[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 96 (Thursday, June 19, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1024]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A TRIBUTE TO HONOR ERNEST H. BUEHL, SR.

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 19, 2014

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to aviation 
pioneer Ernest H. Buehl Sr.
   Ernest Buehl was born in Germany in 1897. He learned to fly in 
1914--just 11 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight. Buehl's 
career began at BMW where he quickly became one of their leading 
technicians and in 1920, he was sent to the United States to train 
American technicians to work with the BMW engines he had help design in 
Germany.
   That same year, Buehl flew on the first transcontinental airmail 
flight from New York to Oakland, California. Buehl made frequent stops 
along the way to consult with local officials about the need for 
airports suitable to land larger aircraft. Eddie Rickenbacker, a World 
War I ace was a passenger on the transcontinental flight.
   Throughout the 1920s, Buehl took aircraft to areas just below the 
Arctic Circle in Canada, and in 1922 he worked with Roald Amundsen to 
prepare aircraft to fly over the North Pole.
   Buehl moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1923 to work for a 
company pioneering the use of aerial photography. This technology made 
it possible to create highly qualified topographic maps. Buehl and his 
partner, a black aviator named E.C. Malick, started the Flying Dutchman 
Air Service and in 1923, Buehl earned his first pilot's license, signed 
by Orville Wright himself.
   After becoming a citizen of the United States in 1928, Buehl went on 
to open three airports in the Philadelphia area where he trained pilots 
and promoted civilian aviation. During World War II, Buehl served as a 
Flight Commander for the flight training program at Franklin & Marshall 
College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is estimated that he trained 
1,400 cadets. Buehl would also routinely serve as the personal pilot 
for General deGaulle on his visits to the United States raising funds 
for the French Resistance.
   Buehl has been recognized in the Congressional Record before. On 
April 23, 1996, the Honorable Ronald V. Dellums mentioned him in 
connection with the training of ``Chief'' C. Alfred Anderson, who 
organized the famous African-American Tuskegee Airmen who fought in 
World War II. In 1930, after Alfred Anderson had repeadtly been denied 
a pilot's license because he was black, Buehl accepted him as a student 
and advocated on his behalf. Buehl forcefully insisted that he be 
allowed to take the pilot's license test, even when a Federal examiner 
refused to let Anderson apply. Tuskegee Airmen historians and members 
of the Anderson family say that without Buehl's willingness to work 
with Anderson and to stick up for him, there would have been no 
Tuskegee Airmen.
   Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in 
paying tribute to Ernest H. Buehl, Sr. for his lasting contributions to 
aviation and our nation by supporting his nomination to the National 
Aviation Hall of Fame.

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