紀念一位特別的臉友"大山" Dan-san Abbott

 

我在研究中國早期航空史時蒐集到一位美國人Dan-san Abbott 寫的文章，他的父親Harry W. Abbott是位飛行員，曾經受楊仙逸委託在加州Courtland訓練9名華僑成為飛行員。Harry Abbott夫婦及9名飛行員後來一同前往中國廣州，Harry還協助建造樂士文號機，1923年8月9日孫中山夫婦親自前往大沙頭機場為樂士文號機命名，第二天Dan-san就在廣州出生，他說這個名字是孫中山賜予的，孫還開玩笑說他自己是中山，Dan-san則是大山。原先孫中山取的是Dai-san，就是廣東話發音的大山，但是Dan-san的母親有意見，後來將Dai改成美國常見的男生名字Dan，就變成Dan-san，聽說還向孫中山徵得同意改名。

Harry Abbott 1924年離開廣州前往香港，租用之前啟德公司填海而成的新生地成立航空學校Abbott School of Aviation，後來這塊地就發展成為後來的啟德國際機場。  

隨著臉書興起，我竟然發現Dan-san也有臉書，就加他為臉友，沒想到還沒怎麼跟他聯繫，他就在2011年5月11日過世。這張照片是從他的臉書擷取，他在航空史研究界以研究一次大戰的德軍飛機聞名。

Dan-san Abbott的生平簡介:

http://www.wwi-models.org/pipermail/wwi/2011-May/097125.html

為了怕日後連結失效，就把原文紀錄如下:

Dan-San
Abbott ("DSA") was born August 10 1923, Canton China, to Lt. Col Harry W.
Abbott, of the South China Air Service . The name Dan-San was given
to him by Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese President. In the mid-1920's the
family returned to settle in the San Francisco Bay area, where his
father died in 1930. After DSA graduated high school he got a job at
the Security Parachute Company, where he worked until he joined the
US army in April 1942. DSA was originally trained as a medic, but he
soon transferred to the Parachute Infantry, and injured his ankle.
Consequently he was transferred to the Air Transport Command where he
served in the China-Burma-India theater, and made several flights
“over the hump” into China. After a brief stint as a commercial
artist DSA became bored and returned to the Security Parachute
Company, eventually becoming a Design Engineer. DSA then served in
the Korean War with the 144th Fighter Wing of the
California Air National Guard, as a Parachute Department Supervisor.
After the war DSA returned to the  Security Parachute Company as the
Vice President of Engineering, where he designed the drag parachute
for the B-52, and various parachute elements used in the NASA
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. One of Dan-Sans favorite
projects was developing the “Piggyback Parachute System” that was
widely used in sport parachuting.  In 1977 Dan-San joined the
Guardian Parachute Division of the FXC Corporation, where he later
became Marketing Manager,  for the Pacific Rim. Dan-San retired in
1988 when he turned 65, and was able to spend much of his time
developing his lifelong interest in WWI aviation, particularly the
history and development of the German Air Force. Since then, Dan-San published
many articles and co-authored, with Rick Duiven, the definitive book on
the origins of air-ground support, “Schlachtflieger.” Dan-San was
married to his wife Patty for over 50 years, and had three children from a previous marriage. 

-- Jim Townsend