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 Jerry French is presented with a stuffed monkey I picked up a small "Spider Monkey" in Brazil. Cute fellow, small, and with a long tail plus a bushel of ripe bananas and a bushel of green bananas. He really loved to fly, as he would ride on my left shoulder and watch the clouds go by. He flew with me all the way from Brazil, up thru several lay-overs (stops) in Africa, then up into Italy. I never took him on a combat mission, but flew with him many times on test flights & training missions at Manduria. Several kids from Manduria would walk out to our air field and wave at me and my monkey from the fence as we taxied out for take-off. I and the monkey would wave back at the kids. The man in the white coat in the picture, Mastrovito Aurelio, was about 12 year old then, and he was always there at the fence to wave at me, rather if the monkey was flying with me or not. So, at the reunion in the city hall at Manduria he presented me with a stuffed monkey in front of hundreds of Italian citizens, and the personnel of the 450th that attended the reunion. |
