CONTACT. World War II pilot training class book for Class 44-J, 3041st AAFBU [Army Air Forces Base Unit], Ryan Field, Hemet, California. [United States Army Air Forces - USAAF.]

Unpaged - 48 pages including covers. Staple-bound paperback: H 26.6cm x L 21.5cm. B/w pictorial paper covers well rubbed with some foxing and creasing as well as scuffs at edges and along spine fold; past owner's ink inscription "George Schumpert 1943" at front cover's bottom left (Schumpert not listed among the pilot trainees but 1943 precedes the classbook which, per class 44-J, would have been issued in 1944). Slight foxing/toning to interior leaves; pages 21-28 detached and now laid-in; light edge-wear to pages 23-26. Binding staples rusted but otherwise holding remaining leaves. Laid-in at center is brittle age-toned "Restricted" typescript mimeographed sheet now separated into sections listing leaves of absences for July 1945. Classbook features b/w photos and illustrations throughout - includes pictures of base personnel and headshots of pilots with their hometowns and airplane assignments. No copies located via OCLC and not listed in C.E. Dornbusch's UNIT HISTORIES OF WORLD WAR II (1950) nor Dornbusch's 1951 Supplement. Although past owner George William Schumpert (1923-2004), a native of Amory, Mississippi, is not found in the classbook, an online obituary notes that he was a U.S. Army Air Force veteran of World War II and the Korean War where, in his service during the latter, he flew 125 missions and retired as a captain plus post-war service as a helicopter pilot in the Mississippi Air National Guard.…