7th AAF Brief Magazine with a personal touch

[Waltz41]

Being a collector of 7th AAF items, esp those of the 3 Iwo P-51 fighter groups, I recently bought a lot of 7th Army Air Force Brief magazines. These magazines were put out weekly to members of the 7th. Upon arrival, I put the magazines in order by date, and briefly (haha) thumbed through them just to check out the content.

 

 

Coming across one of the magazines, I noticed a name written on the front of it, and it seemed somewhat familiar from doing research on the P-51 groups.

 

[Waltz41]

 

Opening the magazine, I saw a familiar title to an article that I had read online once, a chilling account of a P-51 pilot who was shot down and the struggle of his fellow squadron pilots to keep him safe and alive while in the water.

 

 

[Waltz41]

At the bottom, written lightly in pencil was the following:

 

 

"The story about my wingman that was shot down"

 

 

 

[Waltz41]

Lt. Fred Bauman was a member of the 78th FS, 15th FG. He flew P-51 #114, "Dear Edna" named so after his wife. He is credited with 1 aerial victory.

 

 

[JDK]

That's pretty cool! A nice personal touch.

 

JD

[General Colt]

​Nice! Just picked up a Brief magazine at a flea market last weekend!

[Waltz41]

So I had asked the seller to keep an eye out for anything else that might have Lt. Bauman's name on it. I picked up a P-51 Pilot's Association book with his name embossed on the cover. Inside there is a nice little biography on him. I took a chance on a lot of paper items from the seller, I don't know why, but for some reason I thought maybe he would have something in there. Honestly, I was hoping for something in there, but in the end, it had a couple of P-51/P-47 photos,negatives, postcards etc. When I got the items, it appeared nothing was actually of his, until I looked at one of the post cards....

 

[Waltz41]

And it starts "Dear Edna" :-)