A Lil Jeep and a lot of swagger
Capt. Forrest F “Pappy” Parham in front of the famous shark teeth of Little Jeep, a P-40 Warhawk when a member of “Chennault’s Sharks” the 23rd Fighter Group in the China-Burma-India theater of WWII. He went on to make ace with the 75th Fighter Squadron flying P-51s.
The Saskatchewan-born Parham was reared in Minnesota and began his career as an Army enlisted man but retired a full bird colonel in the U.S. Air Force having served through the Korean War. He retired after 28 years, carried the Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters, Air Medal with eight oak leaf clusters, Distinguished Unit Citation, Soldiers Medal and two Bronze Service Stars.
He died in Louisiana in 2002 at age 85. As you can tell, he enjoyed a good pipe and an ivory-handled 1911.
I knew “Jeep” Parham when he was a cropduster in Moreauville, Louisiana. And now I finally know where his nickname came from. And just for the record, he was a really good cropduster.