{"id":42985,"date":"2019-12-16T08:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T18:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/retireenews.org\/?p=42985"},"modified":"2024-09-05T20:34:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T20:34:29","slug":"check-six-the-spirit-of-aloha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/2019\/12\/16\/check-six-the-spirit-of-aloha\/","title":{"rendered":"Check Six: The Spirit of Aloha"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/files\/2019\/12\/c54grd2.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-42987\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Hawaii Air National Guard photograph<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Hawaii Air National Guard flew a <strong>Douglas C-54 Skymaster<\/strong> from October 2, 1965 to 1972. It replaced the VC-47 Gooney Bird that the HIANG flew for 14 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<strong>Douglas C-54 Skymaster<\/strong>&nbsp;is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the&nbsp;United States Army Air Forces&nbsp;in&nbsp;World War II&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Korean War. Like the&nbsp;Douglas C-47 Skytrain&nbsp;derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian airliner, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Douglas_DC-4\">Douglas DC-4<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then-TSgts <strong>James Davis<\/strong>, <strong>Samuel Saffery<\/strong>, <strong>Edward Uyeda<\/strong> and SSgt <strong>Abraham Hiapo<\/strong> were the first aircrew members trained. Then-Brig. Gen. <strong>Valentine Siefermann<\/strong> was. the first HIANG pilot to check out. (<em>HANG 25 Booklet<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/files\/2019\/12\/img20191215_14244372.jpg?w=982\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-43002\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>TSgt Koga painting the &#8220;Spirit of Aloha&#8221; <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During 1967, there was a contest to name the C-54. TSgt <strong>Wayne Soma<\/strong> won with his suggestion &#8220;S<em>pirit of Aloha<\/em>&#8220;. after going through the approval process, then-TSgt <strong>Rex Koga<\/strong> painted the name on the C-54 later that year. (<em>HANG 25 Booklet<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/files\/2019\/12\/img20191202_16373754.pdf\">The Winter 1972 &#8211; Spring 1973 issue of the Hawaii Guardsman has an article covers the last flight of the C-54 in December 1974.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amcmuseum.org\/at-the-museum\/aircraft\/c-54m-skymaster\/\">More on the C-54 Skymaster<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:10px\"><em>The appearance of external hyperlinks did not constitute endorsement by Retiree News, this included the linked websites, information, products, or services contained therein. Retiree News did not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Additionally, some of the sites linked to may limit the number of stories you can access without a paid subscription. All links were provided with the intent of meeting the mission of Retiree News.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hawaii Air National Guard flew a Douglas C-54 Skymaster from October 2, 1965 to 1972. It replaced the VC-47 Gooney Bird that the HIANG flew for 14 years. The&nbsp;Douglas C-54 Skymaster&nbsp;is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the&nbsp;United States Army Air Forces&nbsp;in&nbsp;World War II&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Korean War. Like the&nbsp;Douglas C-47 Skytrain&nbsp;derived from the DC-3, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":42987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"29507,327,55315,46879,3036,46861","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12399,12386],"tags":[461,3393,3583,4868,4953,4992,5943,6703,9722,10102,10603,11771,12075],"class_list":["post-42985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1960s","category-check-six","tag-abraham-hiapo","tag-douglas-c-54-skymaster","tag-edward-uyeda","tag-hang-25-booklet","tag-hawaii-air-national-guard-hiang","tag-hawaii-guardsman-magazine","tag-james-davis","tag-last-flight","tag-rex-y-koga","tag-samuel-m-saffery-iii","tag-spirit-of-aloha","tag-valentine-a-siefermann","tag-wayne-soma"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dod.hawaii.gov\/retireenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}