty Howard requested a transfer. He received basic flight training at Parks Air College in St. Louis, primary training at Vance Airbase in Enid, Oklahoma, and finished his schooling at Foster Field in Victoria, Texas.

1st Row (sitting) Beveridge, Bissell, Burton, Smith, Ericson, Bogard, Martin, Slaughter, Bredthauer, Holder, Davis L.D., Bergren

2nd Row (kneeling) Fox, Perino, McGraw, Berry, Whitney, Ford, Madigan, Santry, DeMont, Cowan, Dyas, Crowell, Conley, Elliott, Butler

3rd Row (standing) Danahy, Davis C.E., Benson, Ewing, Griffith, Clark, Brown, Gerst, Emmert, Chiodo, Cross, Buckles, Bowsher, Fogg

4th Row (back row) Simpson-Dispatcher, Capt. Eck, Lts. Kroll, McCain, Oliver, Richie, Blanchard, Schmidt, Beal, Anderson, McVey-Dispatcher

Why did we write Fogg in the Cockpit?

Fogg In The Cockpit began, and ended, as a labor of love, but the focus of that love changed as the work unfolded. Howard Fogg's legacy was already firmly established thanks to his success as a railroad artist, but what son or daughter-in-law could resist the opportunity to build on that legacy when presented with a document as fascinating as a wartime diary? The format is compelling: no facts lost or colored by time, the trivial and the significant presented with equal clarity, terms, conditions, and events offered up not through the veil of nostalgia but simply as fact. This, then, was the basis, and the inspiration, for Fogg In The Cockpit.

And then the unexpected. The secondary players, men whose names would never appear on an internet search engine, took on a life of their own. Men who helped win the war and then came home to lead quiet lives. Men who, far too often, did not come home. The book was not just about Captain Fogg anymore, it was about the 359th Fighter Group; its pilots, officers, and support personnel. The supporting cast became stars, and the love of Howard Fogg, with whom we shared a lifetime, became a love of the men of the 359th, men we would never have had the privilege and honor of knowing if not for Fogg In The Cockpit.