Have you ever seen a shark darting across the sky? Probably not, unless you’re familiar with The Flying Tigers, pilots who served in the United States Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps during WWII. The Flying Tigers were secretly recruited to help defend China against Japan. However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. declared war on Japan and The Flying Tigers flew in combat. Their iconic Curtiss P-40 Warhawk planes were painted to resemble grimacing sharks whose open mouths teemed with pointy white teeth and a bright red tongue.

The Elker Display Case is dedicated to Oswin “Moose” Elker, born in 1915 in Surrey, North Dakota, who served as a Flying Tiger in the 75th Fighter Group of the 14th Air Force, better known as the successors to the American Volunteer Group. Oswin wrote, “For the military it was almost always the case that a person's name was shortened by his associates...My name, Elker, was shortened to Elk. While I was in mechanics school one day, one guy couldn't think of Elk, and blurted out Moose. Some of the group thought that was hilarious and it stuck.”

During Oswin’s service to The Flying Tigers, his P-40 Warhawk was shot down twice. In May 1944, on a mission to attack a steam-powered train, Oswin’s plane was hit multiple times and his cockpit filled with “several inches of fluid.” He landed in a rice paddy field, and although he scared the rice paddy workers at first, the local villagers helped him escape. According to Oswin, “they were always apologizing about the blandness of the food they gave [him]” because the Japanese “had taken all their salt.” He wrote, “The lack of salt and the hot weather took its toll on all of us on our trek across the hills and valleys. I recall one time we all lay down in a small stream with all our clothes on to cool us off.”

Returning to the safety of his Chinese base was a long journey. Oswin and his guides crossed foothills, farmland, and rivers. In Hengsiang, the locals heard Oswin liked to swim and invited him to the river, then demonstrated climbing a large rock above the bank and diving in. Since Oswin didn’t have a swimsuit, he just stripped down to his boxers. “Everything went well until I hit the water at which time [it] caught the slack in the waistband of the shorts,” Oswin wrote. “The shorts stopped abruptly while I continued into the river.” Oswin added that the local onlookers were polite until he indicated he thought it was funny, “then they really let go.”

Then, in July of 1944, Oswin’s plane was shot down again. He landed on a hill near a farm and was quickly ushered into a home where the local people shaved his hair and mustache and provided him with a change of clothes. They also burned his chute to hide evidence of his presence there. A group of guerrillas then escorted Oswin through the hills. He wrote that they travelled all through the night and following day, finally resting at another farm house. Eventually, a small group of Japanese soldiers nearly caught up with them. Oswin had to disguise himself as a rice flailer while the enemy approached and passed by. Fortunately, he was able to return to his base a second time.

According to his nephew, Warren Grabow, Oswin was a bit of a character. Once, on a delivery mission in India, Oswin and a few of his fellow pilots decided to have some fun and challenged each other to fly as low over the next town as possible. Warren wrote, “[Oswin] said that the rest of the guys came in low, but he had to go one better so he flew under the electrical wires while they flew over them.” When their commander found out, he wasn’t pleased and ordered a court martial. Luckily for Oswin, General Claire Lee Chennault ordered that the charges be dropped because each pilot was needed.

After Oswin finished his tour of duty in August 1945, he was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, several Campaign Decorations, and two Purple Hearts. As Warren remembers it, Oswin taught his nephews how to swim, drove a green Ford, and was always able to make his family laugh with his goofy sense of humor.