END OF AN AMERICAN ACE

8/6/1945 - War celebrity, American ace-of-aces, Major Richard Ira "Dick" Bong, the flier that has been rooted for like he was Joe DiMaggio battling Ted Williams for the ALB batting championship as he duels with Major Thomas Buchanan McGuire Jr. for who will be the deadliest fighter pilot of the United States Army Air Force (the final tally for the two men is Bong, 40 aerial victories, and McGuire, 38 aerial triumphs) is killed, not by ground fire or a superior Japanese aviator, but comes after the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter he is testing crashes in a narrow North Hollywood field due to a faulty fuel pump.  Bad enough as is, Bong's death will soon be mostly forgotten except for among friends and family because of another little moment that occurs on the same day, with end of the war consequences ... the dropping of the "Little Boy" uranium atomic bomb from Colonel Paul Tibbetts' B-29 heavy bomber, "Enola Gay."       

Headlines

The first of nine children born to Carl T. Bong (who comes to America from Sweden when he is seven year old) sand Dora Bryce Bong (of Scots-English descent) of Superior, Wisconsin, Richard Ira Bong begins life on September 24, 1920 (he is named after his father's brother who died at the age of only two).  Growing up on a farm near the small town of Popular, Wisconsin twenty miles to the southeast of Superior, Bong is active in the area's 4-H Club, a good fisherman, and is an avid hunter who spends great amounts of his time practicing his marksmanship with a Winchester rifle.  Popular Grade School to Popular High School, Bong graduates from Superior Central High School in 1938, after spending his senior year commuting 44 miles daily because the Popular school does not have 12th Grade classes.  Eighteenth in a class of 428 students, along with the valuable education he receives, Bong proves to be a highly competent athlete (his size keeps him away from football) who letters in Varsity baseball, basketball, and ice hockey, and proclivity for making music by playing the clarinet and singing tenor in the Bethany Lutheran Church choir.

Young Bong

Superior Central High School

Like many boys of the time, Bong becomes captivated by aeronautics in 1927 when Charles Augustus Lindbergh makes his legendary solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Ryan Airlines manufactured "Spirit of St. Louis," wolves down the Medal of Honor aerial exploits of the top American ace (a minimum of five aerial victories is required) of WWI, race car driver Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, and has the hook set on his future when in the summer of 1928, the 30th United States President, Calvin Coolidge vacations near Superior, and establishes a summer White House at the Superior Central High School.  The president's mail flown into town each day, the plane bringing Coolidge news from the outside world passes directly over Bong's home.  Goal now to someday be a pilot, Bong spends countless hours building a model airplane collection out of balsa wood and glue.  Graduated from high school, Bong enrolls at the Superior State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin -Superior) and while there, joins the local Civilian Pilot Training and takes private flying lessons in a yellow Piper J-3 Cub and earns his private pilot's license.  In early1941, the neophyte flier (known as a "dodo") enlists in the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program (Bong is sent to the Rankin Aeronautical Academy in California, headed by John Gilbert "Tex" Rankin, one of Hollywood's top aerobatic pilots and the president of the Motion Picture Pilots Association, where he enters a 30-week program that includes primary flight training of ten weeks, basic training, and then advanced flight training, producing second lieutenants that become fighter and bomber pilots, or stay behind to become instructors themselves.  A typical day in the program, beyond lots of marching and saluting, consists of reveille at dawn, calisthenics, ground school in the afternoon that includes class lessons on navigation, aeronautical engineering, meteorology (and lots and lots and lots of algebra), dinner, studying, and then taps and sleep.  Flying a Boeing built Stearman Kaydett, a Vultee BT-13 Valiant, and a North American Aviation AT-6 Texan trainer out of a variety of airfields in California (the only blemish on Bong's early career takes place in September when he clips another plane while taxiing down a runway, but hitting his brakes in time he avoids a major collision and a serious reprimand grounding), Bong is ordered to the new 1,440-acre air force base in Phoenix, Arizona for advanced training, Luke Field (named for Phoenix native and posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor winner of WWI with 18 aerial victories on his resume, including 14 German observation balloons, the "Arizona Balloon Buster,' 1st Lt. Frank Luke Jr. ... opened in June of 1941, the airfield will graduate more than 12,000 pilots from it's advanced courses during WWII, becomes known as "The Home of the Fighter Pilot," and as of 2021, is still in use).

