The Alameda Naval Air Museum has installed a collection featuring memorabilia from Sonoma Outing Group (SOG), a military and civilian social group that survived for 80 years, into their library. The group reconvened for their final goodbyes at a dedication at the museum at Alameda Point on Saturday.
15 members, some of whom worked at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Alameda before its closing in 1994, attended the dedication. SOG members spent time catching up with each other on the museum’s balcony and remembering the group’s history.
SOG was formed in 1943 at the Naval Aviation and Repair Depot to foster more amicable relationships between military and civilian leadership that both worked there. At the time, there was dissonance between them as Navy leaders were not familiar with how to manage civilians and, similarly, civilians had difficulty taking orders from the military.
Pinky Purvis, who would become SOG’s first president, organized the first outing in Sonoma that began an 80-year-long tradition. The group would meet, settle differences, and enjoy one another’s company.
“There was somewhat of a clash between the civilian leadership and the military leadership,” former SOG President Roser said, “and so the admiral in charge says, ‘You know what? We need to sit down eyeball-to-eyeball and try to work all this stuff out, and see if we can’t bring some harmony to our work organization.’”
Roser is a retired marine and air group commander that had several squadrons stationed in Alameda. He joined SOG in 1989 and was SOG’s president from 2016 until the group’s retirement.
Over the years, SOG’s meeting location would change several times, and after the NAS Alameda closed, the group demographic became less military based. But every year, the group would still meet, sometimes traveling far distances to do so. They would have 93 members total.
By 2023, many SOG members felt that their membership was growing old, so it was decided that the organization would retire. After SOG’s last outing in June, the members were content to go their separate ways—that is, until they realized they didn’t know what to do with all the SOG stuff that had accumulated. The memorabilia was too precious to simply throw away but much too voluminous to keep.
“We had boxes full of materials and trophies and so forth and so on,” Roser said.
SOG member Mike Janvier came up with the idea to ask the Naval Air Museum if it would accept some of their memorabilia. Working with staff at the museum, the group put together a collection that fits in a cabinet on the third-floor library. Inside the glass case, the group’s history, golf trophies, hats with the SOG logo, and various other memorabilia are displayed. Six scrapbooks, divided by SOG presidents, cover the entire group’s history and are shelved in the bottom section of the cabinet.
“I just think there are a lot of people in Alameda that had some association with the air station, so this might be a little walk down memory lane for them to see that we survived,” Roser said.
Jerry Duck was a civilian worker overhauling and repairing airplanes and the longest living member in SOG. He looked out at the scenery from the museum’s balcony, reminiscing about his time at the station.
“They ought to give this place to the public and make it nice. Look at the view, it’s marvelous,” Duck said. He remembered where he would fish for striped bass in the Seaplane Lagoon and pointed out Building 66, where he and others worked on fuel controls for the airplanes.
“The only memory I have about the Sonoma Outing Group is the tradition we established,” Duck said. “Nobody was in charge. The tradition involved integrity and honesty, and we did things with style, grace, and dignity. We treated each other with total respect.”
The Alameda Naval Air Museum preserves aviation history connected to NAS Alameda.
Vicky Nguyen is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Vicky-Nguyen.
