In the Museum: Honor Roll
- By Rebecca Maksel
- Air & Space magazine, May 2010
The Wall of Honor at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Dane Penland
(Page 2 of 2)
Pam Cain
Pam Cain was almost 13 years old when her father, Air Force Colonel Oscar Mauterer, was reported missing in action over Laos. “I can remember the day like it was yesterday,” she says of that winter morning in 1966. “I remember everything about it.”
Mauterer piloted a Douglas A-1E Skyraider, providing cover for O-1E forward air controller aircraft. He hoped to enter the space program after his tour ended. But in February 1966, Mauterer’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire. About five miles south of Na Phao in Laos, he was forced to bail out. He has never been found.
When Cain heard about the Wall of Honor, she immediately thought of her father. “What better way to honor my dad’s name? It seemed a very fitting way to make a tribute to him,” she explains.
“I dearly love flying,” Mauterer wrote in a 1965 letter to his daughter, “as it is a way of life that is difficult to fully describe but it is exhilarating...”
While Cain isn’t sure how her father became interested in aviation, she does know that his fascination with it indirectly influenced her future husband and their son to become pilots.
For more information about the Wall of Honor, visit www.nasm.si.edu/wallofhonor. Funds from this program are used to help preserve and restore the aircraft and spacecraft in the Museum’s collections.
Comments (2)
I submitted my oldest step-daughter's name, Stephanie Black, because of her unique contribution to the Space program. I of course made the proper monetary contribution for the NASM wall. Would her name be found in this area that was just documented or would it be somewhere else. I also submitted a write-up that detailed what her contribution was. EDITORS' REPLY: We will have someone at NASM contact you directly about this inquiry. Thank you very much for your generous contribution; we are grateful.
Posted by Donald B. Thompson on May 28,2010 | 01:04 PM
Starting in the week when Lucky Lindy flew to Paris
my lifespan has taken me from Taylor Cubs to Space Shuttles.
My brief enlistment in the Air Corps took me all over Europe
and Russia as well as to Japan and China within months of
the end of WW II. I submitted accounts of 3 unique flights doing Passenger Service in the "Top Brass" 503rd Special Missions Squadron out of Washington National Airport and I am pleased to be included with my son and his son on the
Wall of Honor as Founding Members of the Air and Space
Museum at Dulles. It is a sheer priviledge to have been able to add our names along with flight pioneers and airborne patriots who have "broken the surly bonds of earth and touched the Face of God"! EDITORS' REPLY: Thank you for your generosity, and for sharing your stories. We are most grateful.
Posted by Richard , James and Macklin Beidler on May 28,2010 | 02:16 AM