The Bong Museum in Superior Wisconsin (sister city to Duluth, MN) is well worth visiting if you get up that way. A lovely P-38 is on inside display as well as lots of other hardware. And it’s lots of fun telling people you’ve been to the Bong Museum.
Some people had the knack for shooting at moving targets. Something extra that not many people possess. Then some people have even more. Another good example is Ted Williams(the baseball player). Fighter pilot in WWII then came back for Korea. John Glenn was his wingman as I understand it.
Bong got in trouble with Gen. Kenny, IIRC, after buzzing Market St in San Francisco. In doing so he blew a lady’s laundry of the line. Said lady called the airbase and raised a high dungeon.
Kenny called Bong in and chewed him out and order Bong to go to the lady’s house, redo the laundry and any other chores she had as his punishment.
Bong died while performing an acceptance flight on a P-80A on August 6th, 1945. The primary fuel pump failed on takeoff and for whatever reason Bong did not switch on the back-up pump. Bong death was front page news nation wide along with the bombing of Hiroshima.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Wonder what a Deer hunting trip with Lamphier would have been like in say, 1948?
“was shown using a Savage 99 chambered in .300 Savage,“
Sadly I let one of those fine rifles slip through my hands. Still have a couple boxes of cartridges for it laying around somewhere.
L
Lockheed P-38 L. Paint scheme of Maj. Gerald R. Johnson who flew with the 49th FG, 9th FS from Tacloban Field in the Philippines in October 1944. Twenty-five kills, later reduced to 22 confirmed kills. (Photo courtesy of Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum/ heathmoffattphoto.com
There are no great aces without great wingmen and young Lt. Floyd Fulkerson from Little Rock, Arkansas, was one of those wingmen. Although he had four confirmed victories, so he was nearly an ace himself, he sees his primary contribution to the war effort to have been the protection of his lead pilots, some of whom were America’s leading aces. During his time with the 475TH Fighter Group in the Pacific, Floyd flew with such notables as Major Richard Bong, Major Tommy McGuire, and even the much-celebrated “Lone Eagle,” Charles Lindbergh. Cover the shooter, that’s what wingmen do. They protect the shooter from surprise attack. In this role, Fulkerson helped some of our great aces achieve their successes.
Author John Dejanovich: