Wes Lematta flying over the frame of his new Swan Island headquarters,
May 2, 1962.

A July 18, 1962 aerial view of the grand opening of Wes Lematta’s Columbia Helicopters’ Swan Island facility. The company was originally established at
Troutdale Airport in 1957.

Columbia Helicopters’ chairman and founder Wes Lematta
learned to fly after WW ll using the G.I Bill. He passed away
in 2009.

Wes Lematta providing flight instruction in a Columbia Helicopters Hughes 
269 in 1963

United Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania

The start of the war is generally held to be at dawn on Friday, 1 September
1939, when German troops and tanks raided the Polish countryside,
destroying everything in their path. A little over an hour later, Nazi
dive-bombers were attacking the civilians of Poland’s capital city
of Warsaw. The bombing destroyed cities, railroads, and military
bases. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days
later.

 
A German air patrol fly’s over Poland

Polish oil and gas tanks are set aflame by the German
bombardment at Westerplatte

Nazi soldiers march on Poland

U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (center) during his Soviet tribunal

The Lockheed U-2

Wreckage of the downed spy plane