Lindbergh

Rickenbacker

Wisconsin Vacation

Luke In Action

At Luke Field, Bong begins really impressing his superiors with his aerial abilities ... his gunnery instructor, Captain Barry Goldwater (the future senator from Arizona and presidential nominee), will describe him as a "very bright student," and another trainer will call Bong "the finest natural pilot he ever met" because during mock dogfights he could get on the pilot's tail, even when flying a slow AT-6 training plane.  Producing his class' best gunnery scores against ground and towed targets, Lt. Colonel Ennis Whitehead decides to retain Bong at Luke Field as an instructor (at first unhappy that he has not received a combat assignment like the rest of the members of his class, the fighter pilot later will realize that his own skills have gotten even better with his teaching of new batches of "dodos" the dangers of military flying) and he graduates from advanced flight training school, receiving his gold second lieutenant's bars and silver pilot's wings on 1/16/1942.  After five months of teaching at Luke Field, Bong receives his first operational orders and is transferred to Hamilton Field (during this period, he also finds time to fly loops below the 6,860 foot rim of the Grand Canyon, earns $50 flying as an extra in a handful of scenes in William Wellman's "Thunder Birds" starring Preston Foster, John Sutton, and sultry actress Gene Tierney, and makes regular hops to the towns of Wichita, Amarillo, and Albuquerque, California (named for WWI pilot and Distinguished Service Cross winner, 1st Lt. Lloyd Andrews Hamilton and located to the north of San Francisco, on the western shore of San Pablo Bay in the southern part of Novato, in Marin County) on 5/6/1942 to learn to fly P-38 twin-engine Lockheed Lightning fighters (describing the plane, in a letter home Bong will tell his mother, "Wooey!  What an airplane.  That's all I can say <because of wartime security restrictions>, but that's enough.") with the 49th Fighter Squadron, 14th Fighter Group, part of the Fourth Air Force.  At Hamilton Field, Bong's flying abilities are noticed by the commander of the Fourth, Brigadier General George Churchill Kenney and almost get him grounded and flying a desk for the rest of the war as against standing orders, he joins three other young lieutenants in flying loops over and under the central span of the Golden Gate Bridge, buzzes business offices on San Francisco's Market Street, waving to secretaries in some of the buildings' lower offices, makes a low-level pass over the San Anselmo home of a recently married fighter pilot, and blows the drying clothes off the clothesline of a woman living on the outskirts of Oakland.  Called on the carpet by General Kenney (the flier is sent to the laundry lost woman in Oakland for a full day of doing her house chores), Bong winds up his scolding discussing the P38's low-level handling characteristics and having the general tear up his court martial papers (later Kinney will remember his first meeting with Bong and his reasoning behind tearing up the pilot's court martial, "We needed kids like this lad.").  Being grounded and confined to quarters for his stunt flying, the unseen silver lining for the young pilot is that he is still at Hamilton when the rest of his fighter squadron is sent to England to fight the Luftwaffe, while Bong gets transferred to first the 84th Fighter Squadron of the 78th Fighter Group (while still at Hamilton Field) and then arriving in Darwin, Australia, is assigned to 9th Fighter Squadron, and then given a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter to fly while his squadron awaits a consignment of new P-38s.  Flying a Warhawk for the 39th Fighter Squadron, he receives his baptism of fire flying cover for American bombers over Buna, New Guinea on Christmas Day of 1942 ... a single bullet from the ground that does no harm to either the pilot or his plane.  A combat vet with the holing, two days later, on December 27th while flying wingman for Captain Tommy Lynch in a borrowed P-38, tumbles a fixed landing gear Japanese Aichi "Val" dive bomber into the Bismarck Sea, then takes out a Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" leaving the site when it crosses in front of Bong's gunsights (another Zero escapes a lethal meeting with Bong when the pilot runs out of ammo).  Back at base, Bong celebrates his first victories of the war with a glass of whiskey splashed by soda that is provided to the fighter pilot by General Kenney (for the mission he will also win a Silver Star).  On 1/7/1943, again flying bomber cover, Bong prevails over a Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" fighter plane in a head-on fight, downs another Oscar with more head-on fire from sixty yards in front of his opponent, and then the next day, dogfighting over the Japanese base at Lae, with a rear attack, shoots down another Oscar, officially (he also claims a probable kill for which he receives no credit) becoming an ace (the winner of at least five aerial battles) after only a week of combat, this time winning a Distinguished Flying Cross.  Returned to 9th Fighter Squadron after the unit finally receives it's new fighters,  for his initial victories in a P-38, Bong (and Lynch) are given two weeks leave by General Kenney to recuperate and relax in Australia.   

In Training

Bong

Kenney

Lynch

All of his aerial triumphs coming by way of commanding a Lockheed Lightning, the P-38 that Bong takes into combat is the fighter child of aeronautical engineers Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson and Hall Livingstone Hibbard of the Lockheed Corporation.  Designed to meet the needs of a 1937 contract with the United States Army Air Corps, the Lightning features four .50-calber M2 Browning machine guns (with 200 rounds for each gun) and a Hispano 29 mm autocannon (with 150 shells) concentrated in the nose of the fighter with a range of 1,000 yards.  Power for the fighter comes from two 1,000 horsepower turbo-supercharged 12-cylinder Allison V-1710 engines fitted with counter-rotating propellers to eliminate engine torque on the plane.   Carrying the pilot and his armament is a fighter that makes extensive use of stainless steel and smooth, flush-riveted butt-jointed aluminum skin panels, the Lightning is 37 feet and 10 inches in length, has a wingspan of 52 feet, a height of 12 feet and 10 inches, and with a maximum weight capacity of 21,600 pounds can speed along at 414 mph (the first military aircraft to fly faster than 400 mph in level flight), has a service ceiling of 44,000 feet, and has a range of 450 miles (further with special mission drop tanks).  One of the most successful fighters in the Allied arsenal, during the war the Lightning will serve as a fighter, a fighter-bomber, a night fighter, for aerial reconnaissance (it will account for 90% of the aerial combat photography captured over Europe, a bomber-pathfinder, and a long-range escort fighter (the German Luftwaffe will nickname the plane der Gabelschwanz-Teufel, "the fork-tailed devil," while the Japanese say it is an fighter crafted of two planes that can be flown by one pilot).  Only 10,037 built by Lockheed before the plane is retired by the United States military in 1949, in the warfare that takes place over the Pacific Ocean, the Lightning will down more than 1,800 Japanese planes, the most of any America fighter during the WWII clash of empires and cultures.

Assembly Line

Cockpit

Flight

Australian holiday over, Bong returns to the 9th and begins flying his P-38 out of Schwimmer Airfield near Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and begins adding to his victory totals in March of 1943 when he participates in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, sending an Oscar into the Pacific with deflection fire (firing at an empty spot that the opponent flies into) while also declaring a second fighter as a "probable."  A few days later he is involved again when the Japanese hit Bong's airbase and he goes on the offensive, downing three Zeroes with head-on attacks before diving away from the fighter filled Japanese formation (Bong will claim two victories and a third "probable").  He makes his last kill of March when on patrol he spots a Mitsubishi Ki-46 twin-engine "Dinah" reconnaissance plane near Oro Bay, and after several wounding passes, blows the slower aircraft out of the sky with explosive rounds into the Japanese plane's rear (his victories are now officially at 9).  In April of 1943, Bong adds another kill to his victory total (and two more "probables" becoming a "double" ace) when he and his wingman, Lt. Carl Plank, attack a Japanese formation of over 80 fighters and bombers at 26,000 feet that are headed for Allied shipping in Milne Bay (this time his victim is a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" medium bomber that Americans will nickname the "Flying Cigar" for it's lack of armor and propensity to go up in flames when hit on or near its engines), meets the 24-year-old rookie fighter pilot that will chase his victory total into 1945, Lt. Thomas Buchanon McGuire Jr., sees the fighter he loves so much, the P-38, used by members of the 339th Fighter Squadron to shoot (with the approval of President Roosevelt) the architect of the Japanese sneak attack and their #1 naval figure, 59-year-old Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto out of the sky over Bougainville, and is promoted to first lieutenant.  Returning from another batch of leave days in Australia, in May, Bong's patrols and missions result in no new victories, and during his down time, the fighter pilot finds relaxation through playing his clarinet to Benny Goodman tunes, a hobby half of the squadron enjoys and the other half cringes over.  June sees Bong use his nose mounted guns while flying cover for a downed member of the squadron to blow-up a menacing crocodile, move closer to the Japanese base at Lae by flying out of two freshly made airstrips at Garoka and Marilinan, and gets into a dogfight with several Japanese aircraft that has him running out of fuel when he returns to base and is in the process of landing (he also discovers a large cannon holes in his wing, compliments of a Japanese airman), while adding another Oscar to his tally of aerial victories.      

