January 30, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard “Dick” Bong was a hero in an era of heroes. Here’s the History Guy with the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next comes
a man who's simply known as the History Guy. His
videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of
all ages over on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here regularly at our American Stories. Richard Bong was
a hero in an era of heroes. Here's the History
(00:32):
Guy with the story. It has often been said that
war is the most dramatic of human endeavors, and of
the millions of people who served throughout the globe in
the Second World War, they're countless stories of those who
went above and beyond to serve their country, to protect
their comrades, and to do their part to try to
bring an end to the most destructive war in human history.
(00:54):
And among those stories is the story of Richard Irab Bong,
US Army fighter pilot and the Pacific who was so
success fault that he became American's Ace of Aces. Richard
Ira Bong was born September twenty fourth, nineteen twenty in Superior, Wisconsin,
the oldest of nine children born to Carl Bong, a
(01:14):
Swedish immigrant in American door Bryce. He had an interest
in planes from a young aide and saw air mail
planes fly over the farm. When President Calvin Coolidge was
at his summer white house in Superior, he recalled that
the mail plane flew right over our house, and I
knew that I wanted to be a pilot. He attended
the Superior State Teachers College beginning in nineteen thirty eight,
(01:35):
where he enrolled in the civilian pilot training program started
just that year to train pilots both for civilian roles
and the possibility of war. On May twenty ninth, nineteen
forty one, Bong enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation
Cadet program. His gunnery instructor in Arizona was Barry Goldwater,
later a Senator in presidential nominee, who said that Bong
was a very bright student and was already showing his
(01:57):
talent as a pilot. Bong earned his pilot wings and
was commissioned to second lieutenant in the Army Air Force
Reserves on January ninth, nineteen forty two, just a month
after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Bong was kept
at Luke Field for several months, where he worked as
a gunnery instructor until he was transferred to Hamilton Field
near San Francisco, where he trained to fly the Lockheed
(02:20):
P thirty eight lightning. A number of stories have come
out of Bong's time at Hamilton. On June twelfth, nineteen
forty two, we cited for buzzing the house of a
pilot who had just gotten married. The same day, several
other pilots were cited for flying a loop around the
center span of the Golden Gate Bridge. Bong has awesome
been accused of looping the bridge, though he always denied it. Later, however,
(02:40):
he did apparently fly low down Market Street in San Francisco,
so low that he knocked some laundry off a line
and waved at people in the lower floors of some
of the buildings. General George Kinney, commander of the Fourth
Air Force, remembers dressing Bong down for the stock, saying,
now I don't need to tell you again how serious
this matter is. If you didn't want to fly down
Market Street, wouldn't want to in my Air Force. But
(03:01):
you are not to do it anymore. And I mean
what I say. Kenny made Bong help the woman with
her laundry. Douglas MacArthur Suprema Alley, commander of the Southwest
Pacific Area chose Kenny over General James Doolittle to command
the Fifth Air Force who were flying out of Australia.
Bong was handpicked by Kenny is one of fifty P
thirty eight pilots brought to Australia in September, Bong was
(03:23):
assigned to the ninth Fighter Squadron of the forty ninth
Fighter Group, nicknamed the Flying Knights. In a P thirty eight,
he and several others engaged a larger force of Japanese
planes near Buna, New Guinea on December twenty seventh, nineteen
forty two. Bong scored his first aerial victory here, shooting
down two Japanese planes himself. He was awarded the Silver
Star for the action. On January seventh, his squadron attacked
(03:45):
to convoy bringing reinforcements to New Guinea and he shot
down two more planes. The very next day, he was
escorting a bomber formation when he and seven accompanying pilots
attacked approximately twenty enemy fighters. The citation for his distinguished
Flying Crows said that Lieutenant Bong shot down at enemy
aircraft with a long burst at a distance of two
hundred yards, a difficult shot, and already his fifth confirmed kill.
(04:11):
Lieutenant Dick Bong had become a fighter ace. Not two
weeks after his first engagement, Bong participated in the Battle
of the Bismarck Sea, where American planes attacked transports and
destroyers carrying nearly seven thousand reinforcements to New Guinea. He
shot down at Mitsubishi a six zero, known as a
formidable fighter aircraft in the combat, and eight transports were destroyed,
(04:34):
in a significant defeat for the Japanese and a major
propaganda victory for the Army Air Force. By April, he
shot down five more planes, becoming a double ace and
was promoted to first lieutenant. On July twenty sixth, leading
a flight of ten P thirty eights over New Guinea,
he spotted a formation of twenty Japanese planes. He led
three attacks on the formation, shooting down two of the
aircraft himself. When fifteen more Japanese planes arrived, Bong, disregarding
(04:59):
the greatly superior numbers of the enemy, attacked the new planes,
taking down another to himself. In all, outnumbered three to one,
Bong's team shot down eleven planes without a loss Bong himself,
taking four. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for
the action. In August, he was promoted again to captain.
(05:22):
An engagement later that year nearly cost him his life.
