Whitey - From Farm Kid To Flying Tiger To Attorney

Whitey - From Farm Kid to Flying Tiger to Attorney

Whitey - from Farm Kid to Flying Tiger to Attorney is the story of ''Farm Kid'' Wayne (Whitey) Johnson. Describing the conditions under which his large family lived and survived during the Great Depression, Johnson says ''We were poor but didn t know it.'' Johnson enlisted in the Army Air Corps the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Trained as a fighter pilot, Wayne was sent to China to join the Flying Tigers. He was stationed in China where, in an early taste of combat, Johnson participated in the first fighter strike against the Japanese airdomes near Shanghai. After the war, Johnson finished college and went on to law school, becoming a successful attorney - and set the record as the longest-serving City Attorney in the United States - while flying well into his eighties. Johnson's story illuminates the indiscretions of youth against the backdrop of a rural family farm, and takes us through the journey of one man who has seen more in his life, so far, than most of us could ever imagine. About the Author Wayne Johnson's life's story, like his memoir Whitey - From Farm Kid to Flying Tiger to Attorney consists of three basic parts. As the eleventh child of emigrant parents, Wayne has a proud Norwegian heritage, and spent time growing up on a farm in rural Minnesota during the Great Depression in a large family. Wayne then went into military service, training as a fighter pilot, and was shipped to China in WWII to serve with the famed Flying Tigers. Returning home at the end of the war, Wayne attended college and law school in order to become an attorney, and established a law practice in the small Minnesota towns of Beaver Bay and Silver Bay, both on the north shore of Lake Superior. In addition to his private law practice, Wayne served as city attorney for both Beaver Bay and Silver Bay for more than fifty years, setting a record as the longest serving city attorney in the United States. Continuing to be active in aviation, Wayne was named ''Mr. Aviation of Minnesota'' in 1968. In 2001, Wayne was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame and in 2005 the Silver Bay Municipal Airport was renamed the Wayne Johnson Airport.