Joseph Walter Gardner

On Tuesday, December 11, 2018, Joseph Walter Gardner, loving husband and father of five children passed away at the age of 95 in Fairhope, Alabama.

Joe was born on November 26, 1923, in Yakima, WA to Raymond and Louise (Offutt) Gardner. He entered the Navy’s V-5 Program in December 1942, and married Evelyn May Goff on August 30, 1945. In that same year he received a bachelor’s degree from Washington State University in Pullman. Joe and Eve raised four daughters, Sharon, JoAnn, Christine and Judith, and a son, James. He is survived by his wife and children, two nieces, son-in-law, 12 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.

Joe received his commission in the US Navy 08MAY45 and was designated a Naval Aviator 15MAY45; fighter pilot and carrier qualified. He held the Gunnery Record, NAS Deland, FL, 07AUG45, 37.5% hits (previous record: 28%), perhaps never again equaled. After a 6-year hiatus working in the family nursery/landscaping business, he returned to the Navy and was rotary wing qualified in 1955.

Joe’s passion, while mostly reserved for his cherished wife, Eve, and claim to fame is grounded in his love, extreme skill and complete mastery of flying helicopters. He flew nearly all helicopters in the Navy’s inventory and is generously but accurately credited with inventing Vertical Replenishment with the Boeing H-46 helicopter. He has been awarded the Naval Helicopter Association’s two most prestigious awards for Lifelong Service and the Mark Starr Pioneer Award. He demonstrated beautifully his skills and the grace of the modern helicopter, as the H-46 demonstration pilot at the 1965 Paris Air Show.

After launching Vertical Replenishment from the Mediterranean Sea to the East coast to the West coast, Japan and the Pacific, Joe retired from the Navy at the end of June, 1970. He moved his wife and youngest daughter to Australia and began a second career flying and managing commercial passenger and utility helicopter operations throughout Asia for Airfast Helicopter Utilities in Sydney, Darwin, Bangkok, Seoul, and Taipei; Great China Airlines, Taipei, Taiwan; and China Ocean Helicopter Company, Cili, China. He rounded out the last 9 (+) years of his flying career with Petroleum Helicopters, Inc., flying out of Lafayette, LA.

The epitome of the unsung hero, Joe saved lives and supported the Navy’s world-wide mission throughout his career. He is loved and revered by those he mentored and trained as a pilot. As a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great uncle and pilot, Joe will be sorely missed. He has been known to say he’d likely die at 93 by the hand of a jealous husband, but he made it without such incident to 95. God bless him.

High Flight by John Gillepsie Magee, Jr.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -

and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -

wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.

Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along

and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

where never lark, or even eagle, flew;

and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

the high untrespassed sanctity of space,

put out my hand and touched the face of God."

Joe was preceded in death by his mother and father, Louise and Raymond, two brothers Macklin and Raymond, daughter-in-law Sari Fennel, and sons-in-law, Charles Holliday, Don Brown, and Robert Garlick.

Services will be held at:

Oak Lawn Funeral Home

619 New Warrington Blvd

Pensacola, FL 32506

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Visitation with reception 10:00-11:45 AM

Memorial service 11:45-12:30 PM

Depart Oak Lawn Funeral Home to Barrancas National Cemetery, NAS Pensacola 12:30 PM

Graveside Service, Full Military Honors, Barrancas National Cemetery 1:00 PM

Depart NAS Pensacola 1:30 PM