I read Don't Buy the Numbers by Horsefeathers last night. It was an interesting Diary that questioned the legitamcy of numbers. My Father was a fighter pilot in World War II. It takes 20 (it only takes 5, corrected by redcardphreek, thanks)enemy airplane shoot downs to be called an Ace. He was not decorated as a fighter pilot ace. To me though he is so much more than something determined strictly by the numbers.
When I was growing up my friends asked me if my Dad was an Ace. We had all watched the John Wayne movies about combat and we were seeped in the propaganda of the early 60s. My Father flew 189 missions in New Guinea in the early stages of the war. So I asked my Dad if he was an ace and at the age of 9 I did not understand his return question about why I thought that number or that title was important. I also remember his statement about the stupidity of war.
Many years later I now understand that he was flying against Zeros in 1942 and 43. The Zeros flew higher and faster than the P-40. Survival in aerial combat at that time depended on pilot skill to out manuever a superior performing aircraft. It was not until later in the war that american technology gave our pilots an edge because that is when the P-51s and P-38s started making an impact. My Father had one unconfirmed shoot down of a Zero. He followed it down but nobody else saw it so it did not count.
He decided early on that his life was in the hands of luck or God. Many time his plane returned with many bullet holes and once a bullet passed through the cockpit and broke off the throttle lever. Another time a bullet severed the oil line to the oil cooler. The engine oil leaked out. He would run the engine until it got too hot to gain altitude and then glide as far as he could. He was successful in getting back to the base in this condition but the engine seized on the last altitude cycle and he came in just short of the runway.
Those two stories are the ones I feel comfortable sharing. As I grew up my Father continued to tell me other stories that only those who have been in war can tell. Those are stories of horror that are not conveyed on the screen from Hollywood. Those stories shaped me into a believer in war only as a last resort. I was going to follow in his footsteps and become an Air Force Pilot as well. But when I was growing up there were pictures on the TV of fighter pilots napalming villages in Vietnam. I decided then that I would not want to do that and my life changed direction.
A mission where he dis-obeyed his orders is a mission where I am most proud of my Father. The Japanese were losing in New Guinea. They were evacuating and did not have shallow draft boats to get out to the ships. My Father was sent in to strafe the soldiers in the water with three other planes. He had always been taught that any chance you had to kill the ememy must be taken to prevent him from coming back to fight another day. He made a decision in his P-40 that day that this was not a fair fight. He did not pull the trigger to fire 30mm (0.5 inch/12.7mm , correction) machine gun bullets at men swimming in the ocean. They test fired his guns when he returned to base. The magazines were full and the guns worked fine. Nobody questioned him about it. Today he hopes that there are some families in Japan because he did not shoot that day.
My Father went on to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He served out the rest of the war in Panama where he had the higher performance aircraft but of course did not see any battle. He atttended Purdue on the GI bill and earned a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. As a Test Piilot he flew the X-1 for NACA in the early 1950s. He left NACA to fly for a plane manufacturer where he came close to making a smoking hole in the ground. He wanted to see his children graduate from college and so joined the FAA and United Airlines for the rest of his career. Some of his contemporaries are called American Heros, to me he is much more than that, he has a loving family.
I visited him yesterday. At 86 he is doing very well. He has argued at his bridge club against the Iraq war since the invasion. Applying Horsefeathers logic here, there are many Fathers in the world but in my mind there is only one that counts. He is much greater than any fighter pilot ace, he is my Father.