Ritter, Edward Arthur

Biography

Edward "Ed" Arthur Ritter was a pilot and member of VF-18 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11) during World War II. As a trained artist, he spent his downtime carving little souvenirs out of wood and painting cartoons of fellow pilots or vignettes of life aboard the ship. His cartoons were well known to the crewmembers and became great morale boosters, so much that a New York Times journalist visited the Intrepid to interview Ritter and photograph all of his cartoons. Unfortunately, soon after, while Ritter was up in a Hellcat, the ship was hit by a Kamikaze, destroying all of his original artwork. Fortunately, Ritter survived the war, and the journalist who photographed his artwork gave him copies.