Former WWII Flying Tiger still aims high





Maj. Hal Geer

Maj. Hal Geer

On Mon., May 30, retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Hal Geer of Simi Valley will stand down from duty once more.

The founder and producer of the Memorial Day Concert and Ceremony, held since 1991 at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, Geer will leave the leadership of the event to retired U.S. Air Force Col. Jerry Knotts of Westlake Village.

Born in 1916 in Oronogo, Mo., Geer’s life spans almost all of the 20th century and continues well into the 21st.

He grew up in the Roaring ’20s, lived through the next decade’s Great Depression, enlisted in the Army Air Corps two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and survived 86 combat missions flying over China and the “Himalayan Hump” during World War II. He received his commission as second lieutenant in a field promotion from Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the “Flying Tigers.”

All that was just in the first 30 years of his life.

When the war ended, Geer went to Hollywood and began a 40-year career in the entertainment industry. He worked for Walt Disney, Warner Bros. and independent producers until he retired in 1987 from Warner Bros. as the executive vice president of that company’s cartoon film division.

Then he shipped out to sea. Accompanied by his wife, Carol, Geer took up the lecture circuit aboard cruise ships for 12 years. In exchange for cruise fare, he spoke to packed auditoriums about the history of each cruise’s destination.

Geer says he’s sailed “around the world twice, gone from pole to pole, risked the turbulent waters of the African Horn and South America’s Cape of Good Hope more than once and been just about everywhere else in between.”

At 95 he feels his “most important mission now lies ahead.”

He is writing a book with the working title “The China Crisis: Then and Now” concerning the United States’ relationship, past and present, with China.

Geer has two children, two grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren. He believes that the secret to a long and productive life is the careful selection of parents and a curiosity about what lies just over the horizon.

“ The bear went over the mountain,” Geer says.


A MAN OF HONOR—Hal Geer dons his World War II A-2 flight jacket while holding a 16 mm. Cine Special movie camera from the same era.

A MAN OF HONOR—Hal Geer dons his World War II A-2 flight jacket while holding a 16 mm. Cine Special movie camera from the same era.

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