![]() Afterwards, the 9th Fighter Squadron was one of two units in the 5th Air Force selected for conversion to the P-38 Lightning. “The Flying Knights” were flying the P-40 Warhawk and were famous from their aerial defense of Darwin between March 1942 until August 1942. By November 1942 Bong was transferred to the 49th Fighter Group (49th FG), 9th Fighter Squadron (9th FS). Upon arrival Bong was assigned to a newly formed P-38 fighter unit, the 17th Fighter Squadron (Provisional). From there, Bong was sent to the Southwest Pacific Area.īong was then flown overseas as a passenger aboard a B-24 Liberator from Hawaii via Hickam Field to Australia. ![]() Bong then transferred to another Hamilton Field unit, 84th Fighter Squadron of the 78th Fighter Group. Nevertheless, Bong was still grounded when the rest of his group was sent without him to England in July 1942. In all subsequent accounts, Bong denied flying under the Golden Gate Bridge. ![]() Kenney, commanding officer of the Fourth Air Force, who told him, "If you didn't want to fly down Market Street, I wouldn't have you in my Air Force, but you are not to do it any more and I mean what I say." Kenney later wrote, "We needed kids like this lad." For looping the Golden Gate Bridge, flying at a low level down Market Street in San Francisco, and blowing the clothes off of an Oakland woman's clothesline, Bong was reprimanded by General George C. He was cited and temporarily grounded for breaking flying rules, along with three other P-38 pilots who had looped around the Golden Gate Bridge on the same day. On June 12, 1942, Bong flew very low ("buzzed") over a house in nearby San Anselmo, the home of a pilot who had just been married. His first operational assignment was on May 6 to the 49th Fighter Squadron (FS), 14th Fighter Group at Hamilton Field, California, where he learned to fly the twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning. His first assignment was as an instructor (gunnery) pilot at Luke Field, Arizona, from January to May 1942. ![]() He was commissioned a second lieutenant and awarded his pilot wings on January 19, 1942. Senator from Arizona).īong's ability as a fighter pilot was recognized while he was training in northern California. One of his flight instructors was Captain Barry Goldwater (later a U.S. On May 29, 1941, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. While there, Bong enrolled in the Civilian Pilot Training Program and also took private flying lessons. He began studying at Superior State Teachers College (the current-day University of Wisconsin–Superior) in 1938. Because Poplar was a three-year school at the time, Bong transferred to Central High School in Superior for his senior year, graduating in 1938. Known by the common nickname "Dick", he grew up on a farm in Poplar, Wisconsin, where he became interested in aircraft at an early age while watching planes fly over the farm carrying mail for President Calvin Coolidge's summer White House in Superior, and was an avid model builder.īong entered Poplar High School in 1934, where he played the clarinet in the marching band and participated in baseball, basketball, and hockey. Bong Veterans Historical Centerīong was born September 24, 1920, in Superior, Wisconsin, the first of nine children born to Carl Bong, an immigrant from Sweden, and Dora Bryce, who was an American of Scotch-English descent. 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. He died in California while testing a Lockheed P-80 jet fighter shortly before the war ended. 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. Richard "Dick" Ira Bong (September 24, 1920 – August 6, 1945) was a United States Army Air Forces major and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II.
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