Large audiences of U.S. service men and women at bases in Europe and the Middle East responded enthusiastically to visits this spring by former U.S. astronauts and test pilots, even though many of the troops hadn’t been born when Americans first landed on the moon.

 Members of the Aero Club enjoyed an illustrated presentation about the trip titled “Legends of Aerospace” at a dinner meeting in early May at the Flight Path Museum & Learning Center at LAX.  The speaker was Tom Lee of Monogram Industries, a founder of the group called Morale Entertainment that arranged the tour.   Lee showed photos of the big groups of military personnel who gathered during March at military bases and aboard a Navy carrier at sea to meet such former astronauts as Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan and Jim Lovell.  One of the tour organizers was Aero Club president Nissen Davis, who accompanied the celebrity fliers.

 In the touring group was Bob Gilliand, ACSC member and first test pilot of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in the mid-1960s.   Gilliland attended the May ACSC dinner accompanied by his friend Lou Zamperini, famed for his role in the 1936 Olympic Games and as a World War II aviator.

 Lee said a highlight of the March overseas tour was a presentation of Naval Astronaut wings to Neil Armstrong, a Korean War Navy fighter pilot who somehow had never previously received the wings recognizing his pioneering moon flight of 1969.

Tom Lee, right, with Astronaut Neil Armstrong during tour of U.S. military bases.