Josh Millers’ passion for warbirds began at a young age, while having family members who served in WW2 his passion grew, especially towards the warbirds. His great grandfather Sgt Walter S Miller JR. served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater. As well as his great uncle 1^st LT Robert M Leety, who flew P-40’s, P-51’s and P-47’s with the US Army Air Corps in the European theater, who participated in the Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland and Ardennes campaigns with over 75 missions. He was K.I.A. March 15, 1945 when his P-47 was hit by flak while strafing two enemy tanks in the vicinity of Hinterweidenthal, Germany.

While living in Florida, his stepfather worked maintenance at the TICO Airport, which is where the Valiant Air Command is located. Visting the museum and attending the airshows had a huge impact on fueling his passion for warbirds. Miller moved back to Pennsylvania where he attended Kutztown Area High School, after graduating he was working as an industrial / commercial electrician apprentice with the IBEW. Mr. Miller went back to Florida after 10 years, once again visiting the VAC museum. While at the museum he noticed a gentleman working on his B-25 and thought “That’s where I want to be”, he approached the gentleman, and his name was Tom Reilly.

Tom had offered Josh a job working for him, hesitant to leave more than halfway through his electrical apprenticeship, Tom said to keep in touch with him. A few months later, Tom contacted Josh regarding to help with his B-25 “Killer B” and in return get a flight, he accepted. Miller went from only being able to observe at a young age, to now being hands on with the aircraft and taking flight in Killer B, his childhood dream came true, and he was hooked “the rest is history” as Tom would say. Josh decided to take a leap of faith and withdrew from his electrical apprenticeship to pursue his dream of becoming a warbird mechanic.

Josh had the opportunity to grow his passion from a dream to reality, through his mentors, Tom Reilly, Larry Kelley, and Max Hodges. While working for Tom, one of the projects was the restoration of “Old Glory”, having traveled to Albany, NY a few times to work on Old Glory, David Prescott offered Josh a position at the Warbird Factory, where he is currently employed furthering his warbird experience maintaining a TBM-3E “Ida Red”, T-6 Texan “Déjà vu”, Tora 101, restoration of the forward section on B-25 ”Old Glory” and GA maintenance while pursuing his A&P.

Recently, Josh had the opportunity to fly to Europe to be part of the 80^th anniversary of D-Day with Placid Lassie. While in Europe he was able to visit his great uncle’s gravesite at the Lorraine American Cemetery, St. Avold, France and visit the crash site of his P-47. The son of the property owner would visit the crash site in search of aircraft parts growing up, he found a pair of pilot’s wings, and through town records found the name of the pilot who was K.I.A. in the crash. Through Facebook Pierre contacted Miller’s family and sent the wings to Lt. Leetys’ younger brother Chuck.

Josh hopes to return to France and visit the site again, in hopes of recovering more parts and possibly even a data plate which would further his dream, of using his passion and warbird experience to restore a P-47D Razorback in honor of his uncle 1^st Lt. Robert M. Leety.