“The flyingest General in the German Air Force,” Günther Rall, entered the German Army in 1936 as an officer candidate in the infantry. However, the 20-year-old Rall decided aviation was his real interest and transferred to the Luftwaffe. After pilot...
Brigadier General (ret.) Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier and went on to become one of the most legendary figures in aeronautical history. Born in 1923 in Myra, West Virginia, Yeager joined the US Army Air Corps at...
In April 1924, 3 years before Lindbergh soloed across the Atlantic, Leigh Wade and seven other young courageous Army airmen took off on a 26,000-mile journey around the world. These men were the first to circumnavigate the earth by air, the first to fly across the...
George A. Vaughn, Jr. is the highest scoring American ace from World War I. Born in 1897, he grew up in Brooklyn, NY and enrolled in Princeton University in 1915. In February 1917, Vaughn signed up for the Princeton Aviation School. Concerned about passing the...
Witold A. Urbanowicz, Poland’s leading ace in World War II, flew combat with the Polish Air Force, the Royal Air Force, and the US Army Air Corps in China. Born in 1908, he grew up under Russian occupation in eastern Poland. He was commissioned in the air force...
Paul W. Tibbets is a World War II bomber pilot of unparalleled fame. Born in 1915 in Quincy, Illinois, he had his first bombing experience at age 12 by dropping candy bars by parachute out of the back seat of a Waco 9 biplane over the Hialeah racetrack. He joined the...
Japan’s greatest living Ace, Saburo Sakai fought for his country from the war in China in 1938 to the last day of WW II. Fighting in more than 200 engagements, he is credited with 64 aerial victories, and never lost a wingman! Born in 1916 on a small farming...
Risto Olli P. Puhakka, one of Finland’s leading aces during two wars against the Russians, joined other pilots from his small but gallant country in forging an unforgettable chapter in aviation history. In 1935, he was conscripted into the world’s second...
Lieutenant General Elwood R. “Pete” Quesada was a primary pilot of the famed Question Mark. Completion of the 6-day, non-stop flight in 1929 pioneered development of modern aerial refueling operations vital to the defense capability of the United States....
In November 1942, Captain John Oswalt became one of the first ten US Army “L” (liaison) pilots sent into combat. Flying in North Africa, he and his fellow pilots proved that organic Army aircraft could be successfully used for artillery spotting. Oswalt...
Pilot William A. “Skeeter” Hudson and radar operator Carl S. Fraser scored the first air victory in the Korean War. They were initially crewed together in 1948 while flying the P-61B Black Widow with the 68th Fighter All-Weather Squadron (FAWS), but soon...
David Lee “Tex” Hill was born on 13 July 1915, in Kwangju, Korea, the son of American missionaries. He grew up in Texas, but returned to the Far East years later as one of the first pilots in General Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group (AVG),...
James G. “Jimmy” Haizlip has long been a legendary figure in aeronautical racing circles. He first learned to fly as a young man with the French during World War I. Although he was among the first American air cadets sent abroad, his outstanding...
Francis “Gabby” Gabreski, was a member of “The Inner Seven,” an elite group of pilots who achieved the status of “ace ” in both World War II and Korea. Born in Pennsylvania in 1919, he attended Notre Dame University where he learned...
Pilot William A. “Skeeter” Hudson and radar operator Carl S. Fraser scored the first air victory in the Korean War. They were initially crewed together in 1948 while flying the P-61B Black Widow with the 68th Fighter All-Weather Squadron (FAWS), but soon...
Bernard F. Fisher is the first living US Air Force recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Moreover, he is the first USAF member to receive the medal from Vietnam. Born in 1927, this native of Idaho served briefly in the Navy at the end of World War II and then...
Captain Joe H. Engle was first selected by Air Command and Staff College’s Gathering of Eagles in 1983 and subsequently honored in 1987, 1989, 1995, 1997, and 2001, respectively. Engle became America’s youngest astronaut on 29 June 1965, at age 32, after...
Captain C. H. “Punch” Dickins, who was born in 1899, is a Canadian ace of World War I and one of his country’s most famous pioneer bush pilots. In 1917 he transferred from the infantry to the Royal Flying Corps and flew 83 combat missions in the DH-9...
Britain’s John Cunningham gained worldwide recognition as a civilian test pilot and leading Allied night-fighter ace during World War II. After joining the Auxiliary Air Force and learning to fly at age 18, he began working for the de Havilland Aircraft Company...
Major Jack Randolph Cram (USMC), was the personal pilot of Marine General Roy Geiger’s PBY-5A, the “Blue Goose.” On 15 October 1942, he won the Navy Cross and permanent nickname “Mad Jack” in operations at Guadalcanal. In two previous...
Pierre Clostermann, the leading French ace in World War II, left home in 1941 at the age of 19 to join the Free French Air Force in Britain. In January 1943, he was assigned as a sergeant pilot flying the Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX fighter with the newly formed No....
Captain Cook Cleland was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1916. Upon graduation from the University of Missouri in 1940, he joined the Navy and received the gold wings of a naval aviator shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served in his first wartime assignment...
Clive Robertson Caldwell enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) the day after war was declared in 1939, and, by the end of the war, he had become known as “Killer ” Caldwell, Australia’s highest scoring ace. Born in 1910, he was 3 years...
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...
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...
“All aircraft in the area, ‘Double Eagle II’ is landing!” This radio message on 17 August 1978 proclaimed to the world that man had achieved the first successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a free balloon. Thirteen unsuccessful crossings...
