From: Gaye Lyn
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 10:01 AM
To: Roberto A Sarmiento
Subject: Veterans Air Express – my Dad’s airline
Hello, Roberto.
I just left you a phone message and thought I’d also send this along as
background – www.VeteransAir.org – it’s my research aid, created for
just such an occasion as contacting you.
I’m interested in all findings. At the moment, I’m focusing on the
actual “life span” of the airline. I have conflicting information from
various sources … 1945 – 1947 then filed for bankruptcy vs. sold off
by stockholders vs. (in John Corpening’s book Forgotten Flights) loss of
registration in 1949 due to “illegal passenger charters to Europe.”
Wondering if you can help guide me to and through Northwestern’s
aviation archives?
Thanks so much, Roberto. I look forward to hearing from you.
g.
Gaye Lyn
Veterans Air Line& Veterans Air Express
Saunie Gravely, Founder, President, 1945
Gaye Lyn Gravely, Researcher, 2015
Web: www.VeteransAir.org
——————————————————————————–
From: Gaye Lyn
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 3:51 PM
To: Roberto A Sarmiento
Subject: Re: Veterans Air Express – my Dad’s airline
Roberto! Thank you so very much. You certainly did a lot of work on
my behalf.
It’s surprising you got no hits, especially because it’s older material
and I would expect some of it has been digitized and added to data
bases. Or do I completely misunderstand the concept of how all this is
accomplished.
As for journals, a friend found three references for me today via
Google books – in Air Transport, Air Transportation and Aviation News.
I have OCLC WorldCat reference numbers for them and will ask my local
library if they’ll arrange interlibrary loans or article scans. I’ve
only used the WorldCat process once before. It’s a much slower than
finding an entire article.
In this case, I’ve only seen a tiny screen shot from Google books, but
it was enough to get my full attention. The reference below to “a
youthful Air Force…” at bottom of first column means my Dad! The
periodical is Air Transportation, Vol 8-9, Page 36, R. R. Parrish, 1946,
OCLC #1644323. I give you the details in case you can check your
databases for this specific article.
As for consulting financial sources/databases re: bankruptcy and
filings, I got this far but don’t know what to do with the information.
I’m not looking for private lesson, Roberto, I’m merely trying to show
you that I’ve attempted to put your generous input to work. I would
like to see the context in which you found the Veterans Air Line pin.
Again, I appreciate your response.
g.
Gaye Lyn
Veterans Air Line&Veterans Air Express
Saunie Gravely, Founder, President, 1945
Gaye Lyn Gravely, Researcher, 2015
Web: www.VeteransAir.org
To: Gaye Lyn
Subject: RE: Veterans Air Express – my Dad’s airline
Dear Ms. Lyn,
Thank you for your telephone call and email.
To get an idea as to what type of materials we may have in our
collections, I did a quick review on most of our aviation-related
electronic resources found at this site
libguides.northwestern.edu/c.php?g=114799&p=748561 for materials
on “Veterans airline” or “Veterans Air Express” (please note the quotes
are for forcing databases to search for the * exact phrase*) all the
databases searched came up without any hits.
Searching Google for “Veterans Air Express” (with quotes) provided
many links with a lot of interesting and legal information; including
the videos you uploaded! So I imagine you already have this information.
“Veterans airline” did not provide much information except for a pin,
which, you probably already saw.
I also searched our library’s discovery tool (our catalog) for books
and journal articles related to the airline and that also came up empty.
The only other alternative would be to go through our books/resources on
aviation to look at the indexes for entries on the companies; a time
consuming endeavor I am afraid I cannot do for you.
Please note that although our library does have a substantial
collection of books, journals and electronic resources, we do not have
an “aviation archive”, so there isn’t much historical information at the
detailed level you are looking for. Our website
www.library.northwestern.edu/libraries-collections/evanston-campus/transportation-library
and our discover tool
nwu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=NULTRANV
are fully available to anyone through the web. There are proprietary
resources which are only available to NU faculty/students which will not
be available to you.
Regarding company, bankruptcy and filings records, you will need to
consult financial sources/databases. Here are some of the resources
available at Northwestern University Library
libguides.northwestern.edu/c.php?g=114772&p=747601 however, I am
afraid most, if not all of them, are restricted to NU-only. So, you may
want to use this list as a starting point for where to search at your
local library.
Now, there are some long shots: You may have done this already, but
searching ”local” NJ newspaper archives for the location and period may
be a way to get additional “local” information (you may even try the New
York Times.) Although, I am not aware of any commercial journal covering
the aviation industry at that time (such as the current Aviation Week),
there may be one, just another angle to take, a slim one, but you never
know.
