About this website-

Going on 8 years in the making...

The idea to create this website in 1997 about the 9FS began as past curiosity about my father's WWII memory book "The Flying Knights". Although it was his book, it was given to me many years after he died, and for a long time  I couldn't find information about it. My father, Capt. Warren Fowler  was a P-38 fighter pilot during the second half of the war, June 1944 to August 1945 (14 months). He loved to fly the P-38 and was very proud to have served our country with this unit.  The historian of the 49th Fighter Wing suggested I get the book "Protect & Avenge - The 49th Fighter Group in WWII" by S.W. Ferguson & Wm. K.  Pascalis, and I appreciated seeing my father's name mentioned. This is a great book if you're interested about the history of the 49FG during the war in the Pacific. The authors spent many years gathering and documenting information, and conducted many personal interviews with former commissioned &  non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel of the 7th, 8th, 9th Fighter Squadrons and 49thFighter Group. Another book "Tales of a War Pilot" by former 9FS fighter pilot Richard C. Kirkland, gives entertaining personal accounts of his tour of duty during WWII and Korea. See the list of books and articles about the 9FS and the 49FG for more information. Acknowledgements: Several people have been extremely helpful since 1997 in compiling and preparing the content of  this website. My sincere thanks and gratitude to them for their generous support in contributing 9FS history, narratives, photos, memorabilia, etc. dedicated here:  49th Fighter Wing; 49th Fighter Group Association; WWII Flying Knights: Ken Clark (9FS Fighter Pilot/Unit Historian); Ralph Wandrey (9FS Fighter Pilot Ace/Historian/Photography Dept./Author); Mr. & Mrs. William Pascalis (Mr. Pascalis- 9FS Crew Chief/Historian/Author); Les Nelson (9FS Fighter Pilot); Clinton Palmer (9FS Communications Tech.); Bud Tiffany (9FS Fighter Pilot); George Alber (9FS Fighter Pilot); Bruce Alber, son of George Alber; R. Hawes (9FS Fighter Pilot); Sandy Willford (9FS Fighter Pilot); Ralph Holcomb (49th Fighter Control Squadron - Cryptographer); Richard Kirkland (9FS Fighter Pilot/Author)-  artist of pgs. 42 & 43 of The Flying Knights book; Warren Fowler (9FS Fighter Pilot), my dad.  Credits regarding specific images are listed below the item.

Notice

The Flying Knights of WWII © 1999-2005 website was originally created and is maintained by JoAnn Speidel. The majority of the compiled and assembled pages, text, and images within this, the original "The Flying Knights of WWII" website are copyright and/or owned by the originators, donors, and to the copyright and 3rd party copyright holders of any and all such material, and courtesy of: Historical works of the 9th Fighter Squadron, USAF 49th Fighter Wing and the 49th Fighter Group Association, and those mentioned in the "Acknowledgements". All rights reserved. No part of these pages, text or images, may be used for any purpose other than personal viewing. Reproduction of this website, duplicating, modification, storage in/on any retrieval system or by transmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical, photocopying, uploading to another web host/ server, downloading for publication or for public distribution and/or for sale/resale for profit, without prior written permission of copyright holders, donors, is not permitted.  The Flying Knights of WWII made possible by: Microsoft FrontPage® This website is subject to editing in the proper form of corrections, amendments, additions, etc. as needed which are posted in updates. Comments or suggestions regarding contents of  this website only. Questions regarding The Flying Knights will be directed to Ken Clark.