According to General Kenney, Bong saw a Japanese fighter chasing
down an injured P thirty eight, which was flying towards
a nearby cloud bank. For cover, Bong turned off one
of his engines and drew the attention of the enemy.
Once the other plane was clear, he flipped his engine
back on and outraced the Japanese pilot back to base. Unfortunately,
on his return he noticed that the plane was damaged
(05:42):
worse than he thought. Half of his tail was gone,
and as he prepared to land, he found that his
ailerons were also damaged. When he finally touched down, he
discovered that he had no brakes and one of the
wheels was punctured. He ended up in a ditch alive,
but his plane was a total loss. The plates behind
his head was pitted with dance, and the plane had
fifty bullet holes in it. Both fuel tanks were punctured,
(06:05):
but a self cealing rubber system that kept them from leaking.
In another engagement, he was circling above the jungle, where
a pilot had ditched below him. Soldiers had gotten in
a rubber boat to cross a lake to get to
the pilot, and Bong sided a crocodile following them. He
dipped low to the water siding and blasted the encroaching
crocodile with a twenty millimeter round. Captain Bong was granted
(06:28):
leave stateside when he reached twenty one confirmed kills. He
was able to spend the holidays at nineteen forty three
at home in Wisconsin, where he met Marjorie Vetendahl and
began dating herd He also participated in a ship launching
where the Weldaretts named him their number one pinup boy.
When asked how he was so good at what he did,
he modestly answered, Oh, I'm just lucky. I guess a
(06:50):
lot of Japanese happened to get in my way. I
keep shooting plenty of lead and finally some of them
get hit. When he returned to the Pacific in nineteen
forty four, he christened his plane March and had his
girl's face painted on the nose. He was reassigned to
the Fifth Air Force HQ, but allowed to freelance. Bong
had on April twelfth been credited with three more victories,
(07:10):
which brought his totals twenty eight, officially beating Eddie Rickenbacker's
twenty six. During World War One, Kenny made Bong a
major and took the chance to send him home. Rickenbacker
and Kenny had earlier promised cases of Scots whoever beat
Rickenbacker's record first, and both of them sent along a case.
For three months, he was on leave in the United States,
doing publicity tours, surging civilians to buy bonds and generally
(07:33):
supporting the war effort. When he got back, he was
put in charge of gunnery training and told not to
engage except in self defense. On October tenth, he accompanied
his trainees shot down two more planes, so many in
self defense. Of course, still officially gunner instructor and not
required to fly combat missions, continued to find ways to
do so. In between October tenth and November fifteenth, he
(07:54):
engaged in unusually hazardous sorties and shot down eight more planes.
He was recommended for and received the Medal of Honor.
MacArthur gave it to him personally with a short congratulations.
Major Richard Irabar, who has ruled the air from New
Guinea to the Philippines. I now induct you into the
society of the bravest of the brave, the wearers of
(08:15):
the Congressional Medal of Honor of the United States. But
Scember seventeenth, Bong got his fortieth victory and Kenny ordered
him home. In fact, Kenny was convinced that Bong actually
had many more victories than that. Stories abounded that he
had given away kills to wingmen when he had really
done the shooting. He had flown one hundred forty six
combat missions and had four hundred hours of combat time.
(08:40):
Richard Irabong married Marjorie Battendahl on February tenth, nineteen forty five.
Having already given so much in the services, country, took
on one of the most dangerous jobs a nation could ask,
becoming a test pilot for Lockheed testing their new P
eighty shooting star jet. On August sixth, nineteen forty five,
Bong took off his twelfth flight in the plane. A
(09:02):
wackeed service mechanic later reported, we knew something was wrong
when we saw a puff of black smoke come out
just as he level off in flight. Within four minutes
of takeoff, the plane exploded just some fifty feet off
the ground over North Hollywood. A witness quoted in the
Los Angeles Time saw a Bong eject from the plane,
but he was too low for his parachute to open
and it was caught in the explosion. America's Ace of
(09:22):
Aces died the same day the first atomic bomb was
detonated over Hiroshima. His death shared front page news with
the first reports. Among American fighter pilots in the Second
World War, only five percent became aces, and yet those
five percent accounted for half of all enemy aircraft claimed
an air to air combat. And simply put that means
(09:45):
that a huge burden was placed on the shoulders of
a very few. When Major Dick Bong died, he was
just twenty four. In his brief life, he became one
of the most decorated pilots in American history, having earned
the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars,
(10:06):
seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, and fifteen Air Medals. And a
special thanks to Greg Hangler for the terrific production into
the History Guy, who you can find at his YouTube channel.
The history, guy, History deserves to be remembered. And my goodness,
what a story. One hundred and forty six missions. That's crazy,
(10:28):
The story of Richard Dick Bond. Here on our American Stories.
And we continue with our American stories. Up next comes
a man who's simply known as the History Guy. His
videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of
all ages over on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here regularly at our American Stories. Richard Bong was
a hero in an era of heroes. Here's the History
(00:32):
Guy with the story. It has often been said that
war is the most dramatic of human endeavors, and of
the millions of people who served throughout the globe in
the Second World War, they're countless stories of those who
went above and beyond to serve their country, to protect
their comrades, and to do their part to try to
bring an end to the most destructive war in human history.
