34 | SUNRAYS
NOVEMBER 2013
ONLINE:
SCTXCA.ORG
W
hen World War II ended, cur-
rent Sun City Texas resident
Larry Simpson couldn’t have
been even a gleam in his father’s eye.
Today, with his father having passed
away in 2011 at age 89, there’s a gleam
in Larry’s eye whenever he thinks about
and talks about the late Colonel Thomas
S. Simpson.
“About eight to ten years ago, Dad was
packing away a lot of his memorabilia
and thinking about going to a care fa-
cility,” Larry related. “Helping him, I
saw a large box of pictures, logbooks,
programs, all relating to his service ca-
reer, including the China-Burma-India
region in the 1940s.”
Also drawing Larry’s attention was the
white dress uniformwith all the service
ribbons and two wings. One wing was
the standard Army Air Corps type; the
other was from the Chinese Air Force.
The younger Simpson might momen-
tarily have thought his father had been
in the Flying Tigers, the famous fighter
plane unit more officially known as the
American Volunteer Group (AVG).
“But, no, even though he flew 18 different
aircraft in his overall career and logged
at least 6,000 hours and earned Com-
mand Pilot’s wings, he never piloted a
P-40,” Larry declared.
“Actually, Dad’s single largest total, about
4,000 hours, came at the controls of the
two-engine B-25 bomber. Part of that time,
he flew in support of General Claire Chen-
nault’s AVG and then the 14th Air Force.”
As a result of learning this much about
his father, Larry was able to ask a lot
more questions that might not have been
answered at an earlier time in his life.
MILITARY LIFE
Born in 1948, Larry was no stranger
to military bases. “We basically lived
on a runway, and I remember we were
at Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring,
Texas, and then at Hickam and Wheeler
in Hawaii as late as 1962.”
That was a significant year in Colonel
Simpson’s life and career. The latter
ended not too long after he was selected
for a permanent promotion to a one-star
(brigadier) general.
“As I understood it at the time, consider-
ing I was only in my early teens,” Larry
The
Treasure
Left
Behind
By Bob Wakefield
After learning more about the early life
of his father, resident Larry Simpson has
begun to tell others of his heroic tales in
World War II. At top, Larry holds a photo
of his dad in uniform; while the photo
above right shows his dad in pilot gear.
Above left are the wings given to the
late Colonel Thomas S. Simpson from
the Chinese Air Force.
