Original RARE WW2 US Army Airforce Senior Liaison Pilot Wings GEMSCO NY 2

  

Original RARE WW2 US Army Airforce Senior Liaison Pilot Wings GEMSCO NY 2. This is a very good condition RARE U.

WWII Army Air Forces "Senior Liaison Pilot" Flight Badge, usually called "Wings". There were a multitude of different manufactures of the various flight badges, and many did not mark the badges made. These however have the maker mark of GEMSCO NY on the back of the wing with STERLING in the center.

The large L on a shield in the middle of the badge indicates that it is for a "Liaison Pilot", which were enlisted pilots, mainly of small single engine "Liaison" aircraft for various uses. Included were many enlisted aviation students who washed out of pilot training after having soloed and were given the opportunity to become liaison pilots. Flight training consisted of about 60 hours of flying time and stressed such procedures as short field landings and takeoffs over obstacles, low altitude navigation, first aid, day and night reconnaissance, aerial photography, and aircraft maintenance. Unarmored and unarmed-except perhaps for a.

30 carbine-these men in 28 different squadrons flew low and slow with wheels, skis, or floats. During the campaign to recapture the Philippines, pilots of the 25th Liaison Squadron flew a dozen Stinson L-5 Sentinel aircraft in short 30-minute flights (December 10-25, 1944) delivering supplies (including a 300-bed hospital) to the 6,000 men of the 11th Airborne Division isolated in the mountains of Leyte. In another mission, an Army officer wounded in the chest in New Guinea was evacuated in a liaison aircraft as the pilot pumped a portable respirator with one hand while he flew the aircraft with the other. Some liaison pilots flew forest patrols (Project Firefly) watching for fires ignited by incendiary bombs carried across the Pacific beneath unmanned Japanese high altitude balloons. These wings are in great shape, and still mostly bright, with all the original detail.