Ray Boro-- Part 2: The Corsairs, VF-44 and Korea

Here he joined VF-44.  (VF stands for fighter squadron.)  They flew those vaunted old World War II fighters  F4Us, better known as Corsairs.  Ray is very proud of those Corsairs:  "We were the last squadron to have them.  The others were sent to France."

Being the newby in the squadron, his first job was in the library.  Then you went to the night shift and then you became a plane captain.  Soon after arriving, he was directed to preflight a plane.  Only problem was that he "did not know the first thing about preflighting a plane."  However, in time he was trained to do so.

Another job he had was taxiing his plane.  And that was by far the worst thing he had to do as he had to be very, very aware of those props.  And not just from your plane, but the other ones as well.

After Jacksonville his squadron was transferred to the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain, but weren't there long because its catapult broke.  They were needed for launching the planes.  So, VF-44 ended up on the aircraft carriers USS Coral Sea (CV-43) and USS Boxer (CV-21) and off to Korea they went as the Korean War was underway.

--Cooter