Bong

July of 1943 has Bong and his squadron pitching into a flight of Japanese fighters in which they are outnumbered by four to one.  Adding four more victories to his steadily rising total, Bong sends a Zero into the sea in another head-on attack, knocks down a Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony" fighter with a rear attack, turns another Tony into a falling fireball, and finishes his day with another frontal assault that knocks knocks the canopy off Zero ... for his efforts, General Kenney awards the pilot a Distinguished Service Cross and a promotion to Captain.  Two days later while flying cover for a group of B-25 Mitchell bombers he shoots down an Oscar with a rear deflection shot that gives him his sixteenth aerial victory.  In August of 1943, the battle to become America's ace-of-aces begins in earnest when McGuire takes only two days to become an ace, then adds two more planes to his total before the month ends, and has three more aerial victories in September to bring his triumphs to ten.  Meanwhile, Bong remains at sixteen victories (as a result of returning to the States for leave, during which he meets his future bride, Marjorie Vattendahl, at a homecoming dance of his alma mater, the Superior Teachers College).  And so the back-and-forth begins and by the end of the year Bong has 21 aerial kills (he has three victories in October and then two more in November) to 16 for McGuire (he will be frozen on that number until April of 1944).   

Bong & McGuire

Bong's Plane

The Real Thing

1944 starts slowly for both men (deeply in love, until the plane is borrowed and destroyed, Bong flies a P-38 adorned with a photo of Miss Vattendahl), but Bong does manage to add a 22nd victory in February by sending a Tony into the sea with a rear pass from seventy-five yards (he also destroys a Japanese transport plane containing a major general, a brigadier general, and a batch of high ranking staff officers (he will receive no kill credit for shooting up the transport because it has already landed), and before he leaves the area, Bong and Lynch machine gun over a hundred Japanese soldiers waiting on the tarmac.  In March, Bong adds two more Japanese to give him a total of 24 victories, downing two Sally bombers as they are about to land at the Tadju Japanese airbase on the northern coast of New Guinea.  Sadly, the month also sees the death of Bong's friend, Lt. Colonel Thomas Lynch (now an ace with twenty victories), killed by ground fire before Bong's eyes as the colonel strafes a group of coastal supply ships on the way to the Japanese base at Hollandia.  Sent to Australia for more R&R with General Kenney concerned with his fighter's morale after seeing his friend, Bong returns to combat in April and pots an Oscar with a rear attack ... and making newspapers in America happy, is only one victory away from tying WWI ace-of-aces, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker with 26 triumphs, two away from the leaders on the pyramid, Guadalcanal Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Marine Major Joe Foss, and three away from tying Marine legend, Black Sheep squadron commander, Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington.  On April 12th, Bong sends an Oscar into the waters of Tannemerah Bay, shoots another Oscar off the tail of a member of his squadron, then adds a 28th victim to his tally by splashing another fighter at almost wavetop.  Top ace, Bong is again pulled from combat, promoted to major, and receives two cases of Coca-Cola as a reward (the reward was to have been a case of Scotch from Rickenbacker and a case of champagne from General MacArthur, but is changed when religious groups back in the states protest ... eventually General Kenney will secretly supply Bong with both the Scotch and the champagne).

Foss

Boyington

Worried that his favorite pilot could perish from weariness, or being too aggressive trying to put even more victories on whatever his final tally will be, General Kenney sends his top ace back to the States for rest and relaxation, advanced gunnery training (to cut down on the number of Bong's frontal attacks), and a lot of hob-knobbing with big shots in the military, politicians, famous entertainers, selling war bonds, and some valuable friends and family time (he will become engaged to Marge during this period).  Returning to the Pacific in October of 1944, Bong at first is giving the assignment of giving the rookies of General Kenney's command aerial combat lessons as a "noncombatant" instructor.  Out with his students on 10/10 and interpreting his orders very lightly, Bong splashes a Nakajima J1N Gekko "Irving" twin-engine, two seat reconnaissance plane with a rear pass, then takes out an Oscar about to attack Lt. Warren Curton's fighter for his 30th victory of the war.  Gloves off and given permission to fly combat again, returning with three other pilots to the American airbase at Tacloban on the Philippine island of Leyte, Bong shoots down an three more Oscars (upon returning to base, a member of Bong's ground crew will find that while dogfighting about the sky during his third victory of the day, the ace has flown into one of his own bullets) tp finish the month at triumph #33 (chasing still, McGuire ends the month at #24).  In November, Bong's total goes up to #36 when a forty-degree deflection attack coverts an Oscar into a fireball, and the next day rear attacks flame two more Zeroes.  Total now at #36, General Kenney writes up the paperwork, which General MacArthur immediately signs, for the Swede from Popular to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for his work (in a public ceremony at the Tacloban airbase, he is personally given the medal by MacArthur on 12/12/1944 ... which he follows up by having a cheese sandwich to make up for the breakfast he missed flying in for the medal ceremony).  Again wanting to keep his flier alive, General Kenney and Bong come to an agreement that he will be sent back to the states upon earning his fortieth victory, which he does in December of 1944 while shooting down a Sally bomber after a fifteen minute chase, splashing a Nakajima Ki-44 "Tojo" fighter with a frontal attack (both victories taking place on the anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor three years before), wounding then taking down an Oscar with deflection firing and a rear attack, and blowing up another Oscar over Mindoro Island on the 12/17 anniversary of Oroville Wright's first Kitty Hawk flight.  On 12/29, Bong heads home to the United States for good. 

