Carl Brown

Brown was born in 1917 in Michigan, and joined the Navy in 1939. He was assigned to a torpedo squadron and served aboard the carrier Saratoga. During this time, he joined the AVG, which proved providential, as his entire squadron was lost shortly thereafter at Midway. Assigned to the Adam and Eves squadron, Brown was one of the few who volunteered to fly night patrol shortly after tlie attack on Pearl Harbor. Carl recounts this as a "rather heart-pounding. experience; we'd never employed the P-40 at night, and they had no (exhaust stack) flame suppressors or flame guards. When you went to take off all of a sudden it was like looking into a blast furnace-you couldnt see a damn thing ...like flying into the Sun." Carl was involved in the AVGs first combat experience in December 41, and flew in many notable missions, including the harrowing experience stopping the Japanese in the Salween Gorge, when he recalls pilot Bob Littles plane tragically exploding just 40 feet from his wing. After his AVG days, Carl flew for CNAC until 1945. After the war, he entered pre-med in Los Angeles, and flew for the newly-formed Flying Tiger Air Line. Carl then began a successful medical career, specializing in neurology and anesthetics. Throughout the 90s, Dr. Brown had the unique distinction of being the doctor at the Corcoran State Penitentiary in California, the state which he's called home for many years.

Artwork signed by this Pilot or Aircrew