When I wrote about marsupial frogs (Gastrotheca) last May, I showed the illustration from Doris Cochran’s Living Amphibians of the World which was published in 1961*. It was a colour photograph by John H. Tashjian. He had another photograph in the book, and I found that his work had appeared in a number of herpetology books and papers.
Number one son left me a pile of issues of the historical aircraft magazine, FlyPast, over Christmas. Having reached the October 2021 issue I came across an unusual name I recognised. It was John H. Tashjian. On his 100th Birthday in July he was taken for a flight in an aeroplane he himself had flown in action during the Pacific Campaign in 1944 when he was in the US Marine Corps. The plane was the famous gull-winged Vought Corsair. The Corsair is now based at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, California. The single-seat fighter has been fitted with a small seat (replacing the armour plating) behind the pilot enabling a passenger to be carried. The date of the flight was 77 years and 11 months to the day since Tashjian had last been in the aircraft.
Tashjian served in the US Marine Corps Reserve after the war. In 1955 he was flying a McDonnell F2H-2 Banshee (‘Banjo’) from the Naval Air Station at Oakland when he found himself parachuting to the ground after an involuntary ejection. Major Tashjian landed safely while the pilotless plane crashed into the mountains where its burnt-out wreckage still remain.
The stories of the 100th birthday celebrations and the ejection incident are on a number of aviation websites. One noted:
Tashjian settled in the San Diego area, where he became a firefighter before following his true passion—zoology. He worked at several major zoos and became an expert in reptiles and amphibians.
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