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Some 16,000 Austrian, Australian, British and Dutch prisoners of war perished during the construction of the infamous "Death Railway" that provided the Japanese with an overland supply route from Bangkok to Burma.
The bridges that conveyed the tracks to the River Kwai Noi were targets that had to be destroyed by the United States Army Air Forces. Again and again, aircrews flew low through the intense anti-aircraft fire while trying to hit a target which resembled the thin edge of a knife blade.
Countersigned by Carl H. Fritsche, Duane R. Jordan, Charles D. Mott, Kyle O. Thompson.
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Aviation is this artist’s living. Painting is a joy and a choice; not his
career. Craig Kodera career is as an airline pilot, so each of his paintings
reflect an intimate knowledge of how it feels to fly and what it looks like out
the cockpit. "I paint what I see," he says,"and my office window is at 35,000
feet."
An appreciation of aviation came easy, since Kodera was raised in what he terms
an "aviation family," which included an uncle who flew with the famous
Doolittle Raiders during World War II. At an age when most teens were trying to
ace the driver’s test, Kodera had earned his private pilot’s license. A love of
painting also came early. Kodera started seriously studying it at fourteen.
He graduated from UCLA with a degree in mass communications and spent a year as
a commercial artist before joining the Air Force Reserve, where he was assigned
to the Air Rescue Service and then the Strategic Air Command. There his
knowledge of air war history grew while he logged literally thousands of hours
flying.
Eventually Kodera left the service and joined American Airlines. When he isn’t
flying, he’s usually painting. His artwork is part of the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Air and Space Museum permanent collection and hangs in
many museums. He is also the charter vice president of the American Society of
Aviation Artists, a member of the Air Force Art Program and serves with the Los
Angeles Society of Illustrators.
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