Artwork - RAF Upper Heyford; "Gone But Not Forgotten."

Aircraft Nose Artwork
"My name is Wayne Dodson. I was stationed at RAF Upper Heyford from 17 Jan '91 until closure, then got conned into helping stand-up the 620th SPS at RAF Croughton in Jun '94, but that's another story. I'm writing to comment on the pictures of the last three F-111Es pictured in "Final Departure". I was a SSgt assigned to the 20th SPS when I was approached by personnel from the 55th FS. Apparently somebody in the unit "ratted" me out about having some talent with a pencil. I was asked if I would be willing to do some "Nose Art" for them on one of their planes. In the course of my career I was always doodling, drawing cartoons, and illustrations on cricket bats for departing personnel, among other projects, so I jumped at the chance to get my hands on a plane. I asked them what it was they were looking for, to which they replied, it was up to me. My first thought was, of course, a scantily clad female, but I knew that "Heartbreaker" would be in the line-up and I didn't want to impinge upon "her" day. After a bit of thought, I remembered a 55th FS log book I was fortunate enough to have read back in '92. My OPs officer, Capt Sager, had "ratted" (that happened alot) me out to Mrs Schwalier, wife of Brigadier General Terryl J. "Terry" Schwalier, then Colonel Schwalier, commander of the 20th FW. She had commissioned me to come up with some back drops for the band for the "Wing Fling". A '40s style hangar dance attended by General McPeak. Anyway, she had lent me a log book that contained pilot reports from missions flown out of Kings Cliffe during WWII. I hit on the idea of trying to pay homage to the squadron and its illustrious history while based in the UK. The picture on the nose of 68-061 shows a pair of dice with 5 pips showing on each die, bouncing from Kings Cliffe to RAF Upper Heyford and then up and away. The white banner contains a P-38, one of the aircraft flown by the 55th in WWII with unit signature yellow spinners before the "Last Roll of the Dice", fading into a departing F-111. Myself and a fellow cop named SrA Kenneth Osborne spent the Thanksgiving holiday in a cold hangar rushing to get it finished."
"Last Roll one...in progress. We were in a hangar next door to MOC and right outside the old alert area. The building number eludes me, but it was COLD." laughing
"Last Roll two...a little further along."
"Last Roll three...That's SrA Ken Osborne on the left and Me on the right in the hat. Not looking my best." L
"Here are a few from the day they left. Last roll pose...Col. Nolte was kind enough to pose for me in this one. Some gee whiz trivia: His boy worked for my wife at the NCO club for a while. She was head of the waite-staff and he was one of the waiters."

Security Police Squadron

Mural painted by John Geruntino
"That mural is actually on the back wall in the "RAF Upper Heyford" room at the NCO Leadership School at RAF Upwood, UK. Each classroom there is named after a 3rd AF base and it's up to the respective base to decorate their room. I was "tasked" by Heyford's SrNCO to go up there and paint it."
Submitted by John Geruntino, 20th SPS, Law Enforcement "D" Flight, Nov 1986 - Feb 1991.

Mural painted by John Geruntino (pictured)
"Me and my mural in the RAF UH Room at RAF Upwood's NCO Leadership School."
Submitted by John Geruntino, 20th SPS, Law Enforcement "D" Flight, Nov 1986 - Feb 1991.

Mural painted by John Geruntino in the hallway of the LE Bldg.
"... my mural is a sarcastic "Mad magazine" type dig at SP Investigations. This was before political correctness, as our CSP at the time loved it. This character is of no one in particular and any resemblance is a coincidence. (I would often do these types of caricature drawings of our squadron personnel on British cricket bats and then have people in their unit sign it and we'd give it to them as a going away present. Once the others found out, I got "tasked" by other squadrons to do this. I even was tasked to do one for the SrNCO Security Police/3rd Air Force and the CSP of all USAFE cops when he came to a dining out at Heyford. When I first got stationed at RAFUH, I use to draw caricature drawings of the "back office" SrNCO's on the guard mount room chalkboard during the midnight shift. When they came to work in SP Admin in the morning, after I was off duty, I heard they got a kick out of it, but since I was new they never did figure out who the ghost artist was�not for a couple of months, anyway!)"
Submitted by John Geruntino, 20th SPS, Law Enforcement "D" Flight, Nov 1986 - Feb 1991.