With Hap Arnold

Another Victory For Bong

Medal Of Honor

Meanwhile, flying out of the same airfield and sharing a tent with Bong, McGuire uses the same two months to advance his aerial victories to thirty-eight, two short of his opponent's total (the pair also manage to have their clocks cleaned in a poker game that costs Bong $1,500 and McGuire a whopping $2,500!), winning himself a Congressional Medal of Honor.  Sadly, there will be no more victories for the 24-year-old from Florida (the only other pilot in the race for most victories is Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Navy commander David McCampbell, who, flying a Grumman F6F Hellcat off of carriers ends the war with 34 aerial victories to his credit, including shooting down nine Japanese during a single day of combat during the Battle of Leyte Gulf).  Desperate to catch Bong, breaking his own rules of aerial combat at lower elevations, McGuire gets into a dogfight with Japanese fighter instructor, Warrant Officer Akira Sugimoto (a flier with over 3,000 hours in the air) on January 7, 1945 over the Japanese base of Manapla on the central Philippine island of Negros.  Battling to negate the attack of Sugimoto's Oscar on his wingman, Captain Edwin Weaver, McGuire puts his P-38 into an extremely tight downward turn, but with his two auxiliary tanks still attached, the fighter stalls, snap rolls inverted at 300 feet, and as McGuire trys to pull up, crashes into the jungle, killing McGuire instantly.

McGuire And Bong On Patrol

McGuire Victorious Again

Ace

McCampbell

Site Of McGuire's Crash

Back in the United States by New Year's Eve, Bong is in Wisconsin finalizing his wedding plans when he receives the news of McGuire's death.  On February 10, 1945, officiated by Reverend Paul Boe, Major Richard Ira Bong and Marjorie Ann Vattendahl are married at the Concordia Lutheran Church in Superior, Wisconsin before a crowd of more than 1,200 friends, family, government representatives (head of the air force, General Hap Arnold is unable to attend after suffering a heart attack on January 17), and members of the media (a audio tape of the ceremony will be played on Chicago's WLS and on Superior's WEBC).  Honeymooning in California, Bong shows his bride many of the spots where he spent time before the war, and now celebrities themselves for Bong's war exploits, in Hollywood they dine at the legendary Brown Derby and rub shoulders with stars that include Diane Lynn, Eddie Bracken, Bing Crosby, Angela Lansbury, Judy Garland, and Lucille Ball.  And in Southern California, the pair are given a private tour of the Lockheed factory that produced Bong's P-38 (walked about by company vice president Carl B. Squier), and as an extra bonus, Bong is allowed to take Marge up in a brand new Lightning that he flies over Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.  

Happy

Checking Out A P-38

And it is there where the fighter pilot becomes entranced with Lockheed's and America's first successfully turbojet-powered combat aircraft, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.  A quick answer to Nazi Germany unleashing the world's first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262 "Schwalbe" ("Swallow"), the P-80 is the brainchild of Lockheed dynamo, Kelly Johnson, and the team he leads of 28 engineers.  Using blueprints of the recently released Bell P-59 Airacomet, working 24/7, Lockheed's "Skunk Works" team takes just 143 days to create an airframe which is delivered to California's Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards Air Force Base) for testing on November 16, 1944.  The testing is problematic and extremely dangerous ... Lockheed's chief engineering test pilot, 41-year-old Milo Garrett Burcham, the first man to fly the P-80, dies in a fiery crash caused by a malfunction in the plane's fuel pump, and his replacement, 32-year-old test pilot, Anthony W. "Tony" LeVier barely survives his time in a P-80 (nicknamed "The Gray Ghost"), suffering a broken back after bailing out that takes six months to mend when a faulty turbine blade causes massive structural damage to the jet's tail ... as in there is no more tail.  The third pilot to test his luck on the Lockheed Shooting Star is America's Ace of Aces, Major Dick Bong. 

Johnson (R) Congratulates Burcham After

Successful First Flight Of A P-80

The Gray Ghost

LaVier

Readying itself for the Jet Age, the Air Force transfers Bong from Wright Field in Ohio to the main Lockheed manufacturing facility in Burbank, California.  After a long cross-country drive, the newly weds move into a small furnished bungalow apartment in Hollywood on 7/12/1945.  Though he begins working at Lockheed six days a week, Bong enjoys his post-combat life with his happy wife, especially enjoying breakfast in bed, curling up with Western novels, going bowling at least once a week, taking in movies, watching his wife paint (intrigued, Bong will produce an oil painting of Marge) and listening to "Your Hit Parade" on the radio, particularly, Doris Day's hit recording of "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time."  Expecting a lifetime of such productive bliss, plus the promise of children, with horrifying suddenness, it all blows apart on the Monday afternoon of August 6, 1945.  Originally scheduled to play golf with Bing Crosby later in the day (Bong cancels the round when he discovers he has forgotten to put his golf shoes in his car), the test pilot drives to the Lockheed Air Terminal to make a routine flight of a brand new P-80 from the manufacturing line that has been flown only once before, for an hour and a half.  Preflight completed, Bong closes the jet's canopy, taxi out to Runway 33, and takes off at around 2:30 in the afternoon from the 6,000 foot runway, intent on making his twelfth flight in a Shooting Star and of adding to his four hours and fifteen minutes of flight time in the jet's cockpit.  Accelerating to 120 mph, Bong lifts off the runway and turns right as he moves over the Southern Pacific rail lines that parallel Vanowen Street.  Going over Valhalla Memorial Park cemetery he climbs to two hundred feet, where witnesses on the ground see the jet emitting puffs of black smoke and making popping noises within the sounds of the craft's jet engine as Bong fruitlessly attempts to gain altitude.  Something catastrophically wrong (another bad fuel pump will later be determined to be the problem, but why it fails is never figured out), knowing the jet is coming down, Bong points his failing jet towards an empty field at Oxnard Street and Satsuma Avenue in North Hollywood, a bit of urban nothingness surrounded by a dense ocean of suburban Valley homes.  Seconds from impact, Bong opens his cockpit canopy and jumps from the jet as he pulls the ripcord on his parachute.  Too low to deploy properly, Bong dies instantly hitting the ground at speed and from about three stories in height.  The pilot is 24-years-old when he goes into his forever.

