Richard "Dick" Ira Bong was a United States Army Air Forces major and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. He was one of the most decorated American fighter pilots and the country's top flying ace in the war, credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft, all with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter. He died in California while testing a Lockheed P-80 jet fighter shortly before the war ended. Bong was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1986 and has several commemorative monuments named in his honor around the world, including an airport, two bridges, a theater, a veterans historical center, a recreation area, a neighborhood terrace, and several avenues and streets, including the street leading to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
Major Bong c. 1945
Major Bong in his P-38
Major Bong with General Douglas MacArthur and General Kenney on December 12, 1944
Bong was killed in 1945 while testing a P-80A similar to this one.
A fighter pilot or combat pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting. A fighter pilot with at least five air-to-air kills becomes known as an ace.
Ilmari Juutilainen, a Finnish WWII fighter pilot with Brewster BW-364 "Orange 4" on 26 June 1942 during the Continuation War.
USAF fighter pilots heading to their jets before takeoff (2006)
Sabiha Gökçen in front of a Breguet 19. circa 1937.
Cochran in her record-setting F-86, talking with Charles E. Yeager