Sign on 20th SP Sqdn Building at main gate.
Artwork by Tony Brothers, 620th SPG, 1990 - 1992. Photo submitted by Nigel Dawe, Research Historian, The Ridgeway Military & Aviation Research Group, based at RAF Welford, Newbury, Berkshire.
"My Name is Tony Brothers. I am a former Security Police Specialist stationed at RAF Upper Heyford from '90-'92. I was looking at your web site and I was astonished to see that a mural I was asked to put together was pictured in the "Artwork" section. I still have all the templates I used to put that mural together and I remember it like it was yesterday. It is pictured as 20th Security Police sign on bldg of main gate. I was often pulled off flight to put together art projects but, this was the only photo of anything that remained."
Tony Brothers, A1C, 620 SPG, 1990 - 1992.

20th Ground Combat Skills Training murial.
Photo taken by Marty Bindloss, 23 April 2001.

"Some one may recognise these paintings."
Submitted by Marty Bindloss, 23 April 2001.

20th Field Maintenance Squadron

Fuel Systems Mainteneance Sign
"The picture was based on a similar cartoon in T.O 1-1-3 (the Bible for all fuel systems maintenance). It was painted by a shop member and his wife, SSgt Ed Connally and wife Starr. The three of us hung it up after work one evening, I suspect around May of '74. The photo is undated and there are no remarks on the back, so I can't comment any further, except to say, even though the photo is B&W, the "artwork" was definitely in color. I wish I could remember what the bldg number was... I can show you exactly where it stood, it was between the flightline road and what I think we called the nosedocks (there were three of them clustered together)."
Submitted by Bill Hamilton, 20 FMS Fuel Systems Maintenance, Jan 1973 - Jul 1974.

20th Equipment Maintenance Squadron

20th EMS Sign
Submitted by Nigel Dawe, Research Historian, The Ridgeway Military & Aviation Research Group, based at RAF Welford, Newbury, Berkshire.

20th Munitions Maintenance Squadron

Randolf T. Hinkle appears in this newspaper clipping from The Vanguard, February 16, 1979.
Submitted by Rick Belt, 20th MMS, May 1978 - May 1980.

Headquarters Building

"The sign on the back of the building at the Main Gate."
Submitted by David Curran, Dec. 19, 2001.

Component Repair Squadron

Building 299 Art
Photo taken April 2002.
Submitted by Dan McKenzie, Peterborough, UK. www.bunkertours.com

CRS Dorm 485 artwork by Bill Cambell
Photo taken April 2002.
Submitted by Brian Bradley, 20th CRS, 1988 - 1993.

CRS Dorm 485 artwork by Jim Cable
Photo taken April 2002.
Submitted by Brian Bradley, 20th CRS, 1988 - 1993.

CRS Dorm 485 artwork by Jim Cable
Photo taken April 2002.
Submitted by Brian Bradley, 20th CRS, 1988 - 1993.

"Doo Dah Man"
CRS Dorm 485 artwork by Ed Wildner. Photo taken April 2002.
Submitted by Brian Bradley, 20th CRS, 1988 - 1993.

Ken Gore Artwork

"I don't remember the particulars of the artist (Gore -- not Al -- I'm sure) except that he was assigned to Heyford and, if memory serves me, he was an enlisted man in MMS or OMS. The digital photograph of this cartoon illustration is courtesy of Brian VanGorden." Submitted by Kelly J. Healy.
Mark Sinclair writes: "I noticed the Just for Grins section that shows the F111 art work. The artist was Sgt Ken Gore, a fellow AMS, CNPA shop coworker of mine during the 77-79 era. He had tons of these paintings that he did including a wall-sized one painted on the breakroom wall of our shop in building 300. I often wished that I had bought one of the prints he made of these great paintings."

Submitted by John Double,
MSgt, 20th CRS/Automatic Test Stations,
Jul 1983 - Sep 1990.

"Gore in-work artwork in CNPA shop, 20th AMS."
Submitted by Mark Sinclair, 20th AMS.

Back together again!
Submitted by Jonathan (last name witheld by request).

Webmaster's Note:
Many of you have written in to inquire as to whether or not Ken Gore's artwork is for sale and where it can be purchased.
I am very pleased to announce that I have spoken with Kenneth B. Gore in New York City, New York. It is at RAF Upper Heyford that the first mural of his artistic career was created, which graced a wall in Building 300.
You will be happy to know that Ken Gore persued his artistic gifts after completing his duties in the US Air Force at RAF Upper Heyford. Some of Ken Gore's most recent accomplishments include the most stunning murals you have ever seen.
I shared with Ken the growing interest, inquiries and persistance from web site visitors wishing to purchase prints of his artwork related to F-111's & the RAF Upper Heyford air base.
Over the course of the next two weeks, Ken will be working to launch a web site for the New York location of "Grandes Illusions Studios", and meanwhile will try to locate what he can find (after these 25 or so years) of his RAF Upper Heyford-related artwork and produce some prints to make them available to us in the near future!
Check back for futher announcements concerning this unique and limited opportunity. Many thanks to Ken Gore for his generosity and kindness!

