Henry B. Chapman reserve pilot wing made by William Dibb of San Diego

[rathbonemuseum.com]

Presented here are the extremely fine, jeweler-made USAS Junior and Reserve pilot wings to Henry B. Chapman, formerly of the Terry Morris collection. The wings are made by Walter Dibb, who had his own eponymous jewelry firm in San Diego. Dibb had worked at Jessop and Sons, another San Diego jeweler, as early as 1907. By WWI he was on his own. These wings were previously part of the Terry Morris collection and are illustrated in his book.

Henry B. Chapman was a lifelong adventurer and entrepreneur. Born in New Orleans LA in 1893, he moved to Bay St. Louis, MS where he lived most of his life. He started a lifetime of boating, building and sailing as early as 10 years old and was a member of numerous yacht clubs.

His brief army career began with enlistment in the infantry in 1917. By the end of the year he was transferred to the aviation section as a pilot cadet at Kelly Field and UofTx. In May 1918 he was transferred to Rockwell Field, San Diego, CA where he received his flight instruction and solo'd. He was then transferred to March Field, Riverside, CA for advanced instruction and was graduated as a pursuit pilot, commissioned 2nd LT, Reserve military aviator on October 5, 1918. He is shown in his graduation photo wearing these wings.

Following graduation, Chapman was a pursuit instructor and mapped air mail routes for the postal service in California. He was discharged February 4th, 1919.

Chapman had a very active civilian career as a merchant seaman in the Merchant Marine, rising to captain. He operated a flying service and instruction in New Orleans. He was a chief pilot for a small South American airline flying in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. He founded Chapman Air Service, a contract firm to train WWII pilots. He set a small seaplane distance record. And finally was a land surveyor in his later career.

 

 

[warguy]

That is a gorgeous set of wings. Nice history as well. Thanks for sharing!

[cwnorma]

1 minute ago, warguy said:

That is a gorgeous set of wings.

And, Tough to find!  Really top shelf.

[pfrost]

Cool beans Tod!  Great wings for a great guy. 

[bschwartz]

Fantastically rare wing.  Glad to see a portion of Terry's collection go to such a good home.

[LtDan]

Outstanding set of wings with great provenance.   Interesting history on Chapman too.  Glad to know you have a part of Terry's collection.   Thank you for sharing.

[blind pew]

Great wings!

 

Those were up for auction a couple of weeks ago and that "rat" Charlie beat me out for them! Just kidding- Congratulations! It's good to see someone from this forum got them. 

 

Anyone know who picked up the Linz wings from the same auction? There were a lot of good wings from Terry's collection in that auction. I hope his wife made some good cash. I never met him personally and was amazed at his personal military history.