The Man Called Brown Condor (38 page)

Of special recognition is Jim Cheeks, a pilot who served with Robinson training Army Air Corps aviation mechanics at several bases in the United States and later flew with him in Ethiopia. Jim's input and photographs were primary sources for recording Col. Robinson's return to Ethiopia during World War II at Haile Selassie's request.

My friend and fellow flyer, Roland Weeks, retired publisher of the
Sun Herald
newspaper, arranged unlimited access of the microfiche archives of Robinson's hometown newspaper, the Gulfport/Biloxi
Sun Herald
, for the years 1935 and 1936. It was necessary to scan every page of every day of the paper for those years to find articles on Robinson. Though the paper did provide, with some pride, articles of his adventures during the Italo-Ethiopian War and his homecoming, one had to search the back pages to find them.

Additional institutions that supported my research include the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (special thanks to Von Hardesty and Dominick Pisano); the National Archives; the Library of Congress; the Tuskegee University Library; the
Chicago Defender
Archives; the libraries of Harrison County and the University of Southern Mississippi.

No author's finished work stands as his or hers alone. The idea, the words, the style are more or less his or hers. But the finished book—tidy, free of awkward structure, grammatical errors, lapses in syntax, all the things that make a book acceptable to the reader—is aided by editors whose work often goes unsung. I hereby sing the praises of my editors, Jennifer McCartney and Herman Graf. Finally, this work may well have languished unread without the faith and hard work of my agent and friend, Jeanie Pantelakis.

I owe a debt of thanks to all the individuals and institutions listed above. I also thank my wife Kay, the love of my life, for her support and patience in putting up with cantankerous me and two no-account dogs.

(It should be remembered that the author did years of original research when there was very little printed information available on John C. Robinson. Much of the information gathered on Robinson was by personal interviews conducted by myself and by others on recorded cassette tapes at my request.)

National Archives

Library of Congress

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Archives of the Gulfport-Biloxi
Daily Herald
for the years 1934 through 1936.

Archives of the American Negro Press (ANP) for the years 1934 through 1936

The
Tuskegee Messenger
, Tuskegee, Alabama

Montgomery Advertiser
, Montgomery, Alabama

The
Chicago Defender
Archives

The Associated Press (AP) 1935/36

The
Evening Star
, Washington, D.C.

Kansas City Call

Pittsburgh Courier

Hollis Burke Frissell Library, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama

Tuskegee University Library

Light Plane Guide,
Vol. I, No. III, 1965

Travel & Leisure
, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1965

World War II
, Vol. 4, No. 4, October 1975

The Negro in American History
, by the Board of Education, City of New York, 1965

The Ethiopian War
by Angelo Del Boca, 1965

Rape of Ethiopia
by A. J. Barker, 1936, Balantine

The Italian Invasion of Abyssinia
by David Nicholle, 1997, Osprey

Haile Selassie's War
by Anthony Mockler 1984, Random House

The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War
, George W. Baer, 1967, Harvard University Press

CIA The World Fact Book, Ethiopia

TIME
, Monday, May 11, 1936; Monday, May 18, 1936

Pan African Journal
, Vol. V, No. 1, Spring 1972

US Department of State, Notes on Ethiopia

Various newsreel films of Italo-Ethiopian War available on the Internet (Italian, British, Dutch, Swedish, etc.)

The Italian film
Lo Squadrone Bianco
, 1936, directed by Augusto Genina

The Italian film
Il Cammino Della Heros
, 1937

Photo Credit: T. Simmons

House at 1905 31
^st
Ave. Gulfport, Mississippi, in which John C. Robinson grew up.

Photo Credit: John Collins

John C. Robinson (far left) with teenage friends. The boys had just swam across the harbor to impress the girls.

Photo Credit:
Chicago Defender
via Robins History Museum

Janet Waterford-Bragg (right, in flying clothes) who lent Robinson her plane to fly to Tuskegee Institute.

Photo Credit: Harold Hurd Collection

Robinson is welcomed by President Moton and Dr. Patterson of Tuskegee after landing on the campus in 1933 to promote the idea of a Tuskegee school of aviation.

Photo Credit: Thornton Studios, Chicago /Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Airport at Robbins, Illinois, that Robinson helped found. Robinson is at far right.

Photo Credit:
Chicago Defender

Curtis Wright Aviation School. Robinson became an instructor there after graduating from their flying school.

Imperial flag of Ethiopia, 1935

Fascist flag of Italy, 1935

Ethiopian Imperial Air Force aircraft roundel insignia