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Last of WWII 9FS

 

 

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9FS Last Days in Japan

 

Chinook - unofficial 9FS mascot - 1945

Chinook, the monkey, at Atsugi. It succumbed to the cold Japanese winter. [The original & "official" 9FS mascot was Huckleberry Duck.]

 

Sandy Willford, 9FS P-38 fighter pilot, stated Warren Fowler got a monkey at Leyte, right after the invasion, and named it Chinook, for the northwest winds of the midwestern states.

Also, Ken Clark stated, "The pet monkey, one of them anyway, belonged to W. Koby at Lingayen Gulf. We shared a nipa hut on the beach there. He had bailed out over northern Luzon and was rescued by Philippine guerillas. He was with them a week or more before they could transport him back to the squadron, and he evidently behaved himself because they presented him with a pet monkey. It was a small, ordinary- looking monkey but he was a holy terror in the hut - got into everything and usually damaged or destroyed whatever he found. He got a carton of my cigarettes one day, opened each pack one by one and carefully ripped the paper off each cigarette. When Koby was flying I baby-sat the monkey. He wore a collar and I'd tie him to my belt and let him ride on my shoulder as I walked or drove about the camp. The dog he wrestled was a small, Scotty-looking terrier one of the boys had acquired in Australia. I don't know whatever happened to either mascot."

 

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