English | July 2, 2023 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B0C9YXYBJV | 66 pages | EPUB | 2.79 Mb

At first, airplane improvements occurred in an ad hoc, almost accidental manner during World War I. However, when pilots mounting of armaments on airplanes proved a successful means of defeating other aircraft and even attacking men on the ground, a much more active and systematic development of warplanes began across the continent. Each advance prompted a countermeasure, as the two sides strove for primacy in a deadly, unforgiving environment which rewarded real advances in equipment and tactics with survival and punished poor ideas with death.

Before long, relatively powerful, heavily armed aircraft buzzed through the skies over battle-stained Europe, tearing each other apart with furious gusts of machine gun fire and sending many of the vaunted dirigibles plunging, burning, to the ground. The new era of fighting aircraft arrived in dramatic fashion, raising successful pilots to celebrity or heroic status, and laying the groundwork for the tremendous potential of airpower to achieve its next logical expansion in World War II and beyond.

By the time World War II arrived, the fighter airplane appeared as a much different beast than the purpose-built aircraft-hunting machines of 1917 and 1918. Though propellers still provided motive force, greatly increased engine power allowed these aircraft to slice through the sky at speeds of 200 miles per hour (mph), 300 mph, or even in excess of 400 mph when flying flat-out. Service ceilings jumped to 25,000 feet, 30,000 feet, or higher, altitudes unthinkable to World War Is aviators. Engineering and research and development began working scientifically to shave time off the climb rate and address a host of other problems and possibilities.

The huge spaces of the Pacific also called for different aircraft design than the relatively confined areas of Europe. The distinctive twin-boom P-38 Lightning came into its own in the war between America and Japan, with its impressive range and heavy firepower. In the warm tropical climates where it operated, its engines functioned much more reliably than in the cool damp of the skies over France and Germany.

All of this meant that pilots had to adapt to the technological improvements, and a select few truly mastered the art of dogfighting during historys deadliest war. In the United States, the top ace came from almost literally out of nowhere. Richard Dick Ira Bong was born on September 24, 1920 in Superior, Wisconsin on the westernmost tip of Lake Superior, the son of Swedish immigrants. America was a very popular destination for Swedes seeking a new life during the early 20th century, and many Swedes headed for Wisconsin, with the greatest number arriving between 1880 and 1900. Dicks father Carl, arrived in America at the age of eight, and he eventually married Dora Bryce, of Scottish-English descent. When Dick was born, they were living on a farm in the very small town of Poplar, in Douglas County, Wisconsin. Even in the 21st century, it is still diminutive, with a population of around 600.

Dicks first memorable encounter with an aircraft was as a child playing in and around the farm, and in the summer of 1928, when Dick was seven, President Calvin Coolidge had a summer holiday residence at Cedar Island Lodge on the Brule River by Brule, another very small town a few miles east of Poplar, down the Route 2 highway that is now known as the Major Richard I. Bong Memorial Highway. Most days a small silver Navy biplane filled the role of a mail plane responsible for delivering and receiving presidential correspondence, and it would fly over the Bong farmstead. This touched off a lifelong fascination that would lead to Bong shooting down 40 enemy planes in the Pacific Theater during the war, making him the countrys top ace before he had even reached the age of 25.




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