Interview with Madeleine Mennella
02/07/2006
Prepared by Micki Ryan
Madeleine Mennella brought in two US Navy uniforms worn by her husband Vincent “Vin” Mennella during his Navy years as a pilot in both the regular and NS Naval Reserves. These are accessioned as 2006.0201.001 a,b, and 2006.0201.002. The olive drab winter wool uniform bears stripes of a USN Commander, and the khaki summer uniform jacket has both sleeve stripes and shoulderboards for Captain. Madeleine is currently researching supportive information for dates in his biography related to his Burien history.
Vin joined the US Navy in 1942, in New York City. He worked on Wall Street, and every day passed a recruiting poster on his way to work. He always wanted to fly, and one day walked in and enlisted.
He trained “all over” but did his flight school in Pensacola, Florida, and transport pilot training at the American Airlines field in Dallas, Texas. The US Navy had taken over American’s training field during the war.
He was transferred to Seattle in 1944, where he began flying the Alaska run, flying S-D and 5-D military transport planes (in civilian terms they were DC 3’s and 4’s) to Dutch Harbor where the contents were then transferred to Russian aircraft and flown into Russia. The transports were 4-engine and 2-engine planes. He never trained in jets. He was stationed at Sand Point, Seattle NAS from 1944 until the station closed, 30 years in all.
Madeleine and Vincent were married in San Francisco three days after VJ Day, when he was mustered out of active duty. In 1955 he started the Ford business in Burien, of which there are several photos in the collections. Later he sold that business to his son and with a partner started Flightcraft, a Beechcraft airplane sales business at Boeing Field (she is going to document the dates).
Together they raised five children in Burien. Vincent was “a regular businessman”, who served his community by serving on the Boards of Trustees of the local college and hospital, and was a member of community service clubs including Rotary and Chamber of Commerce.
Madeleine is interested in helping HHS to develop their collections of aviation materials, especially women in aviation. She will make contact with the recently retired first woman pilot of Alaska Airlines to obtain a uniform or other memorabilia. This is a contact HHS may wish to follow up on, and we might engage our Board members in supporting similar collecting objectives.