Josiah Rowe's grandfather
Josiah Rowe had a grandfather, a pilot in the American Army Air Corps in the First World War.
Biography
Josiah Rowe's grandfather served as a pilot in the American Army Air Corps during the First World War. There, the grandfather met the Ninth Doctor in a base in Foggia, Italy, when the Doctor ingratiated himself with the CO, before stealing a Spad XIII. Before the Doctor left, the grandfather took a picture of his fellow pilots, which happened to include the Doctor in the background.
Josiah's grandfather wrote about his encounter in a letter he sent to his home. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)
Legacy
In March 2005, Josiah Rowe wrote about his grandfather's tale on Clive Finch's conspiracy website Doctor Who?, offering to scan the photograph and the letter and send them to Clive. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)
Behind the scenes
In the real world, the Army Air Service did train pilots at an airbase near Foggia during the First World War.[1] One of these pilots was Josiah P. Rowe, Jr. (see Rowe, Josiah P. (1986). Letters from A World War I Aviator. Sinclaire Press. , and Hynes, Samuel (2014). The Unsubstantial Air p. 76. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. )
His grandson, Josiah Rowe IV, wrote the entry in PROSE: Have You Seen This Man? on the "Who is Doctor Who?" website, in which his grandfather met the Ninth Doctor. The younger Josiah, however, erred in referring to the aviation branch of the US Army as the Army Air Corps; during World War I, it was the Army Air Service, and was renamed the Army Air Corps in 1926.