Crash Site

Debris Field

Home To Wisconsin

Last flight aboard a USAAF Air Transport Command C-54, Bong's remains, accompanied by his wife, arrives at the Duluth Airport on August 8, where it is met by a crowd of roughly a thousand souls that include Bong's parents, his brother Bud, and his sisters, Jerry and Nelda.  All the pomp and pageantry of a patriotic military farewell, celebrants of the flier's life attend services at the Concordia Lutheran Church of Superior (the same church the Bongs were married at six months before) that feature Reverend Paul Boe and Reverend Arvid Hoorn, a funeral procession of over two dozen cars, color guards and bands, a flyover of P-47 fighters (why the P-38 wasn't used is never explained), the reading of the 91st Psalm, the playing of "Taps," and Marge receiving the flag that had been draped over her husband's casket.  After, Marge will return to Southern California and continue on with her life, conducting negotiations with James Cagney, Howard Hughes and others on making a biopic of Bong's life (a film is never made), thanks to Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, gets a job at the Preble Model Agency in Los Angeles training young ladies that she holds for ten years, marries for a second time in 1946 (to a woolen goods salesman, James Baird ... they have one daughter), divorces and marries magazine publisher Murray Drucker (she will have a second daughter from the marriage, which lasts until Marge's death at the age of 79 in 1991 from cancer), and in her old age begins attending events around the country honoring her dead first husband (the first is the dedication in 1985 of the Richard Ira Bong Memorial Bridge connecting Duluth and Superior).  And there are many events to attend, entering the history books as America's top ace of WWII (and probably of all-time thanks to the myriad of changes that have occurred in the realm of aerial warfare ... gone but not totally forgotten like some of that generation, there is a Richard Bong Recreation Area on the Wisconsin site of what was the Bong Air Force Base, the aforementioned memorial bridge, the Richard I. Bong Airport in Superior, Wisconsin, the Bong Barracks of the Aviation Challenge program, the Major Richard I. Bong Bridge in Annandale, Australia, the Major Richard Ira Bong Squadron of the Arnold Air Society at the University of Wisconsin, there are Richard Bong theaters in Misawa, Japan and at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, Bong Avenues exist at decommissioned Richards-Gebaur AFB (air force base), Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas, Luke AFB in Arizona, Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska, Fairchild AFB in Washington, Kadena AFB on the island of Okinawa, there is a Bong Blvd. on the Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, a Bong Street in Dayton, Ohio that leads to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, along with another Bong Street at the Holloman AFB outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico, a neighborhood in New Jersey built in the 1950s called Bong Terrace, the pilot is named the class exemplar at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado of the Air Force Class of 2003, and thus far, inductions into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame, and the International Air and Space Hall of Fame. 

Marge In Later Life

Richard Ira Bong Memorial Bridge

Rest In Peace

And of course, in Bong's hometown of Superior, Wisconsin, inside a structure resembling an aircraft hangar is the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center featuring a museum, a film screening room, and a restored P-38 Lightning made to resemble Bong's "Marge" fighter. Lots of fitting tributes to a 24-year-old pilot, but perhaps the words of three different Americans measure the man better than place names and dusty museum exhibits. Eddie Rickenbacker, the aerial warrior of WWI will state of Bong "This gallant Air Force hero will be remembered because he made his final contribution to aviation in the dangerous role of test pilot of an untried experimental plane, a deed that places him among the stout-hearted pioneers who gave their lives in the conquest of sky and space."  President Harry Truman will state that Bong "stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live.  And grow.  And increase its blessings.  Freedom lives.  And through it, he lives - in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men."  And his commanding officer, General George Kenney, the man who sends Bong home so that he might survive the war states, "His country and the Air Force must never forget their number-one fighter pilot, who will inspire other fighter pilots and countless thousands of youngsters who will want to follow in his footsteps every time any nation or coalition of nations dares to challenge our right to think, speak, and live as a free people."  Amen!   

Readying To Sortie

Major Ricard Ira Bong

  

  

     

     

OPERATION TIDAL WAVE

8/1/1943 - Attempting to put a serious hurt on the Axis oil fields of Romania, the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers based in Libya launch Operation Tidal Wave (the operation's third and final title after originally being called Operation Statesman and then Operation Soapsuds) on seven oil refineries around the town of Ploesti, a city of 100,000 souls 30 miles north of Bucharest (the region is dubbed, "Hitler's Gas Station!").  A bloodbath in the sky referred to as "Bloody Sunday" by the Air Force (the most costly Allied air raid of the war with fifty-four aircraft and six-hundred-and-sixty men lost during a single day of aerial combat, when first briefed on the mission, Colonel John "Killer" Kane will ask, "What idiot armchair lawyer from Washington planned this one?"), the operation will sadly result in "no curtailment of overall product output," but will become one of the most "heroic missions of all time" with the awarding of five Congressional Medals of Honor, fifty-six Distinguished Service Crosses, and numerous other awards for the American aircrews involved

Ploesti

Ordered by English Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the January 1943 war council at Casablanca, seemingly doomed from the start (later, the air groups involved and the mission itself will form the skeleton of the novel, Catch 22), the raid to destroy the oil fueling much of the German war machine (and all the fuel used by the Nazi air arm, the Luftwaffe) is planned by Colonel Jacob E. Smart (a 1931 West Point graduate from South Carolina and officer with limited flight time in the B-24, having gone up in the bomber for the first time only three weeks prior to the mission's fly date), based on the Axis defenses in play during a previous small attack on the area in June of 1942 (not wanting to give away its future plans, no air reconnaissance is done in the Ploesti area after the first raid), and doesn't take into account the installation of several hundred heavy duty 88mm guns around the refineries (along with a host of smaller anti-aircraft caliber weapons), the fighter planes from Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria commanded by Luftwaffe Colonel Alfred Gerstenberg protecting the area, smoke generators on the ground, a camouflaged train full of anti-aircraft guns that can travel parallel to the expected flight paths of attacking aircraft, and the skies over the targets being full of barrage balloons held in place by steel cables ... upgrades that after Berlin and Vienna, make the Ploesti area the third most defended target of the Third Reich  Too many moving parts, Smart's plan calls for five different bombing groups in two different commands (the Eighth and Ninth U.S. Air Forces consisting of 178 bombers) to travel from multiple bases over a thousand miles to their targets (much of it low level and over the waters of the Meditterean and Adriatic to avoid enemy radar ... and of course, the return trip, a day of over 2,000 miles in the air), arriving from southwestern Romania simultaneously over various targets in a series of surprise attacks, that allow for little reaction time for the Germans or Romanians, and for the high accuracy it takes to destroy the specific structures required to shutdown a refinery (boiler houses, stills, powerhouses, and cracking towers), bombs are to be dropped at low speeds from heights of only two-hundred to eight-hundred feet.  Preparing, the aircraft selected for the raid practice individual and group low level attacks, spend hours studying models of the area and it's targets, and bomb the crap out of a scale-model mock-up of some of the targets built in the desert.

