William T. Badham is one of four Americans to earn the title of “Ace” as an observer during World War I. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 27 September 1895. As a young boy in Blount Springs, Alabama, he learned about war from Mary Gordon Duffy, a...
John C. “Doc” Bahnsen, Jr. was an Army warrior and air cavalry tactics pioneer. His thirty-year military career included aerial combat missions while in command of the “Bandits” gunship platoon and ground combat missions that included perilous landings and dragging...
CH Maj Gen (Ret) Charles Baldwin was selected as an Eagle for his outstanding contributions to Airpower, specifically to the Chaplain Corps and caring for Airmen.. Originally, he flew the EC-121 Warning Star and then volunteered to re-train and fly the HH-53 Super...
Russell Bannock saved the lives of many Londoners during World War II by downing 19 of Hitler’s “secret weapons,” the V-1 “buzz bomb.” Bannock was born in November 1919 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. was Canada’s...
Colonel Rex T. Barber is one of the principal P-38 pilots who participated in the famous (and then highly classified) “Yamamoto” mission, which helped turn the tide of World War II against the Japanese. Born in Oregon in 1917, Barber joined the Army Air...
A fighter ace, Australian Andrew William “Nicky” Barr’s exploits during World War II are unique. As a star player on Australia’s 1939 International Rugby Team, he developed the strength and sense of teamwork he would need in combat. While the...
Luftwaffe bomber pilot Hansgeorg Bätcher made his mark on World War II history flying 658 successful combat missions, a record unequaled by any other bomber pilot. Born in 1914, in Finsterwalde, Germany, by age 17 he had completed requirements for a glider license and...
One of Britain’s most distinguished aviators, Roland P. “Bee” Beamont was commissioned in the Royal Air Force (RAF) just before World War II. He first saw combat as a Hurricane pilot in 87 Squadron during the German invasion of France. On 13 May...
Retired Chief Master Sergeant Don A. Beasley had a distinguished Air Force career spanned 31 years. During this time, he had 500 parachute jumps with over 10,000 flying hours and numerous sea and land rescues. He supported the first helicopter flight around the world...
Capitan Augusto Bedacarratz was born in the Argentine Pampas in July 1943 to a wealthy farmer’s family. His father was a descendent of a French family from the Basque country, who arrived in Argentina in 1855. He is one of seven children and the only one who did...
A. W. “Bill” Bedford, one of England’s most celebrated test pilots, pioneered the development of vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft. A 20-year-old mechanical engineer in 1940, he volunteered for the RAF serving as a fighter pilot....
Alcide S. “Bull” Benini was a World War II combat veteran and a founding father of the Air Force’s Combat Control Teams (CCT). Bull began his military career in the Army just prior to United States involvement in World War II and retired as a Chief...
Georgii Timofeevich Beregovoi credits his proven success as a combat pilot, test pilot, and pilot-cosmonaut to flying skill and good luck! The youngest of three brothers, Beregovoi was born in 1921 and lived in Enakievo, Ukraine. He grew up at a time when Soviet...
Robert “Danny” BergRobert “Danny” Berg was the lead critical care nurse on the rescue mission of John Solecki, the only American hostage rescued alive from Pakistan since 2000. Berg was born in Hollywood, California, to Charles and Marilee...
Prince Bernhard’s leadership during World War II inspired Dutch men and women around the world to fight on to defeat the Axis. Born in 1911 to German nobility, a childhood brush with death left him with a zest for life. Earning a law degree in 1935 and unhappy...
Richard Halsey Best was born 24 March 1910, in Bayonne, New Jersey. While attending Stevens Institute, Best won a competitive appointment to the Naval Academy. After graduation from Annapolis in 1932, he was assigned to the light cruiser, USS Richmond. But he...
For the last 47 years, October 4th marked the date the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and started the government-sponsored space race. Now it also marks the date when a privately manned spacecraft started the quest of personal space transportation, and Brian Binnie...
Leonard J. Birchall, dubbed the “Savior of Ceylon” by none other than Sir Winston Churchill, has to his credit an amazing 55 years of uniformed military service, and in gaining the afore-mentioned title, helped prevent a surprise Japanese attack on...
Frederick “Boots” Blesse, a double ace with two combat tours each in Korea and Vietnam, is the sixth-ranking US jet ace and one of the world’s premier jet tacticians. Born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1921, he graduated from West Point in 1945 and...
Pilot, CEO, public servant, Winton M. “Red” Blount was born in Union Springs, Alabama in 1921. At the age of 13, he worked for the family business for ten cents an hour, a wage he thought was “pretty good.” He graduated from Union Springs High...
Dr. Guion “Guy” Bluford, Jr. (Colonel, USAF, Ret) became the first African American to fly in space in 1983. He is the first African American awarded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Gold Astronaut Pin and United States Air...
