Frazer Dougherty - Pilot 345th Bomb Group
Frazer Dougherty - Pilot, 345th Bomb Group
WWII pilot Frazer Dougherty recently passed away. It was our honor and privilege to know him. Frazer was an aviator, sailor, World War II veteran, television pioneer and industrial designer. USA Warrior Stories co-founders Matt Hindra and Nick Kraus first met Frazer at LTV, a public access television station located in East Hampton NY that Frazer founded in 1980 and Matt worked at for 10 years.
Frazer Dougherty was born June 16, 1922 and joined the National Guard in the summer of 1940. When World War II was declared, Frazer transferred to the Army Air Corps where he was trained as a pilot and served in the 345th Bomb Group as First Pilot and survived sixty-three missions. Frazer went on to become the personal aid and pilot for Commanding General of the First Air Force, Frank O’Driscoll Hunter and retained this position through the end of the war. After the war Frazer became a test pilot for first FAA Certified combination auto-plane, the AIRPHIBIAN, now in the Smithsonian Institute!
Frazer's time as a pilot had a profound effect on his life. FLYINGCARPETS by Frazer Dougherty were conceived during WWII while flying his 63 B-25 low altitude strafing missions in Papua New Guinea. These aerial patterns of the world from above became his passion to capture. Hundreds of thousand images remain recorded from 1940 through 2012. These photographic patterns were transferred by Frazer into silkscreened 'earthcores', exhibited first at FARR Gallery, NYC in the early 1970s, later Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY, and recently transferred as FLYINGCARPETS in Miami, Fl.