Smart

Gerstenberg

The punch for Smart's plan will come from the 500-pound and 1,000 pound fragmentation bombs and incendiary devices (the bombers on the raid will bring over 500 tons of ouch to the target area).  Transportation of said ordinance involves specially modified heavy Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers (nicknamed "The Flying Boxcar") with extra bomb bay fuel tanks (the bomber groups the aircraft come from are Colonel Keith Compton's 376th "Liberandos," assigned to strike the Romana-Americana refinery designated WHITE 1, Colonel John "Killer" Kane's 98th "Pyramiders," given the task of taking out the Astra-Romana refinery designated WHITE 4, Colonel Leon Johnson's 44th "Eight Balls," that gets the twin assignments of going after the Credtul Minier refinery and the Columbia-Aquila refinery, designated TARGET BLUE and WHITE 5 respectively, Colonel Addison Baker's 93rd "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus," with bombers set to attack Concordia Vega and Standard Petrol Block Unirea Speranta, WHITE 2 and WHITE 3 respectively, and Colonel Jack Wood's 389th "Sky Scorpions" given the mission of obliterating Steava-Romana Campina known as TARGET RED), increasing the range of the aircraft by 3,100 gallons of aviation fuel per plane.  The "D" variant of the design (the plane will hold the world record as the most produced bomber, the most produced heavy bomber, the most produced multi-engine plane, and the most produced American military aircraft) the B-24s on the raid carry ten man crews that consist of a pilot, co-pilot, a bombardier, a navigator, a radio/radar operator, a flight engineer, and four gunners.  Carrying 8,800 pounds of bombs in two bomb bays, with a wingspan of 110 feet (the wing is a high aspect ratio airfoil designed by aeronautical engineer, David Richard Davis Jr., that allows the B-24 a high cruise speed and long range married to an ability to carry heavy loads of ordinance), a length of 63 feet and 9 inches, and a height of 18 feet and 8 inches, the Liberator is capable of a maximum speed of 313 mph (powered by four 1,200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-41 engines, has a service ceiling of 34,000 feet, is stabilized by a structure of two large ovals of metal attached to the ends of a rectangular horizontal tail piece, has a combat range of 2,100 miles, has tricycle landing gear, and carries at least six .30-caliber machine guns ... one in the nose, one in an upper turret forward of the wing and behind the cockpit, one at the tail, and two waist positions on each side of the aircraft.

Davis

Consolidated B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber

B-24 Cockpit

Bad Landing

Besides a complement of German, Bulgarian, and Romanian pilots flying Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Bf 110, IAR 80 fighters to cut up the attackers as they enter and then attempt to leave the area, the most feared defensive weapons protecting the refineries of Ploesti are German 88 mm artillery guns the ring the region.  Originally produced by Krupp as an anti-tank gun for Tiger tanks, early in the war it is discovered that shot into the sky, the shell bursts from the cannon are excellent at destroying bomber formations and blowing apart individual aircraft with both hits and near misses.  Putting FLAK up in the sky (the generic term for creating anti-aircraft explosions, comes from a contraction of the German word Flugabwehrkanone, for aircraft-defense weapon ... and the term "ack-ack" for anti-aircraft fire also comes from the dreaded cannon as the German number for 88, acht-acht gets a dusting of American slang).  Guns manned by teams of ten individuals, the formidable weapon can fire 15-20 shells per minute at a muzzle velocity of 2,690 feet per second and can hit targets at a maximum ceiling of 32,500 feet (though performance and hits fall of above 26,000 feet).  At Ploesti, the guns will be firing on bombers dropping their payloads at less than maximum speed and at heights that can be measured in football fields of 100 yards!

Messerschmidt Bf 109 Fighter

Mobile 88

FLAK Peppered Tail

Taking off from bases around Benghazi (the 376th first, then the 93rd, 98th, 44th, and 389th), in the early morning darkness of August 1, 1943, the five bomber groups take off (178 bombers with 1,764 Americans aboard, along with one Englishman, gunnery observer, RAF Squadron Leader George C. Barwell) and form a bomber stream almost twenty miles in length as they head towards Romania ... and problems begin almost immediately.  Engines clogged with desert dust and sand, one bomber is knocked from the mission by issues with its props and is the first B24 to be subtracted from Operation Tidal Wave.  Another ten planes turn back after launch for a variety of issues.  Flying in boxes of six aircraft each positioned into two "V" formations, the B24s pass the island of Corfu at low altitude, and then beginning climbing to cross over Albania's Pindus Mountains and avoid a stormfront.  As the climbs begin, the attack loses two more aircraft when "Wongo Wongo," piloted by First Lt. Brian Flavelle of Essex County, New Jersey, suddenly begins to fly erratically, falls away to the left, and spins down into the sea, causing an explosion that sends a cloud of smoke 200 feet into the air and kills the ship's crew instantly, including First Lt. Robert F. Wilson, the bombing mission's lead navigator.  Breaking protocol, First Lt. Guy Iovine, pilot of the "Desert Lily" and Flavelle personal friend, breaks formation to see if he can assist the "Wongo Wongo" (the move almost causes a mid-air collision with "Brewery Wagon," piloted by First Lt. John Palm), but with no survivors, all the move does is put the heavily laden bomber at an altitude where it can't climb back to the rest of the attack force in time to avoid the mountains and heads back to Africa, also taking the deputy mission navigator back to Benghazi.  Group integrity already compromised, more distance is put between the attack elements as they climb over and then descend from the mountains at different power settings.  And the navigating issues of the mission are further compromised when the leader of the "Liberandoes," Colonel Keith K. Compton in the "Teggie Ann" (with mission commander, Brigadier General Uzal G. Ent riding shotgun in the cockpit) takes over the duty of leading the group to it's target from the bomber's navigator, Captain Harold Wicklund.  Not his forte, Compton reads his charts and the ground wrong and makes a wrong turn at a railroad line between the towns of Targoviste and Floresti that his group obediently follows (as do members of Lt. Colonel Addison E. Baker's bombers of "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus") that leads his portion of the bombers towards Bucharest, instead of Ploesti (there are three IPs, or Initial Points on the journey for the bombers to turn at ... the railroad line Compton uses is not one of them).  And no one breaks ordered radio silence to tell him of his error until it is too late and Compton recognizes the mistake and heads back for Ploesti (as the guns of Bucharest get an unexpected first crack at the aerial raiders).

