E.C. McLeod, 1930

In this section we have three letters written on McLeod's behalf during the early 1940s. Two of them are related to his work with Lockheed-Vega, and one requesting his involvement with the First Motion Picture Unit in the U.S. Army. The 2nd Lt. making that request is familiar to most.

When McLeod worked for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during WWII, he was with Lockheed-Vega (note the hyphen), a subsidiary of the parent corporation. The Vega name is not referring to the famous wooden Vega represented by 147 landing records in the Davis-Monthan Register. But, perhaps, the Vega Division name was a way of acknowledging the heritage of the famous work horse wooden Vega.

Lockheed-Vega was responsible, early in WWII, to produce the Lockheed Hudson and Ventura, both patrol bombers. Later, Lockheed-Vega manufactured B-17 Flying Fortresses in partnership with, and under license by, Boeing. Below is his identification badge from that time. The badge is about 2.5" wide.

Lockheed-Vega, Chief Pilot Badge, Ca. 1942-43

Below, duplicated by a methanol-based, purple "ditto" process, is a memo from June 1, 1942 appointing McLeod as Acting Chief Pilot for the Lockheed-Vega Flight Operations branch of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. He replaced Register pilot Marshall Headle in that position.

If you follow Headle's link, you will read of an interesting corporate squabble that lies behind the scenes with regard to the following series of appointments.

Lockheed Interdepartmental Memo, June 13, 1942

Soon, below, McLeod is fully assigned as Chief Pilot as of December 1, 1942. Sometime in the transition of various chief pilots, Register pilot Milo Burcham assumed the role.

Lockheed Interdepartmental Memo, January 5, 1943

In a final memo, we find McLeod being "recruited" by Ronald Reagan, currently 2nd Lt. in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces based at Culver City, CA. Interestingly, two brothers, pilot Clarence Culver and passenger Harry Culver, were Register signers. Harry was the namesake for Culver City.

The date of this memo lies between the dates of the two memos exhibited above. It is not clear whether Lockheed-Vega quashed Reagan's request, or if McLeod fulfilled both roles. Unfortunately, there is a gap in his flight log books between May 18, 1942 and April 2, 1946, so we don't know what kind of flying he did during that period.

Memo From Reagan, October 23, 1942

---o0o---

Besides these letters, we are fortunate to have other raw materials from across twenty years of pilot McLeod's life in aviation. As sometimes happens, the items in this Collection were at auction on eBay during February, 2011. Friend of dmairfield.org, Tim Kalina, bid, won and donated all the items to Delta Mike Airfield, Inc. We owe Tim great thanks for sharing these artifacts with us. To review these other items, please direct your browser to the index for the Elmer C. McLeod Photograph and Document Collection.

---o0o---

THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 05/07/11 REVISED: