15 Crimson Graduates At Florida Air Base

Fifteen Harvard graduates are now in active training at the United States. Naval Air Station at Jacksonville, Fla., preparing in an intensive course to receive their commissions as full-fledged Naval flying officers, a recent bulletin from the station's public relations officer announced.

Of the ten alumni who have already received the coveted wings of a Navy flyer, two have gone to the fleet as pilots, five have been transferred to the aid base at Miami for advanced schooling in piloting planes off the new aircraft carriers, and three have remained at the station to serve as instructors in the expanding training program.

200 Students A Month

Preparing cadets from all over the nation to play their part in the national defense effort, the air station sends 200 students a month into active duty in the Naval flying force. When they leave the Jacksonville base upon the completion of the training course, the new pilots are familiar with such basic subjects as gunnery, communications, power plants, and plane structure, as well as knowing how to fly a plane.

Recently commissioned Ensigns from Harvard now serving as instructors are George H. Earle, 4th '39, Joseph M. Jayne, and Algernon S. Roberts.

Among the aviation cadets at Jacksonville are Albert Balboni, Alton W. Davis '38, Richard S. Eustis, Jr. '41, Francis J. Gaffey, Robert P. Gammons '39, Fellows D. Gardner '38. Alfred I. Gregory, Thomas L. Bine '40, Charles Kendrick, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., George M. Lynch, George S. Norfleet, Edward P. Prince '40, Theodore L. Towksbury Jr., and Howard M. Turner Jr. '40.

Of the 15 graduates who are among the total of 11,000 men now stationed at the Jacksonville flight training center, Kennedy, son of the former ambassador to Great Britain, was a member of the Crimson football squad and the rugby team; and Gammons once journeyed to England as a member of the combined Harvard-Yale track team which battled the Oxford and Cambridge forces.