Tinker's
Chato Over the Teruel
(by Allan Herr)
Flyers of Fortune:
American Airmen in the Spanish Civil War
This 60 minute radio documentary, based on the book Airmen Without Portfolio : U.S. Mercenaries in Civil War Spain, examines the flying careers of American aviators who flew for the Republic during Spain’s civil war. This program was first broadcasted November 27, 1998 on Peach State Public Radio (now Georgia Public Radio).
Albert
Baumler's Military Tour in Spain
Ben
Leider's Tragically Brief Tour in Spain
The
Computation of Aerial Victories
Reorganization of the Republican Air
Force
The Most Successful Republican
Fighter Pilots
More
Photographs and Illustrations
Frank Tinker and company
Well-documented is the record of those Americans who served with the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington battalions, volunteers who fought alongside the British, Irish, Canadian, and other nationals comprising the Fifteenth International Brigade. Historical notice, too, has been made of the courageous U.S. men and women who worked with the American Medical Bureau as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, and medical technicians.
Less well known, however, are the exploits of those American airmen who flew combat for the Spanish Republican Air Force against the best that Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler could send. Perhaps this oversight is due to their limited numbers, or perhaps the fact that these aviators accepted mercenary wages for their services ($1,500 per month salary and a $1,000 bounty on every Axis plane downed). It is regrettably true that a few of these pilots were unprepared for duty or acted unprofessionally while overseas, but the majority of these men acquitted themselves with distinction, and a select few outclassed their fascist adversaries in fighter aircraft over Spain.
Based on the book Airmen Without Portfolio: U.S. Mercenaries in Civil War Spain by John Carver Edwards, Special Projects Archivist for the University of Georgia Libraries, this 60-minute Peach State Public Radio documentary examines the flying careers of those handful of Americans who flew for the Republic during Spain’s civil war. Forerunners of General Claire Chennault’s famous "Flying Tigers" in China, the motives of these airmen ranged from the altruism of a dedicated young Communist and reporter for the New York Post, Benjamin David Leider, to the wheeler-dealer Harold (Whitey) Dahl, by profession a soldier-of-fortune, to the adventurer Frank Glasgow Tinker, a graduate of the Naval Academy (’33). Tinker emerged from his tour in Spain as America’s sole "ace" with 8 confirmed victories.
