media-456637.jpg FRE 9765 Lucille Parker, Red Cross Aeroclub in a B-17 Flying Fortress of the 303rd Bomb Group. Image stamped on reverse: 'Passed for publication 27 november 1943.' [stamp] and '39692.'[Censor no.] Printed caption on reverse of photograph: 'Passed for publication 27 November 1943' [stamp].'OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE PHOTO DISTRIBUTED THRU OWI. Pro-HQ.-43-421. Lucille Parker, director of an Aeroclub at an 8th Air Force Bomber Station. She has parachuted from planes 189 times. She has 1,619 hours flying time as a pilot. She flew Civillan Air Patrol early in the war. Back when this field was young and the 8th Air Force was struggling with navigation and mud, Lucille Parker and Adelaide Noaks, of Westchester, N.Y., arrived here to find there was need for a Red Cross club, but nothing to start with. That was in Febrary, 1943; two months later the Aeroclub was opened and Lucille began darning socks. Lucille was able to describe for the boys just what it was like to have to bail out, what to do to protect themselves in falling, how to handle shroud lines and direct their course in descent. Col Charles E. Marion, of Detroit, then commanding the B-17 field. heard about the informal talks to the combat crewmen and stopped at the Aeroclub. He asked Lucille to speak to all the airmen about parachutes; it would be one of dispelling doubt about the unknown, which is mostly the only thing gunners and pilots and folks with similar jobs worry about. Lucille addressed half a dozen gathering of fliers, and told them about parachutes from the lore she acquired with Howard Mays' flying airmen in exchange for being taught to pilot a plane. She offered to do stunt jumping with Mays' flying circus in exchange for being taught to pilot a plane. "For a couple of years, then , " Lucille explains, " I was out at what now is Roosevelt Field at every opportunity. I learned to fly planes up to 800 horsepower, and in exchange I made 189 parachute jumps for Mays' circus all over the states." ' [caption]. Roger Freeman Collection

Associated Lucille Parker based on caption