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From Gene Banning's list of 8/31/00: "from AVG; prom to capt 3/43; left in 1945 to FTL." In the 1943-45 log book of Don McBride, R.J. listed his address as:  R.J. Raines AVG 138 Cole ST San Francisco,  (Photo Courtesy of Chris Groh, son of Cliff Groh)  Syd de Kantzow and is that "Catfish" Raine? (Photo Courtesy of Judy Polanich, Paul Kessler's niece) Before I, your CNAC Web Editor, decided to write to Captain Raine, I did some checking on the spelling of his last name. I sent the following message to Dick Rossi asking him to help me with the spelling of Captain Raine's name: Dick -- I'm getting ready to write to Robert J. Raines, but before I do I'm trying to confirm his name and it's spelling. In Chennaults' book the index lists "Robert J. Raines "Catfish"". In Whelan's The Flying Tigers the name is listed as "E.J. Raines, Wing Man". In R.T. Smith's Tale of a Tiger he is "Robert J. Raine". In Schultz's The Maverick War he is listed as "R.J. Raines "Catfish"". In Bond's A Flying Tiger's Diary he is listed as "Bob Raines". In Ford's Flying Tigers he is listed as "Robert Raine". And the last reference I found was in Hotz's With General Chennault where his name is "Robert J. Raines". So, now I have two or make that three (I think) sources that say it's "Robert J. Raines". Your input is always appreciated. Sincerely -- Tom I received the following message from Dick: Tom -- Catfish's name is Robert J. Raine. When he got into the Navy they spelled his name incorrectly as Raines. He left it that way as he had been accepted as a cadet and didn't want to have any paperwork problem that might mess up his flight training schedule. So it set up a confusion from his military days. Sincerely -- Dick So, until I hear different from Captain Robert J. Raine I will assume that this is the correct spelling for his name.  left to right Boris Lisanivitch/Lazanovitc (sp?) (was the manager of the 300 Club in Calcutta, which is in the background), Capt. Lawrence Pratt (ADC to the Govenor of Bengal (Casey"?, Ben Driver (Managing Director of Magnolia Ice Cream), Colonel Prithi Singh (ADC to HH Jaipur), Syd de Kantzow and "Catfish" Do you remember these men in this picture? (Photo Courtesy of Maurice Wickstead)  CNAC Reunion - October 7, 2004 standing left to right Ced Mah, CATC Captain Deming L Chew (from Sacramento, CA), Moon Chin and CATC Captain John Lee seated left to right Catfish, Dick Rossi and Al Mah December 30, 2019 It is a very small world and here's an example I stumbled across this afternoon ... The following link is run by Catfish's grandson, Scott Raine, and great grandson Steal Raine, and has more information about Catfish: https://www.rainesmarket.com/robert-j-catfish-raine---pilot.html New Years eve, December 31, 2019, I received the following e-mail from Scott: Hi Tom, Scott Raine here. I have no doubt that your uncle and my grandfather knew each other from what is mentioned about their mutual time in Kunming in the bio on your uncle and what I know of my grandfathers time. We have a little historical display here in our store with AVG / CNAC medals / paintings / photos. also: https://www.rainesmarket.com/robert-j-catfish-raine---pilot.html (see link above) He was not much for music / songs that I could ever recognize, I would occasionally hear '40s "Big Band Music" but nothing in particular. I finally got the story out of him as to how he got the nickname Catfish while we were out hunting the year before he passed away. Quite a tale. We have a few pieces of memorabilia that he had, it is not much as he donated most items to various museums long ago. We went to a museum Southern California with him a long time ago to see his stuff and he was very unhappy when he found that most of it had been sold or traded by museum to private parties or other museums. I have preserved his original flight logs from first training flight through late Commercial flying - sometime I need to scan them and send them to you to post. I believe he would not mind having them published. The CNAC days are summarized a lot, but the AVG days are quite detailed. All of your information is accurate on his CNAC page. That is indeed him in those pics. He took a lot of pictures that appear in several books, but I never found the originals and he didn't talk a lot about them. The story about spelling of his last name is accurate. I co-authored the obituary you have posted. Another anecdote worth printing: While flying for CNAC Catfish's son Robert Franklin Raine (My father) and daughter Billie Ann Raine (Conaway) were twins born in Shanghai 25 November 1948 to his wife Shirley A. Raine (born Duckworth) a US Army nurse who he met in Calcutta during the war after her hospital ship was damaged by a torpedo. Call anytime- Scott Raine scott@scottraine.com Cell: 775-385-1164   or would like to be added to the CNAC e-mail distribution list, please let the CNAC Web Editor, Tom Moore, know. Thanks! |