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Page title without namespace (page_title) | 'Marion Rodgers' |
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New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | 'Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF Retired. Still living in 2016 at 94, because he gave so much care to so many and especially his hard-working and dedicated wife, Suzanne T. Rodgers.
Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016)
I was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by my Mother, Lois Rodgers. We moved to Roselle, NY in 1929 to live with cousins along with my older Brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised me from then until after high school. The school system was great. I worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. My interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. I was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. I was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation. Several times I walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. I was only a high-school graduate, but I applied. My I.Q. was 139 and I passed all the aptitude tests they gave us. I was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and I was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then I got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again. Finally, we went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested our commitment. We went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc. Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. I flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while we flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged us in other was such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. I flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours. Ramitelli, Italy was my next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron (which he commanded until integration) to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, I flew 370 hours. We flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. We never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and I don’t know how we herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin.
My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. We destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Our passes approached 600 mph and we were hundreds of miles from friendly territory. I became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. I served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, 17
years Civil Service and one year with NASA on the Apollo 13 project. (1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S. “As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak. (1962-1985) Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electonics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission. An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only with months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government. He also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers (passed on 12/21/2013 due to court actions), a Juvenile diabetic, 74 years on insulin. Their advice and participation are still actively sought in the community even as they approach 87 and 81 years of age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman' |
Unified diff of changes made by edit (edit_diff) | '@@ -1,2 +1,7 @@
+Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF Retired. Still living in 2016 at 94, because he gave so much care to so many and especially his hard-working and dedicated wife, Suzanne T. Rodgers.
+Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016)
+I was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by my Mother, Lois Rodgers. We moved to Roselle, NY in 1929 to live with cousins along with my older Brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised me from then until after high school. The school system was great. I worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. My interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. I was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. I was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation. Several times I walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. I was only a high-school graduate, but I applied. My I.Q. was 139 and I passed all the aptitude tests they gave us. I was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and I was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then I got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again. Finally, we went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested our commitment. We went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc. Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. I flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while we flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged us in other was such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. I flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours. Ramitelli, Italy was my next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron (which he commanded until integration) to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, I flew 370 hours. We flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. We never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and I don’t know how we herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin.
+My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. We destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Our passes approached 600 mph and we were hundreds of miles from friendly territory. I became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. I served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, 17
+years Civil Service and one year with NASA on the Apollo 13 project. (1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S. “As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak. (1962-1985) Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electonics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission. An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only with months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government. He also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers (passed on 12/21/2013 due to court actions), a Juvenile diabetic, 74 years on insulin. Their advice and participation are still actively sought in the community even as they approach 87 and 81 years of age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman
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0 => 'Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF Retired. Still living in 2016 at 94, because he gave so much care to so many and especially his hard-working and dedicated wife, Suzanne T. Rodgers. ',
1 => 'Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016)',
2 => 'I was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by my Mother, Lois Rodgers. We moved to Roselle, NY in 1929 to live with cousins along with my older Brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised me from then until after high school. The school system was great. I worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. My interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. I was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. I was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation. Several times I walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. I was only a high-school graduate, but I applied. My I.Q. was 139 and I passed all the aptitude tests they gave us. I was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and I was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then I got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again. Finally, we went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested our commitment. We went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc. Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. I flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while we flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged us in other was such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. I flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours. Ramitelli, Italy was my next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron (which he commanded until integration) to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, I flew 370 hours. We flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. We never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and I don’t know how we herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin. ',
3 => 'My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. We destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Our passes approached 600 mph and we were hundreds of miles from friendly territory. I became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. I served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, 17 ',
4 => 'years Civil Service and one year with NASA on the Apollo 13 project. (1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S. “As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak. (1962-1985) Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electonics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission. An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only with months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government. He also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers (passed on 12/21/2013 due to court actions), a Juvenile diabetic, 74 years on insulin. Their advice and participation are still actively sought in the community even as they approach 87 and 81 years of age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman'
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New page wikitext, pre-save transformed (new_pst) | 'Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF Retired. Still living in 2016 at 94, because he gave so much care to so many and especially his hard-working and dedicated wife, Suzanne T. Rodgers.
Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016)
I was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by my Mother, Lois Rodgers. We moved to Roselle, NY in 1929 to live with cousins along with my older Brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised me from then until after high school. The school system was great. I worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. My interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. I was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. I was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation. Several times I walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. I was only a high-school graduate, but I applied. My I.Q. was 139 and I passed all the aptitude tests they gave us. I was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and I was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then I got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again. Finally, we went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested our commitment. We went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc. Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. I flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while we flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged us in other was such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. I flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours. Ramitelli, Italy was my next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron (which he commanded until integration) to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, I flew 370 hours. We flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. We never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and I don’t know how we herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin.
My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. We destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Our passes approached 600 mph and we were hundreds of miles from friendly territory. I became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. I served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, 17
years Civil Service and one year with NASA on the Apollo 13 project. (1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S. “As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak. (1962-1985) Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electonics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission. An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only with months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government. He also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers (passed on 12/21/2013 due to court actions), a Juvenile diabetic, 74 years on insulin. Their advice and participation are still actively sought in the community even as they approach 87 and 81 years of age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman' |
Parsed HTML source of the new revision (new_html) | '<p>Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF Retired. Still living in 2016 at 94, because he gave so much care to so many and especially his hard-working and dedicated wife, Suzanne T. Rodgers. Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016) I was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by my Mother, Lois Rodgers. We moved to Roselle, NY in 1929 to live with cousins along with my older Brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised me from then until after high school. The school system was great. I worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. My interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. I was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. I was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation. Several times I walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. I was only a high-school graduate, but I applied. My I.Q. was 139 and I passed all the aptitude tests they gave us. I was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and I was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then I got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again. Finally, we went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested our commitment. We went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc. Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. I flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while we flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged us in other was such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. I flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours. Ramitelli, Italy was my next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron (which he commanded until integration) to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, I flew 370 hours. We flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. We never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and I don’t know how we herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin.</p>
<p>My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. We destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Our passes approached 600 mph and we were hundreds of miles from friendly territory. I became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. I served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, 17 years Civil Service and one year with NASA on the Apollo 13 project. (1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S. “As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak. (1962-1985) Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electonics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission. An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only with months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government. He also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers (passed on 12/21/2013 due to court actions), a Juvenile diabetic, 74 years on insulin. Their advice and participation are still actively sought in the community even as they approach 87 and 81 years of age. <a class="external free" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Marion_Raymond_(Rodge)_Rodgers,_Tuskegee_Airman</a></p>
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Whether or not the change was made through a Tor exit node (tor_exit_node) | 0 |
Unix timestamp of change (timestamp) | 1472777500 |
