The Times-Union, Jacksonville, FL, July 23, 1995:
p. -

TITLE: ROSCOE TURNER: Aviation's Master Showman
AUTHOR: Carroll V. Glines
DATA: Smithsonian Institution Press; 314 pages
Reviewed by Vincent J. Bagli

        One of the most memorable figures in a spectacular field of
endeavor, pioneer aviation, was Colonel Roscoe Turner.  Barnstormer,
flamboyant showman, test pilot, and self promoter, Colonel Turner won
the famous and prestigious Bendix Trophy in 1933 and the Thompson
Trophy in 1934, 1938, and 1939. Turner and Jimmy Doolittle, of Tokyo
Raider fame, were the only ones to have won both races.  Turner was
the only one to have won the Thompson three times.

        Born in Corinth, Mississippi and educated through the tenth
grade in a one rood schoolhouse, Roscoe Turner wanted to become a
locomotive engineer. Ernest Waits, a local jeweler, optician, and
inventor, built and flew a home made airplane in Corinth in 1910.
Waits fascinated young Roscoe who was twenty-seven years his junior.
They became fast friends and Turner had found his lifelong interest.

        The First World War was underway and Roscoe applied to the
Army. In January 1918 the Army accepted him into a balloon pilot
training course.  Later while assigned to a balloon unit in France, he
received some unofficial flying lessons in two-seat trainers from
brother flying officers.  After the War, he joined the Memphis Aerial
Company that developed into a flying circus.

        In his early entrepreneurial career Turner became a big,
imposing figure, always smartly dressed in a blue tunic, jodhpurs, and
boots. He usually flashed a wide grin beneath a needle sharp
handle-bar mustache.  He was made to order for the early swashbuckling
days of aviation.

        By buying, selling and borrowing planes, Turner became a
tireless promoter of aviation and aviation safety. Constantly one
step ahead of creditors in the heart of the depression era he often
miraculously gathered the means to fly another airplane in a race or
point to point record try.  At one time he established at least nine
world records.

        Many youngsters of the 1930's had their interest in aviation
awakened, as I did, when they heard of Roscoe Turner for the first
time as he promoted the Junior Birdmen of America, and the Roscoe
Turner Flying Corps. Oil company promotions that involved a lion cub
named Gilmore and the Colonel were everywhere.  Gilmore flew with
Roscoe often sharing the cabin and sometimes the cockpit with him when
flying maneuvers would frighten the cub.

        When the Second World War involved the United States, Turner
was in his early 40's and desperately wanted to enter the service of
the country.  Despite appeals to Generals Hap Arnold, Claire Chennault
and his old racing days rival, Jimmy Doolittle, he could not join the
fray as a pilot.  He had to content himself with the training of some
3500 student pilots at the flight and mechanics school he had
organised in Indianapolis.

        Many awards including the Harmon and Henderson Trophies and
the Air Force's Distinguished Flying Cross came to Colonel Turner
during his life time. Thirty-five years before his actual death,
however, he read his premature obituary. It had been issued by the
Associated Press that was regularly reporting the exploits and deaths
of barnstormers, wing walkers, flying circus workers, stunt fliers and
test pilots. Turner went on to fly many, many miles after that.

        Roscoe Turner memorabilia can be found scattered over the
country. The most definitive exhibits are in the Smithsonian
Institution's Nationa1 Air ahd Space Museum in Washington and the Paul
E. Garber Facility in nearby Suitland, Maryland.

        As one of America`s premier avriation historians, Colonel
Glines has done it again with a delightful and thoroughly researched
recounting of the air life of one of our audacious aerial risk takers,
Colonel Roscoe Turner.