While I was flying RB-29 missions for the 91st SRS, out of Yokota Air Base, in 1953 and 1954, Ancil Baker was a member of the management staff for the 98th Bomb Wing, located at the same base. We returned to the U.S. about the same time where we were both assigned to the 98th Bomb Wing at Lincoln AFB, Nebraska, where we converted to a B-47/KC-97 SAC operation. Fairly early in this process, Colonel Baker needed a co-pilot to fly with him on an administrative trip to the west coast in a B-25. Having previous experience as a flight instructor in the B-25, I was selected to accompany him on this trip.

As the flight progressed, I realized that Colonel Baker had a complete terrain layout map printed in his remarkable memory. It seemed he knew every mountain, every valley and every other check-point along the way. I also realized that I was flying with a man who had been an active Army Air Corps pilot while I was still in junior and senior high school. He was one of the role models I had chosen while reading every aviation magazine I could lay hands on as a youth. From that point on, I knew that here was a man that I wanted to learn more about, when the opportunity presented itself. In the years that followed, our mutual schedules did not permit me to pursue the subject. But, now, in these later years, I have had the opportunity to ask him for his story. He was kind enough to share it, and I offer it to you here, in brief quotations directly from the source. I must say, his story is as moving and meaningful, today, as I imagined it to be as a youth.

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