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I was born in Alantagrad in the Georgia Republic of the CSA in September 1914. My parents moved north East to Charlottesburg in the Republic of Carolina when I was 6 years old.

I had always had an interest in flying machines and I finally got my chance in 1931. The Land of the Rising Sun was by then growing and flexing its military muscle, war could happen at any moment in our disputed borders. In order to relax tensions, Japan sent an envoy from their ‘Taiwan Air Wing’ on a good will tour to help smooth the tension between Russia and Japan. This was an arm of the Japanese Air Force made up from Taiwanese volunteers.

They Stopped in Charlottesburg to put on an air show and I was lucky enough to meet their commanding officer, Major Okumura.

He quickly took a liking to this skinny 17 year old because, as he said himself, I had great devotion and sense of duty so he would make a Samurai of me….. I was so proud!! I was assigned to wash his plane, help the mechanics, run errands and do anything the Major or his pilots wanted or needed…..but tension was rising in the East.

Before he left, he pulled some strings and managed to get me signed into the Russian Air Force (VVS) and I was sent to the Lipetsk Flying School as a Line Boy, Refueling, Changing oil and doing general maintance on the aircraft and vehicles.
It was there that I was to meet my good friend Vakov. When I first saw him, I thought, My God, that is one skinny awkward human being but we soon became best friends until our beloved Motherland gave him a rifle with no bullets and sent him to train as a foot soldier in 1939, I thought I would never see him again!

He was recalled to the Air Fleet and he sent out a call for me to join him in the same Squadron…… there we start our next adventure under really adverse conditions, at the start of the war with Germany.

I never saw Major “Bazzi” Okumura again but I owe everything to him and Yakov.