From “Gaye Lyn”
To “Veterans Air Line”
Date 8/21/2025 11:46:41 AM
Subject Collection Veterans Air Express, The Unfolding Story of a 1945
Non-Sked Air Carrier
Hello to my Veterans Air Research Network,
My last update was April 2023, so my bad if you do not remember aiding
my research, which started back in 2015. But I return today with worthy
news. Our research has been accepted as an Archival Collection by
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. It’s official.
Collection Veterans Air Express, The Unfolding Story of a 1945 Non-Sked
Air Carrier
As you know, the ERAU Archives will give our Story additional exposure
and potential for research by historians, aviation buffs, genealogists,
Non-Sked fanatics, family members, journalists, etc. Folks who want to
know more about the rest of The Veterans Air Story, who may have
additional information – or who are chasing their own story that
overlaps ours. The ERAU Archives Librarians will be their gateway to
our research.
For clarification (probably unnecessary), the Veterans Air Website will
remain unaffected by the Archives and will always be accessible to the
outside world at its original address – veteransair.org/
The Collection today only contains Scope and Content [shown below] and
gives access to our Website. Over the next months, I will continue to
Footnote the Website and prepare my unpublished hard copy and digital
files for joining the Collection.
THE COLLECTION TODAY – 8/20/2025
Saunie B. Gravely at 22-years-old was a World War II Veteran, Sargent
and Instructor, Flexible Gunnery School, Tyndall Field, FL. He was
honorably discharged from service in January, 1945. By May, he had begun
to conjure a business. Utilization of surplus warbirds. Employment of
returning WWII Veterans like himself (pilots, navigators, flight
engineers, mechanics) who were now aviation-skilled and hopeful for
aviation careers. And something about air transport of fresh produce. By
June, Gravely had convinced Arthur and Nellie Brenner, owners of Brenner
Produce, Newark, NJ, and their company’s attorney, Harvey Stevenson,
that his concept had merit – and they facilitated the company’s
founding.
By July, still 1945, articles of incorporation existed, eager Veterans
were lined up for ground and flight crew positions, and a commitment for
the Company’s first two ex-Army C-47s (soon to be civilian DC-3s) was
made by the U. S. government’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation with
some intervention by Gravely’s West Virginia U. S. Senator Harley
Kilgore. Thus began the all-Veterans non-sked air service
(non-scheduled) … Veterans Air Express and Veterans Air Line based at
Teterboro and Newark Air Fields in New Jersey. [The CAB dis-allowed the
non-skeds to call themselves “Airlines.” But as two words, the name was
permitted!]
The Veterans Air Express Collection is a patchwork of videos,
recordings, photos and correspondence about face-to-face meetings with
five original Crew members and 11 other crew families whose fathers had
passed. The families and a network of aviation buffs and librarians took
interest in and contributed knowledge and unexpected tendrils of
research that reveal how Saunie Gravely’s dream came true. The story of
this short-lived adventure involves a “squadron” of more than 68 skilled
men and women who helped form, fund, fly and operate the air carrier
through 1947. They made it happen.
Veterans Air Express, Saunie B. Gravely, Founder 1945-1947 Air cargo,
passenger service
Gaye Lyn Gravely, Historian 2015-2025 Veterans Air Research
Gravely’s daughter began researching her Dad’s endeavor in April 2015
prompted by her curiosity about the stories he had told her over the
years – and with the first-source assistance of a July 1946 AIR
TRANSPORT 3-page news article she discovered among his possessions when
he died in 1987. Chronology is not a researcher’s luxury. And, as an
unexpected legacy story began to unfold, she established a website to
capture and present her findings in some semblance of order as the
findings grew. veteransair.org/ That website is an integral part
of this Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Archives Collection. It was
also an expansion of another ERAU Non-Sked Era Collection.
The legacy and honor of the Embry-Riddle Archives continues to sink in.
No matter what part you played, I am greatly grateful to you for helping
make it happen.
My best,
g.
Gaye Lyn
Saunie’s Daughter