The Matchcover Storyteller

`One of the features of the RMS Bulletin that former editor Mike Prero seemed to really enjoy was the “Military Corner”.   Our nations have always had a certain love affair and/or respect for their armed services, and it’s something I hope to see continue each issue.   And with that in mind, I pulled a random matchcover from one of several cigar boxes full waiting to be put into some order, and I came up with Tinker Air Force Base

The matchcover is a Royal Flash Billboard.  I tried to date it; it’s post-1947 (birth year of the USAF).  I thought I might date it by the Air Force logo on the back, but the Air Force used that till 2000 and it remains the legacy symbol of the USAF TODAY – the Hap Arnold Wings..

Tinker Air Force Base started life in pre-war 1941 as the Midwest Air Depot for the United States Army, a supply and maintenance center.  You’ll note the motto on the cover  — “Service Station For The Air Force of The Nation”. Today, more than 80 years later, Tinker AFB near Oklahoma City remains headquarter of the Air Force Materiel Command, basically the management center for all the “stuff”, the hardware the USAF consumes.

Clarence L. Tinker was an Oklahoma Osage Indian (read a book called “Killers of the Flower Moon” for a gripping and sad but superbly-written story of the Osage in Tinker’s time).  He got his wings in 1921 and ultimately rose to the rank of Major General, the first indigenous American to reach such rank.   In World War II, MG Tinker was commander of the U.S. 7th Air Force in Hawaii.   He was killed in June 1942 when his B-24 Liberator presumably crashed into the sea during a raid on then-Japanese held Wake Island.  The new air base became Tinker Field of the U.S. Army Air Corps in October of that year.

It’s a big place;  Tinker has more than ten different gates into the facility, most named after people associated with Oklahoma or the base itself.   But three   –  Lancer, Liberator and Marauder – are named after aircraft maintained there.   More than 26,000 people work there; there’s even a significant U.S. Navy tenant.  And as part of NORAD, you’ll generally find a few Canadians, too.

There are at least 4 Tinker AFB matchcovers that I know of. I think this is the oldest and the only 40-strike I’m aware of/.   But that’s the joy of the RMS Bulletin  —  you may have, or know of, all of them!  If you do, please share!

(I did find 2 more images!) 😃

And then there’s the “more than an air base” category of information.    This is where Buddy Holly & The Crickets recorded “Maybe Baby” and 2 other sides  in the Officers Club in 1957.

The first successful forecasting of a tornado happened here in 1948, about 3 hours ahead of a touchdown.   And it was the site of a Douglas Aircraft factory that produced half the C-47 Skytrains used in WW II.  About 800 were the carriers of the D-Day parachute jumps into Normandy in 1944 and the lead C-47, “That’s All, Brother”, is now part of the Commemorative Air Force in Texas and flies today.

One last thing:  the motto of Tinker Air Force Base is “Tinker Strong”.   The airmen on base are happy to think of their motto more as “Tinkerbelle on Steroids”.

I’m not sure the command structure is happy with that.