Fighter Pilot: The First American Ace of World War II

Prologue: The Early Years

November 1916-August 1939 Prologue: The Early Years Since I've got to start some place, I'll begin at the very beginning. The Lord said, "Let there be light," and on 16 November 1916 He created me, like you, in His own image. This took place at Minneapolis,Minnesota . My father, Walter, was a doctor of medicine, a physician and surgeon. My mother's name was Ellen. Eighteen months after my birth, my kid brother was born. My immediate family was American born, but our ancestors immigrated to the United States from several European nations. Some came from France, via Canada, in the 1870s. Others came directly from Norway in the 1850s, and from Ireland and Scotland in the 1860s. My most illustrious foreign-bornrelative—a great grandfather-was a French marquis, the Marquis de Priganier, and a colonel in the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War. The French lost to the Germans, so he left his home province of AlsaceLorraine to Hun occupation, and came to the New World under the name Gustav Prigan. Other family names in this potpourri of my relatives include Dunn, Taft, Forkrud, Terry, and Ferguson. These related families located in Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado. All the male members of our family were soldiers at one time or another, and it seems we all fought against a common enemy, the Germans. My great grandfather, his brother, and his two sons, Lorenzo and Olivier, fought the Germans in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. My father and my uncles fought the Germans in the First WorldWar. My brother, my cousins, and I fought the Germans in the Second World War. Therefore, it is understandable that we refer to our perennial German enemies as Huns, Krauts, Squareheads, Fritzies, Boches, and Heinies, though I suppose all of us family soldiers have been told, at one time or another, to forget and forgive—the war is over. No, we will 2 FighterPilot not forget and forgive the bestiality of the German war machine—the death, the devastation, the murders of innocent people—ever. A new generation of Huns does not suddenly make them "good guys." Their war actions are recorded, generation after generation, in the annals of world history, which should alert all freedom-loving people to the axiom we fighter pilots regarded as absolute truth—"Beware of the Hun in the sun." During the First World War my father was a first lieutenant medical officer with a horse cavalry regiment. My Uncle John was also an Army doctor. My Uncle Pat was an Army Engineer master sergeant. My Uncle Larry was a captain fighter pilot in the Air Service. All served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, and their war stories, after they got a little giggle-soup under their belts, left my brother and me spellbound. Wewere most interested in Uncle Larry's glorious stories of furious air combat with Hun pilots—the twisting and rolling and looping of clashing war birds, fighting man to man, until a deadly burst of machine gun fire sends one of them curving earthward, trailing flames and smoke, to a heroic death. Weknew that Uncle Larry had shot down four Huns and was himself shot down twice—he wouldn't BS a couple of little kids, would he? My brother and I decided to become fighter pilots when we grew up. When I was about seven years old my mother and father were divorced. Why, I don't know. They never told me, I didn't ask. After my mother left our home, my Aunt Bertha, Dad's sister, came to run our household. Her husband and twin-son babies had died several years earlier from scarlet fever. Bertha, or Aunt Bertie as we called her, was really a grand and gracious lady, but to my brother and me she seemed somewhat of a tyrant when she laid down the law to us kids—wash faces, brush teeth, keep clothes clean, pick up our things and make our beds, take out the garbage, do school homework. She had all sorts of tasks for us, and she had a sharp tongue and a quick, stinging wood paddle that she used very effectively to emphasize her instructions. There was no doubt that my brother and I were in great need of discipline at home, and so Aunt Bertie became the enforcer of our training, which she did with a resounding whack of her paddle on...