Sabiha Gökçen is the world’s first female fighter pilot. Born in Bursa, Turkey in 1913, she was orphaned early in life. Fortune began to smile on her in 1925, when the founder and President of the new Republic of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, took her under his wing....
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...
Henry E. “Pete” Warden saved the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress program from termination. Warden was born in 1915 in Texas. His father, an Army general, was then stationed in the Philippines. At age 13, his father was serving on Long Island, New York, where...
Stanley W. “Swede” Vejtasa was the only World War II carrier pilot to receive Navy Crosses for both dive bombing and aerial combat. Born in Montana in 1914, Vejtasa attended both Montana State College and the University of Montana. He enlisted in the Navy...
Peter Twiss was a rebel from the day he was born in 1921! He confesses to being “quite a handful” and credits the Boy Scouts with turning him to the good side. As a child, he had a passion for nature and bird watching, and eventually progressed to bird...
James E. Swett shot down 7 Japanese dive-bombers on his first combat mission! He was born in Seattle, Washington in 1920 and grew up in San Mateo, California. Swett entered the College of San Mateo in 1939, and soon earned his private pilot’s license. Deciding...
Joe Shannon nearly died trying to provide air cover for Cuban patriots stranded on the beach at the Bay of Pigs! Shannon was born in rural Alabama in 1921. At age 6, he got his first taste of aviation. He met Charles Lindbergh and saw his single-engine Ryan monoplane,...
Warren “Smoky” Schrader commanded the only allied jet fighter squadron to see combat in World War II. Born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1921, he joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force at age 19. After basic training he traveled to Canada and England,...
Frank E. Petersen, Jr., made history in the United States Marines, initially when he became the first black pilot and later as the first black general in the Corps. Petersen was born in 1932 in Topeka, Kansas, and grew up just 10 miles from an army airfield used for...
In 1944, Captain Diether Lukesch test flew and helped develop the Arado Ar 234, the world’s first jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. In that same year, he made history’s first jet bomber attacks, in an attempt to stop the Allies’ advance in...
Jerry L. Leatherman planned and then flew some of the most spectacular missions of the Gulf War. A 1978 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, he was first assigned to Reese AFB, Texas, for Undergraduate Pilot Training. He received his silver wings in 1979...
Raymond A. “Cheval” Lallemant, one of Belgiums leading World War II Aces, pioneered allied “tank-busting” tactics flying the Hawker Typhoon. He was born in 1917 in Blicquy, Belgium. On 10 May 1940, while he was a student in pilot training at...
Richard A. Knobloch piloted one of the 16 North American B-25 Mitchells that carried out the famed Doolittle Raid, the most daring mission in the annals of aviation history! Knobloch was born in 1918 in Wisconsin. He attended high school in Illinois, but returned to...
General William L. Kirk is a father of the Red Flag Program, which was key to training USAF combat crews in the Gulf War. Born in 1932 in Louisiana, he and his four sisters grew up on a farm. When Kirk was 10 years old, his father arranged a flight for him in a Piper...
Robert S. Johnson was the first American Ace to exceed Eddie Rickenbacker’s World War I total of 27 aircraft destroyed, and was the second-highest scoring American ace in the European Theater during World War II. Johnson grew up in Lawton Oklahoma, then home of...
Ralph D. “Hoot” Gibson is one of the few “MiG killers” to become an Ace in Korea. He joined US Army Air Force in 1943 and graduated from flying training in 1944 as a flight officer. He did not fly combat in World War II, but observed the...
Colonel Bruce Crandall flew over 900 combat missions through two tours of duty in Vietnam, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2007 for bravery and heroism during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. Born in 1933, Crandall grew up in Olympia, Washington. In 1953,...
John “Cap” Capellupo is a key figure in the development, sales, and operational success of the McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet, the worlds most advanced jet fighter. He was born in 1934 in Minnesota and grew up in Centralia, Illinois. As a youth he developed...
Marcel Albert flew fighters from France, England, and the Soviet Union during World War II. Born in Paris in 1917, he inherited mechanical talent from his father and, after high school, went to work building gearboxes for Renault. He also developed an interest in...
