By: Hnx - 28th February 2013 at 21:28
Thanks for the inputs guys
By: mohawk - 27th February 2013 at 19:49
Tom Danaher
hello , some more. he shot down 3 zeros in one day , and also the last Japanese aircraft in WW2 . whilst in Okinawa he made friends with Yoshio Shiga , a famous fighter pilot . Shiga led the zeros form the carrier Kaga against Pearl Harbour.This led to Tom being made an honorary member of the Japanese fighter pilot’s association.
They presented him with a Samurai sword. He got permission for Shiga’s name to be put on his aircraft in the movie “Empire of the Sun”. He also knew Saburo Sakai, and i have a copy of Saburo’s memoirs signed by Tom and Saburo’s daughter
incidentally Shiga did not know that Japan and America were not at war until they returned to the carrier , and they were all appalled . alan
By: Newforest - 27th February 2013 at 18:59
Thanks for the update Mohawk! Some more interesting information.
http://www.radiolondon.co.uk/rl/scrap60/tomdanaher/aeroint.html
By: mohawk - 27th February 2013 at 18:21
hello , Tom Danaher and i have been friends for a very long time. he is alive and well and living in wichita falls . we chat on the phone every week.since his stroke he is not living out at the airfield which he visits regularly but somewhere where an eye can be kept on him.perhaps you might like to know how he got one of his medals . one night in okinawa a slow moving target was detected coming from the north . tom was sent up in a hellcat to shoot it down. being the man he is he first positioned himself so he could see it against the milky way . it was a catalina which had suffered an electrical fire . he guided it down into nahha through the overcast.alan
By: Newforest - 25th February 2013 at 13:53
More interesting data.
By: T J Johansen - 25th February 2013 at 13:50
Danaher.
T J
By: Stepwilk - 25th February 2013 at 13:41
Either the thread title or your text needs correcting. Is it Tom Danahan or Tom Danaher?
By: Newforest - 25th February 2013 at 12:58
Tom had a stroke at Farnborough in 2010, hope he has recovered. 🙂
http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37680
By: Hnx - 25th February 2013 at 10:36
Tom was a pilot for the movie Air America starring Mel Gibson years ago. He sent me some xeroxed photocopies of some of the stuff they did including the tracks on which they dragged the Pilatus fuselage into the C-123 hulk for the “crash” scene.
He has also been involved with a lot of stuff within aviation. Is he still around? Can’t get from your post if you have been at Sheppard AFB recently or not.
T J
When I left Texas in 2010 he was still alive about 87 years old, and still flying the curtiss
By: Newforest - 25th February 2013 at 09:05
What a man!
http://www.airportjournals.com/Display.cfm?varID=0611038
(Spelling error in thread title ;))
By: T J Johansen - 25th February 2013 at 08:41
Tom was a pilot for the movie Air America starring Mel Gibson years ago. He sent me some xeroxed photocopies of some of the stuff they did including the tracks on which they dragged the Pilatus fuselage into the C-123 hulk for the “crash” scene.
He has also been involved with a lot of stuff within aviation. Is he still around? Can’t get from your post if you have been at Sheppard AFB recently or not.
T J
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February 22, 2013 at 2:27 pm
