ABOUT THIS COLLECTION This collection of bawdy ballads, limericks and US Air Force songs was compiled in the

1950 s by my late father, Lt. Col. William John Starr, USAF. He probably started compiling the material during his first tour flying the F-86 Sabre jet out of Kimpo Air Base, K-14 Korea in1953-54. At the time of the book s unofficial completion, around 1957-58, dad was flying the North American F-100 Super Sabre at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. This booklet is about as original as you can get; the pages are actual photocopies of the mimeographed folio dad kept. If there is a hand-typed original version somewhere (nonmimeographed), it is probably in my brother s possession and reflects the exact contents of this book. I do not know what the fighter pilots hymnbook original cover looked like. I suspect it might have been the attached page containing the Pilot s Toast centered on the page. This un-numbered page was found with the original collection. Around 1958 or 1959 my father sent this collection of songs to folk singer Oscar Brand. Inspired, Brand transformed the compilation into two albums The Wild Blue Yonder: Songs of our Fighting Air Force and Out of the Blue: More Air Force Songs . Dad s original ballad In Flight Refueling was recorded on the second album. Brand credited my father on both albums. Below is an interesting account from Brand s book The Ballad Mongers . In my book Singing Holidays, I pompously stated, The Air Force is our youngest service branch. Some popular songs have been written which might do very well as theme songs, but we ve decided to volunteer the following as our contribution to the songbag of the Air Force. The following was a mild little creation parodying the old Army song, The Sergeant. As far as I was concerned that was as far as Air Force folksong had Progressed. On January 12, 1959, Captain William Smart (sic), jet pilot Veteran of WW II and the Korean War, sent me a privately collected and mimeographed folio of 256 traditional Air Force songs. Many of the songs had been created during World War I and refurbished in the years the followed I can only assume that Mr. Brand or his editor accidentally misspelled my father s name (the rank was correct for that time period in dad s career), and that the WW II reference was another glaring typo; Dad didn t fly in WWII. As indicated by a date stamp on Brand s The Wild Blue Yonder and Out of the Blue studio master tapes (which, as of the mid 1990 s, were then archived in Atlantic Records company vault), the first album, The Wild Blue Yonder was recorded around April 7, 1959. Which song was my dad s favorite? I don t know. But my mother says he was very fond of belching out Sally (page 4) and when he got to the part about BAM BAM BAM! he d slap his knee three times and roar with laughter. Myself, I ve never settled on a favorite, but the Brand versions of I Wanted Wings , Give Me Operations and The Prettiest Ship are top contenders. John T. Starr November 16, 2005 www.FabulousRocketeers.com