Iowa Aviation Museum features Fairfield aviators

FAIRFIELD — Fairfield and its long history of aviators are the subject of a recent newsletter from the Iowa Aviation Museum.

The museum publishes a quarterly newsletter, and each time focuses on a different town in Iowa and the pilots who called it home. For its March 2022 newsletter, the museum chose to focus on Fairfield, and included information about the Fairfield Flying Club, the history of the town’s airport, and famous aviators from the town.

Iowa Aviation Museum staff member Shirley Konz said she started researching Fairfield’s aviation history a year or two ago when she spoke with Bob Lyons, the Fairfield Airport Manager. Lyons connected her to Marvin “Pete” Wilson, chairman of the Fairfield Airport Commission for many years, and one of the people who formed a corporation to perform airshows in the area.

Konz said the museum already had several people from Fairfield in its biography files, and the early airport history of Fairfield interested the staff because of its research into early airports across Iowa. Konz was able to find information about Fairfield’s airport through newspaper clippings, and learned about the current incarnation of the Fairfield Flying Club from Rene Holmberg. Holmberg was among those who restarted the club in 2019, which was started in the mid-1950s but later went defunct.

The newsletter contains a section on early airports in Fairfield, the first of which was founded in 1921 by the Curtiss-Iowa Aircraft Corporation of Fort Dodge. Other airports were built in the ensuing decades, and the Fairfield Municipal Airport was founded in 1966 at its current location north of Fairfield.

Some of the town’s most famous aviators are featured in the newsletter such as Robert J. Bell, who flew combat missions in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before retiring in 1971. Richard Lawson flew 73 combat missions during the Vietnam War, and earned 22 military awards and decorations.

Ethel Darlene Hoskins was a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, and was assigned to serve in North Carolina and Kansas City regions. She and other WASP members were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service during World War II.

The newsletter devotes a section to Jerry Yellin, who resided in Fairfield for more than 40 years. Yellin served in a fighter squadron in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and provided air cover for B-29s on 19 missions. Later in life, Yellin became an advocate for veterans’ causes, helping to raise awareness about PTSD. He is the subject of books and documentaries about his war experiences and how he reconciled with the Japanese people.

Those who are interested in learning more about the Iowa Aviation Museum can visit its website at www.flyingmuseum.com.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com