Marta R. Bohn-Meyer was the first female crewmember to fly Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird. Born in Amityville, New York, she soloed a Cherokee 140 on her 16th birthday, received her private pilot’s license on her 17th birthday, and earned her commercial...
Jack Bolt is the only Marine Corps ace of the Korean War, and one of only seven Americans to become an ace in two wars! Born in Laurens, South Carolina in 1921, he studied at the University of Florida for 2 years. In the summer of 1941, he joined the Marine Corps...
Charlie Bond overcame many obstacles in his quest to become a military aviator. Born in 1915 and growing up during the 1930s, times were tough for his family and he chose to leave college after 1 year to get a job. His fortunes changed in March 1938 when he entered...
Guy Bordelon is the only United States Navy ace from the Korean War. Bordelon was born in Ruston, Louisiana, in 1922. He became an Eagle Scout and in 1939 graduated from high school in Alexandria. He began pre-law studies at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, and later...
In December of 1968, Frank Borman led the first team of astronauts to escape from Earth’s orbit, setting the stage for America’s lunar landings. Born in Gary, Indiana, in 1928, Borman grew up in Tucson, Arizona. His life-long romance with aviation began at...
Connie Bowlin is one of the most accomplished female aviators in the world today. She grew up in Kernersville, North Carolina, and took an early interest in mechanical things, from her dad’s home built riding mower to his big rig truck. As a teenager, she not...
Charles G. Boyd is the only prisoner of war from the Vietnam conflict to attain the rank of General. Born in Rockwell City, Iowa in 1938, Boyd entered the U. S. Air Force in April 1959 through the Aviation Cadet Program, which allowed him to complete flight and...
Marine Colonel “Pappy” Boyington is the greatest living ace in the Vought F4U Corsair and winner of the Medal of Honor. Born in Idaho in 1914, he was an ROTC cadet while in college and entered the Coastal Artillery as a second lieutenant soon after...
There were many heroes during the long war in Southeast Asia. Patrick Henry Brady, an Army “Dust Off” pilot, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic actions. The son of one of Darby’s Rangers from World War II, he was born in...
Devol “Rock” Brett pioneered deploying fighters across the ocean as he led his squadron in the operational debut of the Composite Air Strike Force (CASF), a new US Air Force concept for getting airpower to trouble spots anywhere on the globe. Born in 1923...
America built history’s longest logistical pipeline in World War II–14, 000 miles across two oceans to India and over the Himalayan Mountains into China. James “Pappy ” Brewer and his comrades formed the last link in the chain by airlifting...
Rick Brickert, National Champion Air Racer, can’t remember a time when aviation wasn’t a major part of his life. The son of an airline pilot, he grew up near San Francisco, watched his first Reno Air Race at age 12, soloed a Cessna 150 at age 16, and...
Arthur Raymond Brooks is one of the few remaining World War I fighter aces and is credited with six aerial victories. He was born in Framingham, Massachusetts on 1 November 1895. He completed his early public education in Framingham and in 1917 graduated from the...
A native of Roanoke, Virginia, James L. Brooks entered the Army Air Corps in 1942. Jim attended pilot training at Kelly and Moore Fields, Texas, and upon graduation as a second lieutenant, he was assigned to the 52d Fighter Squadron stationed in the Panama Canal Zone....
Colonel Jacksel “Jack” Broughton was born in Utica, New York, in 1925. He graduated from high school in Rochester and received an appointment to attend West Point, where he graduated in 1945 with his pilot’s wings and Army Air Force second lieutenant...
Eric M. “Winkle” Brown is the British Royal Navy’s most decorated Fleet Air Arm pilot. During his 31-year career, he flew a world-record 487 aircraft types and performed a record-shattering 2,407 carrier landings. Born in 1919 in Edinburgh, Scotland,...
Harry W. Brown was one of the few fighter pilots to get airborne to oppose the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He began his flying career less auspiciously, earning his first flying lesson by pulling cactus from a Texas airfield. After joining “B” Battery...
Captain Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. commanded the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group and downed the most advanced enemy aircraft of World War II, the Me-262. After his graduation from Springfield College in 1943, Brown enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an...
Earl Brown began military flying at the dawn of the jet age. Born in the Bronx, New York, he grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He first dreamed of being a pilot after reading about the “Tuskegee Airmen” in two major black weekly newspapers he delivered...
Colonel (Retired) Melvin ‘Mel’ Bryant was a fighter pilot who served during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was born in Hiawatha, Kansas in 1924 and spent his childhood working on family farms and in his father’s grocery store. Despite his farming roots, Mel...
No one else can claim the distinction of rising from seaman second class to Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. George Herbert Walker Bush was born on 12 June 1924 in Milton, Massachusetts. During his senior year in high school, the Japanese attacked...
