Happy Veterans' Day! - Our Dads

My dad, Frederick Henry Pape, at his graduation from Navigator Training School,
Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, Texas, April 1952. 

Mark's dad, Francis Edward Gresham, US Navy, World War II, April 1944 - August 1945

My dad, Frederick Henry Pape, was in the Air Force from March 1951 through April 1955, and served in the Korean War from September 1952 to April 1953 as a navigator and bombardier on B-26s, mostly flying out of K-1, the Pusan West Air Base. He flew at least 50 missions and was awarded the Air Medal.

Dad attended flight school in Columbus, Mississippi and graduated from Navigator Training School at Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, Texas, in April 1952.  Dad went back to Ellington after his Korean War service and was training other navigators there when he met my mom.

Mark's dad, Francis Edward Gresham (1911-1990), served in the Navy during World War II, from April 1944 to August 1945. Francis was an experienced pressman and print shop manager, and after basic training in California, he was sent to work as a negative engraver and cameraman at the Navy's Hydrographic Office in Washington, D.C. during the war. Afterwards, he returned to work as a civilian at the US Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, promoted from his pre-war job as a junior supervisor to supervisor of "miscellaneous duplicating devices." He went on to hold other civilian print shop positions with the Navy in Pensacola, Florida; Guam; and Bremerton, Washington.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.