Enlisted men were among the pioneers who received flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola and in France before and during World War I. Following the war, the Navy formalized a training program for enlisted men, with the first of the Naval Aviation Pilots (NAP) designated in 1920. The designation of enlisted pilots continued until the program’s discontinuation in 1947, the last of the Navy’s NAPs, Master Chief Air Controlman Robert K. Jones, retiring in 1981.
During more than sixty years of service, naval aviation pilots served in peace and war, flying over the Arctic and Antarctic with Richard Byrd, becoming fighter aces over the waters of the Pacific, delivering supplies during the Berlin Airlift, and pioneering Coast Guard helicopter operations. This exhibit displays artifacts from Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard naval aviation pilots, the names of all known enlisted men to wear wings of gold displayed prominently. In addition, the museum’s Emil Buehler Naval Aviation Library holds biographical files on a number of NAPs.