STAG ONE Pilots
VK-12 Pilots
VK-11 Pilots
“The Dive Bomber Die – Hards”
Back row: Pat, Gerb, Ben, Grubbs, Tommy Front row: Billy Joe, Jack, Bill, George
Crew of Control Plane Who Made First Successful Standoff Guided Missile Attack on a Designated Defended Enemy Target, Spetember 27, 1944
From Left to Right: George D. Grimes, ART 1/C (Television Division) Lieutenant M. W. Priseler, C. O. VK-12. Control Element Commander Ensign B. J. Thomas, Drone Control Pilot William Camper, AOM 3/C, Gunner Kneeling -Plane Captain J. C. Parsons, AMM 1/C
The Jones Brothers
Lieutenant Commander Stephen E. Jones , Special Air Task Force, Intelligence and Security Officer and Commander Robert F. Jones, Special Air Task Force, Acting Commander Sept. 5, 1944 – Oct. 27, 1944
Lieutenant Commander Stephen E. Jones (left) and Commander Robert F. Jones (right)
The Edna III
Getting the Edna III ready
Norman Tengstrom, Sponsor of the STAG ONE website
"And it has been my pleasure..."
Great information. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about WWII, but had never even heard of this outfit until it was featured on PBS’s “History Detectives” last Saturday night. That led me to a Google search which turned up your website. Really interesting. This developmental work was way ahead of its time. Too bad it wasn’t continued. We might have perfected unmanned drones much earlier and saved many American air crew lives. But, such are the fortunes of war.
There is only one thing your site is missing regarding the drone, and that is the technical drawings. It would greatly help with my ongoing reasearch of the TDR-1 if you would include full-size full-resolution copies of them somewhere on your website, perhaps under the photo gallery tab or documents tab? Supposedly they’ve been declassified in the National Archives since the mid 1980s, at least according to the introduction in James J. Hall’s book: “American Kamikaze”.
Hi, My Dad, Ray Pracht was a gunner/mechanic in STAG-ONE. He was also trained as a photographer. I don’t see those teams in your photos. How would I go about getting a list of the names of the guys in this group?
Great site. I have conducted a number of presentations about the program. I first became aware of the program from my father, who was stationed on Banika in 1944-45. He mentioned a secret program about special planes and that got me going to find out more.
My father George Bruehl was a Stag 1 pilot. At age 95 he still remembers some things.
Regards
Walter Bruehl
I just discovered that my uncle who went MIA in the Russell Islands was a STAG 1 pilot. Are there any STAG 1 pilots surviving today? Is there additional info I might be able to obtain about my uncle other than what I already received from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis?
I was a art 1c and in the “ace” or altimeter control part. was in it from the beginning and commission in Clinton, Oklahoma unil we were broken up in the Russell Island chain
of Banika.
I was in Stag One from beginning to end. Was in the altimeter shop. Flew on many test flights in Traverse City Michigan and Monterey Ca. On island of Banika and when we were decommissioned I was very fortunate to return stateside. was ART-1c at
that time. Tom Gillespie
This is a very interesting subject, in light of the present day discussion about drones. I am the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Air and Spaceport, know as Clinton-Sherman Airfield, where training for this system was conducted. Do you have any additional information or pictures from operations in Oklahoma? If so, I would love to see them. Thank you very much! Very respectfully, Gary