Tony Ayers Artwork

Artwork by Tony Ayers. "Breakfast of Bolsheviks".

"The poster "Don't Tread on U.S." which I did under my 'nome de plume' of Bud Flagg. I began this the day we Raided Libya. Many crew members from the raid have copies, as well as former President Bush, the Secretary of the Air Force at the time, and many others."
Tony Ayers artwork, submitted by Tony Ayers.

Tony Ayers artwork, submitted by Tony Ayers.

Submitted by John Double, MSgt, 20th CRS/Automatic Test Stations, Jul 1983 - Sep 1990.

Submitted by John Double, MSgt, 20th CRS/Automatic Test Stations, Jul 1983 - Sep 1990.

Hans J. Newhart Artwork

Submitted by John Double, MSgt, 20th CRS/Automatic Test Stations, Jul 1983 - Sep 1990.

Ronald Wong Artwork

"Glory Gained and Duty Done"
"...a photo of a print (signed by the base and wing commander of the 20th) called "Glory Gained and Duty Done".
Submitted by John Geruntino, 20th SPS, Law Enforcement "D" Flight, Nov 1986 - Feb 1991.

February 27, 2003.
You might be interested to know that Jonathan Catling of Worcester, UK, has comissioned Ronald Wong to paint a picture of F-111E "The Chief" and EF-111A "Cherry Bomb" flying low-level over Loch Ness, to produce a limited edition run of prints. The size will be around 20 by 30 inches.
Mon, 16 Jun 2003
Hi Duane,
Just received this from Ron hot of the press, there is a lot of detail work to do yet. Looking good though? Please feel free to post on your web site.
Regards
Jonathan Catling
Please contact Ronald Wong at Ronaldtkw@aol.com for further details.

Normal Holbrook

"I bought this picture from a man in Thatcham. Its very interesting as its clearly an Upper Heyford F-111 and this was painted in 1976 by a Normal Holbrook; the year the 20th TFW deployed to Greenham Common. It was painted as a favor for Col. Anderson after he gave some help on research for a book on aero modling by two men in Newbury so must have been done when the 20th came to Greenham in 1976."
Submitted by Jonathan (last name witheld by request)
Webmaster, RAF GREENHAM COMMON

Jago Stone

"This was a black and white print measuring about 21" x 16" published back in 1976 by Jago Stone, a popular English artist. I wasn't able to buy one of these at the time as they were always sold out, but before I left I took this photo of it".
Submitted by Duane Park, 20th SPS, Nov 1976 - Nov 1978.

Joe Belanger

Lithograph by Joe Belanger
100/1000, © Joe Belanger, "90". Measures 17.5" x 17.5".
"I was stationed at RAF Upper Heyford from September 1986 through February 1991 at the Communications Squadron. I was in charge of the Communications Electronics Readiness Team (CERT) that supported stateside deployments to one of the airbases in the United Kingdom. During a training exercise the commander of the deployed squadron presented me with the litho. He had been given several copies by the Wing Commander at RAF Upper Heyford."
Submitted by Tim Lucas, 2168th Communications Squardron, Sept 1986 - Feb 1991.

Miscellaneous

"I purchased this poster in 1991 while stationed at Upper Heyford."
Submitted by Dan ____?_____. (webmaster's goof)

"Thought you may like this for your site; a friend who was at Greenham for many years gave me this brass picture."
Submitted by Jonathan (last name witheld by request)
Webmaster, RAF GREENHAM COMMON

An image of a T-shirt made for the 79th TFS in reference to Operation Desert Storm.
Submitted by:
Ben Uffen
Swinger fan
The Netherlands
Webmaster's note: I don't have any of these for sale nor do I know where you might find one. However, other UH T-shirt images have been found at http://www.f-111.net/patches/shirt/index.htm

Where to buy...
At this point, I do not have any of these items for sale and do not know where you might be able to purchase them. You might try www.ebay.com and search on "Upper Heyford" as I do and see what comes up at auction.

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WebMaster: Duane Park
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This page was last updated on 22 September 2006.