Over The Mediterranean

Flavelle

"Wongo Wongo"

Just Back From The Mission - L To R - Ninth Air Force Commander

Major General Lewis Brereton Greets Brigadier General Uzal Ent

And Colonel Keith K. Compton

Element of surprise gone (the mission has been tracked since the bombers took off from Benghazi and crossed the Mediterranean). groups scattered to different locations and altitudes, and already bloodied by their journey to their targets, the B24s arrive at the Ploesti refineries and fly into a nightmare world of explosions, tracer bullets, huge clouds of black smoke (in some instances, for seconds of time, the attackers fly through pitch black darkness), fireballs, anti-aircraft fire compared to "hail" and a curtain of steel," horrible air chop that makes the flying seem like being bounced around on a carnival rollercoaster, and heavy bombers everywhere falling out of the sky.  Unaware that the Americans' plans have completely fallen apart, German and Romanian defenders are amazed that the attack is being made by bombers flying in various directions and heights (while at the same time, Ent radios the "Liberandoes" to break off their attacks on the refineries around Ploesti, and because it is too heavily defended, seek other targets of opportunity for the group's bombs.  Too late, a handful of pilots immediately, but discreetly, drop their bombs and turn for home, but most continue on to their assigned targets (wanting a victory on his combat resume, Compton shortly after radios Benghazi "MS," mission successful, though the attacks have barely started).  A charge of the light brigade in the sky, attacking RED TARGET, all 29 Sky Scorpions drop their bombs on Steava-Romana (four will be lost), damaging the refinery so badly that the facility will never reopen during WWII, dismayed to discover his target is already being attacked by bomber's of Colonel Baker's 93rd Bomber Group, Colonel Kane's group of 45 bombers in five waves drop their ordinance on WHITE 2, losing 22 planes (of which eight are brought down by blasts from Ploesti's infamous FLAK train), assaulting BLUE TARGET, Colonel Johnson loses 11 Liberators, out of his attack group of 37 Eight Balls bombers (supporting the efforts against BLUE TARGET, Lt. Colonel James T. Posey will lead 21 bombers of the 44th's "Eight Balls" against the Creditul Minier refinery without losing a plane, winning a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions), the 93rd of Colonel Baker break away from Compton's lead and attack targets at WHITE 2, WHITE 3, and WHITE 4, losing 27 aircraft in the process (one of which, "Hell's Wench," Baker is flying), and Compton has his group go after WHITE 1 and WHITE 2 after they turn away from Bucharest (and completing his "hands on" approach, it is Compton that triggers the release of his B24's explosives).    

Coming In Low

Train 88s

Ploesti

Posey

Homeward Bound

Heroism everywhere with survival measured in mad seconds, the men who attack the Ploesti refineries become legends of the sky despite hundreds of their stories of bravery are lost forever because the witnesses who might have told them perish with their planes (of the sixteen Army airmen sent aloft to photographically document the attack, only Tech. Sgt. Jerry Jostwick manages to return to base).  Concentrating on hitting their targets successfully, some bombers make the approach to their targets at an elevation of only ten feet, tree branches and barbed wire take a ride in the bombers' bomb bays, along with churned up grass painting some radio antennas.  Some moments however are remembered beyond the end of the war.  Leadership on display, making up for his mistake in following Compton's group towards Bucharest, Lt. Colonel Addison Earl Baker (36), and his co-pilot, Major John Louis "Jack" Jerstad (25), guide the bombers of "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus" into Ploesti's slaughterhouse of guns despite "Hell's Wench" receiving crippling damage as it begins it's bomb run (the pair unload their bombs ahead of their target just to keep their plane in the air).  Holding steady with it's ordinance gone until their run can be completed, after passing over the drop area the pair begins to pull up in an attempt to get high enough so the crew can use their parachutes, but their Liberator suddenly disintegrates, killing everyone aboard.  For their actions leading the attacking 93rd into it's targets and for their efforts to save the crew, both Baker and Jerstad are awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor.  Given the okay to abort their mission and hit targets that aren't as heavily defended, Colonel John Riley Kane (36) of the "Pyramiders" and Colonel Leon William Johnson (39) of the "Eight Balls" receive Medals of Honor for leading their men to their group's original targets ... and live to wear the medals (though Kane eventually lands with 20 hits to his plane and one of the aircraft's engines dead, where he discovers that the hair on his left arm has been singed away while Kane was resting it on the pilot's open window during his bomb run).

