A West Virginia boy, born and raised, this future Army Air Corps Gunnery Instructor1 leans on his unidentified rifle…with no glimmer of the post-WWII cargo & passenger airline he will found with veterans like himself.
He founded Veterans Air at Newark Air Depot, New Jersey, with a maintenance base for a short time at Hendricks Field, Sebring, FL.2 Saunie was President, Chairman of the Board, a stickler for well-maintained aircraft, and the motivation behind the endeavor. Within weeks of his daughter’s birth in November, 1945, he named a company DC-3 after her- the GAYE LYN.3
SOURCES
1 NARA*, World War II Army Enlistment Records, created 6/1/2002-9/30/2002, documenting the period ca. 1938-1946. Record Group 64. GRAVELY#SAUNIE#B, at Ft Thomas Newport Kentucky, 6/18/1941, Branch Army Air Corps. *U.S. National Archives & Records Administration. http://aad.archives.gov/∧
2 Based on the company's growth plans, Florida's location played well as a location for aircraft maintenance and overhaul. Veterans Air Website. https://veteransair.org/florida-ideal-secondary-maintenance-location/∧
3 Saunie was only 22 years old when he began to materialize a business concept for WWII aviation-trained Veterans like himself, flying military surplus aircraft, with fresh produce to distant markets as their cargo.Veterans Air Website. https://veteransair.org/saunie-gravely-founder/∧