Sorry I could not be of much help.
Sincerely,
Roberto
Roberto A. Sarmiento
Head, Transportation Library
Northwestern University
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-2300
Visit the Transportation Library at
www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/
——————————————————————————–
From: Gaye Lyn
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 9:17 AM
To: Roberto A Sarmiento
Subject: Re: Veterans Air Express – my Dad’s airline
Roberto, good morning.
There is one other subject I particularly need to research. I’ll
quickly outline it here. And if you have any suggestions, I’ll be very
grateful.
There is an incredible book by John Corpening, Forgotten Flights:
Non-Scheduled and Specialty Air Carriers of the United States
1945-1978. In it he writes (from pg 183 of the Fourth Edition 2011,
Published by the Author) about Veterans Air Express Company and Veterans
Air Line. About the former, he shows the location and dates of the
business as “Teterboro N.J. 1946-1949” and, in part, he writes:
“…Illegal passenger charters to Europe, resulting in loss of
registration…” Roberto, do you know if there is a database (that
contains records of what we know as the current day Federal Aviation
Administration – FAA) for tracing airline registration dates and
actions?
I have been in touch with Mr. Corpening briefly to discuss his book and
will contact him again upon his return from a trip next week.
Meanwhile, I am interested in finding references to this crucial action,
if possible.
Again, my many thanks.
g.
Gaye Lyn
Veterans Air Line&Veterans Air Express
Saunie Gravely, Founder, President, 1945
Gaye Lyn Gravely, Researcher, 2015
Web: www.VeteransAir.org
——————————————————————————–
From “Roberto A Sarmiento”
To “Gaye Lyn”
Date 6/17/2015 10:04:02 AM
Subject RE: Veterans Air Express – my Dad’s airline
Ms. Lyn,
Sorry for the delay getting back to you, we are short-handed and I am
“it” for all questions.
Regarding the “airline registration dates and actions”…I went to the
www.faa.gov website and located a database on registrations….here is the
link
I downloaded it and attempted to run the database without reading the
instructions, well that did not work, so I will recommend you read the
instructions on how to run it since I did find the following “text”
entry which appears to be what you are looking for, but make no sense to
me since I am not opening the database!
88829,19415 ,3021458,V ,VETERANS AIR EXPRESS CO
,11 COMMERCE ST ,
,NEWARK ,NJ,07102 , , , ,1,013, ,
,19460930,53037115,3, , ,19460523,
, , ,
, ,
, ,AC3E4D ,
Also, I did a search on the FAA website using the format “veterans air
express”…please note that the system returns 209 hits with or without
the “quotes” ….so you may have to look at all of the records. It does
appear to me that these are similar to the records I saw on the text
file of the same database above.
I will recommend you spend some time looking around the FAA website to
see what other databases they may have that you could use.
As for the “pin”….Here is the citation I found in Google:
Veterans Air Line | Retro… | Pinterest
www .pinterest.com/pin/231935449533232227/
This Pin was discovered by John Mills. Discover (and save!) your own
Pins on Pinterest. | See more about retro advertising, veterans and
advertising.
You visited this page on 6/14/15
And here is the image…
Veterans Air Line: Ads Advert, Art Community, Retro Advertising, Posters
Affiche, Advert Sxx, Retro Posters, Affiche Retro, Retro Vintage,
Vintage Advertising
Regarding Mr. Corpening book, he donated a copy to us…but
unfortunately is now checked out, so I could not take a look at it to
check the entry.
The Air Transportation article…sorry, we do not have a digital copy of
this title. We do have a hard copy in our collection (as specified in
the OCLC record), but it is remote storage, so I cannot access it now.
For the “financial” information:
– I see you are searching for the company on a webpage that is a
listing of the databases or resources we have. This approach is
definitely not going to work. You need to enter the individual database
and then search within it. There are some other tools that allow you to
search multiple databases at once, but you need to select the databases
to search into.
– The link I provide below
libguides.northwestern.edu/c.php?g=114772&p=747601 will present
you with financial databases you can click on – and if available to you
– you will then be able to search…this is a long shot, but you can try
it. I provided you with this link as a guide of resources you may want
to search into using your own library. Look at the other resources
listed on the additional tabs on this page.
Best of luck with your research.
Sincerely,
Roberto
Roberto A. Sarmiento
Head, Transportation Library
Northwestern University