Baker

Jerstad

"Hell's Wench"

Kane

Johnson Medal Ceremony In England

A fifth Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded to the San Antonio, Texas family of 2nd Lt. Lloyd Herbert "Pete" Hughes Jr. (22) for the leadership he shows guiding the last flight of his B24, "Ole Kickapoo."  Part of the last element "Sky Scorpions" attacking the RED TARGET Steau-Romana refinery nine miles north of Ploesti at the town of Campina (the second largest refinery in the country, it has the ability to produce 1.75 million tons of crude oil per year in 1943), Hughes bomber is hit as it makes it's approach and begins leaking fuel out of it's left wing (the leak is so large that it blinds the view of the left waist gunner).  Maximum fire pouring up at the tail-end attackers, flames reaching into the air higher than the bombers are flying at, Hughes makes the decision to not break up the formation by aborting his bombing run.  Locked on, "Ole Kickapoo" drops it's bombs from a height of only thirty feet, and pulls up from its assault, now on fire.  Gaining altitude so that the crew can parachute to safety or to give himself enough time to find a place to crash land, Hughes reduces his plane's speed from 225 miles an hour to 100 mph and is about to come down in a dry portion of the Prahova River when the B24 suddenly loses it's left wing and does a flaming cartwheel along the river bed, killing six men instantly (including Hughes), two more the next day from their wounds, while two more men are wounded, recover, and spend the rest of the war as POWs..  For his bravery over Ploesti, Hughes is awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor.  Indictive of the heroism of other men that don't quite qualify for the Medal of Honor, Staff Sgt. Zerrill Jackson "Todd" Steen's busy day as a gunner on Lt. Robert Horton's bomber, "Sand Witch" is typical of the warriors that attack Ploesti.  Bomber making its run into it's target, Steen his twin .50-calber machine gun at enemy ground positions, but is suddenly on the ground himself when the plane crashes into the ground,  Everybody aboard dead in the crash except Steen, the battling sergeant fights a solitary battle from the wreckage of "Sand Witch," firing on a flak tower that brought the bomber down until his gun runs out of ammo.  For his actions, Steen spends the rest of the war in captivity as a POW, a POW awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his fight aboard the "Sand Witch."  One tale of heroism out of hundreds, or thousands, of similar stories.

Hughes

The Doomed "Ole Kickapoo" And It's Crew

"Sand Witch" Wreckage

Final Rest

One of the epic missions of the war, over 2,000 miles of flight, much of it over water, and sixteen hours in the air (the last B24 back to Benghazi, "Liberty Lake" lands at its base after nearly eighteen hours in the air), fighters, FLAK, fires, explosions and twenty low-level hellish minutes over the target, the attack on the Ploesti refineries is both the costliest mission of the conflict, and the most celebrated with medals and ribbons seemingly for all involved, the mission chalks up 5 Congressional Medals of Honor, 841 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 1 Soldier's Medal, and a Presidential Unit Citation for each of the five bombing groups (upon arrival back at their bases, many of the airmen are so exhausted by their long day that they have to carried off their planes by ground personnel).  Despite the extensive heroism though, Operation Tidal Wave is a horrible failure.  Fifty-four heavy bombers lost in a single day of combat (92 bombers make it back to base, but after being examined, only 50 are deemed worthy of further air time (365 strikes are found on one B24 before her ground crew stops counting, nearly a third of the 1,700 men sent to Romania are dead, 300 more Americans are wounded, and a hundred aviators become POW captives for the rest of the global conflict (in something of a lucky break for the bad luck bombers, many downed airmen will remain in Romania instead of being sent to German POW camps, chiefly due to the efforts of Princess Caterina Caradja of Romania after one of the raiders crash lands on the grounds of her country estate.  And the Americans aren't the only folks that take casualties on 8/1/1943.  Beginning its target run, the B24, "Jose Carioca" (piloted by 1st Lt. Nicholas Stampolis), finds itself attacked by an Romanian IAR 80 fighter which half rolls to an upside-down position beneath the bomber where it rakes the belly of the Liberator with its two 20mm nose cannons and four wing-mounted Browning machine guns.  Destroyed in the burst of destruction (all members of the crew are killed in action by the crash), the bomber wreckage sadly crashes into a nearby three-story, women's prison building, creating a malevolent fireball which kills a hundred civilians and injures another 200 souls.      

"Jose Carioca"

Missing Some Wing

Low Level

IAR 80

Blood and treasure spent, the results of the mission are a 42% reduction in the refining capacity of the Ploesti oil fields.  A mirage, just two weeks later a massive clean-up, repairs (thousands of forced laborers work 24/7 repairing the raid's damages) and adjustments have taken place around Ploesti (the fighter defenses of the city are doubled and there are more anti-aircraft positions everywhere, one that results in the net output of Ploesti fuel increasing (the Germans had not been running the various refineries at full capacity).  Still a target requiring the Allies attention, and easier to get to when Italy's southern boot is taken and bases are moved from North Africa forward to the continent (and the area falls when range of long-distance American P51 Mustang fighters), raids on the Ploesti region will continue, but as over much of Europe, the bomb runs take place at tens of thousands of feet of elevation, and becomes a tag-team affair with American bombs falling during the day, and those of the Royal Air Force falling at night ... and still the losses over the target are heavy and the oil keeps flowing (in all, 223 bombers and 36 fighters are lost during the war attacking Ploesti, in addition to the loss of 1,1706 airmen killed, and another 1,123 captured).  Only once during the war do the Allies try something else.  Flying from bases near Foggia, Italy, on the morning of 6/10, 1944, 46 specially modified twin-engine P38 Lightning fighters (and 48 more flying protection and support), each carrying a 300 gallon drop tank and a single 1,000 pound bomb, take off for the Romanian oil fields.  Attacking at low-level again, surprise is achieved, but then quickly lost.  Much like the 8/1/1943 raid, 30% of the oil refining is lost (but quickly repaired) at a cost of 24 Lightnings.  Finally the Ploesti oil spigot is turned off on 8/20/1944, when two Russian Army groups take Romania out of the war and 23-year-old King Michael I leads a successful revolt against the dictatorial rule of Marshal Ion Antonescu (arrested in 1945, Antonescu will be tried for war crimes, found guilty, and is executed by a firing squad on 6/1/1946 at the age of 63.

P38 Lightning

Antonescu

A type of combat made extinct after the end of WWII, the final words on the 1943 Ploesti raid are left to hero aviator and Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Colonel John Riley "Killer " Kane:  "To the Fallen of Ploesti ... To you who fly on forever I send that part of me which cannot be separated, and is bound to you for all time.  I send to you those of our dreams that never quite came true, the joyous laughter of our boyhood, the marvelous mysteries of our adolescence, the glorious strengths and tragic illusions of our young manhood, all of these that were and perhaps would have been, I leave in your care, out there in the blue."  Amen! 

8/1/1943