The Original Tiger Tail
(Stolen from member E-mail)
Picture courtesy Jake Jacobs 1966-67

I joined 262 in February of 1966, and there was one other man that joined the squadron on the same day. I walked into (SgtMaj)Ralph Home's office on the second floor of the hangar in New River as he was unpacking his "stuff" as George Carlin puts it.  We left on Carib Cruise 2-66 in March or April and I remember vividly getting on this "old airplane" ( ET 150269) to ride out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a day that couldn't have been any better than a 200ft overcast with a mile of visibility. It was cold and raining and I had only been on a '46 once before, and remembered that when the pilots released the rotor brake they shake back and forth. Anyway, we tossed and turned all the way to warmer water on the Guadalcanal to the Island of Vieques and the tropics. One day, somebody brought SSgt Exton a large picture of a tiger. It was a black and white print about 15 inches square. Exton handed it to me and said, "make a stencil of this tiger so we can spray paint it on the birds". Anyway, long story short, I made a stencil of the tiger that was either 4 or 5 pieces. The first was the background color yellow, then the tiger stripes, the mouth and teeth and the eyes. Each stencil position was located with a small hole in two diagonal corners that was sprayed at the time the background was sprayed so each subsequent stencil was in The right place. It worked fine and for a long time. I am sure that Dave Papageorge and Bob Questad also helped on the construction of the Tiger. I remember getting to Ky Ha and seeing the tiger that 361 used for their mascot. It was taken from the Exxon tiger and really was a neat one. I have a collection of books on the war that have pictures of the tiger on the tale. Thought you would like to know! PD

Webmasters Note: 

"PD" is the handle of SGT Peter D. Williams, Metal Shop - Gunner, 1966-67