(00:54):
And among those stories is the story of Richard Irab Bong,
US Army fighter pilot and the Pacific who was so
success fault that he became American's Ace of Aces. Richard
Ira Bong was born September twenty fourth, nineteen twenty in Superior, Wisconsin,
the oldest of nine children born to Carl Bong, a
(01:14):
Swedish immigrant in American door Bryce. He had an interest
in planes from a young aide and saw air mail
planes fly over the farm. When President Calvin Coolidge was
at his summer white house in Superior, he recalled that
the mail plane flew right over our house, and I
knew that I wanted to be a pilot. He attended
the Superior State Teachers College beginning in nineteen thirty eight,
(01:35):
where he enrolled in the civilian pilot training program started
just that year to train pilots both for civilian roles
and the possibility of war. On May twenty ninth, nineteen
forty one, Bong enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation
Cadet program. His gunnery instructor in Arizona was Barry Goldwater,
later a Senator in presidential nominee, who said that Bong
was a very bright student and was already showing his
(01:57):
talent as a pilot. Bong earned his pilot wings and
was commissioned to second lieutenant in the Army Air Force
Reserves on January ninth, nineteen forty two, just a month
after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Bong was kept
at Luke Field for several months, where he worked as
a gunnery instructor until he was transferred to Hamilton Field
near San Francisco, where he trained to fly the Lockheed
(02:20):
P thirty eight lightning. A number of stories have come
out of Bong's time at Hamilton. On June twelfth, nineteen
forty two, we cited for buzzing the house of a
pilot who had just gotten married. The same day, several
other pilots were cited for flying a loop around the
center span of the Golden Gate Bridge. Bong has awesome
been accused of looping the bridge, though he always denied it. Later, however,
(02:40):
he did apparently fly low down Market Street in San Francisco,
so low that he knocked some laundry off a line
and waved at people in the lower floors of some
of the buildings. General George Kinney, commander of the Fourth
Air Force, remembers dressing Bong down for the stock, saying,
now I don't need to tell you again how serious
this matter is. If you didn't want to fly down
Market Street, wouldn't want to in my Air Force. But
(03:01):
you are not to do it anymore. And I mean
what I say. Kenny made Bong help the woman with
her laundry. Douglas MacArthur Suprema Alley, commander of the Southwest
Pacific Area chose Kenny over General James Doolittle to command
the Fifth Air Force who were flying out of Australia.
Bong was handpicked by Kenny is one of fifty P
thirty eight pilots brought to Australia in September, Bong was
(03:23):
assigned to the ninth Fighter Squadron of the forty ninth
Fighter Group, nicknamed the Flying Knights. In a P thirty eight,
he and several others engaged a larger force of Japanese
planes near Buna, New Guinea on December twenty seventh, nineteen
forty two. Bong scored his first aerial victory here, shooting
down two Japanese planes himself. He was awarded the Silver
Star for the action. On January seventh, his squadron attacked
(03:45):
to convoy bringing reinforcements to New Guinea and he shot
down two more planes. The very next day, he was
escorting a bomber formation when he and seven accompanying pilots
attacked approximately twenty enemy fighters. The citation for his distinguished
Flying Crows said that Lieutenant Bong shot down at enemy
aircraft with a long burst at a distance of two
hundred yards, a difficult shot, and already his fifth confirmed kill.
(04:11):
Lieutenant Dick Bong had become a fighter ace. Not two
weeks after his first engagement, Bong participated in the Battle
of the Bismarck Sea, where American planes attacked transports and
destroyers carrying nearly seven thousand reinforcements to New Guinea. He
shot down at Mitsubishi a six zero, known as a
formidable fighter aircraft in the combat, and eight transports were destroyed,
(04:34):
in a significant defeat for the Japanese and a major
propaganda victory for the Army Air Force. By April, he
shot down five more planes, becoming a double ace and
was promoted to first lieutenant. On July twenty sixth, leading
a flight of ten P thirty eights over New Guinea,
he spotted a formation of twenty Japanese planes. He led
three attacks on the formation, shooting down two of the
aircraft himself. When fifteen more Japanese planes arrived, Bong, disregarding
(04:59):
the greatly superior numbers of the enemy, attacked the new planes,
taking down another to himself. In all, outnumbered three to one,
Bong's team shot down eleven planes without a loss Bong himself,
taking four. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for
the action. In August, he was promoted again to captain.
(05:22):
An engagement later that year nearly cost him his life.
According to General Kenney, Bong saw a Japanese fighter chasing
down an injured P thirty eight, which was flying towards
a nearby cloud bank. For cover, Bong turned off one
of his engines and drew the attention of the enemy.
Once the other plane was clear, he flipped his engine
back on and outraced the Japanese pilot back to base. Unfortunately,
on his return he noticed that the plane was damaged
(05:42):
worse than he thought. Half of his tail was gone,
and as he prepared to land, he found that his
ailerons were also damaged. When he finally touched down, he
discovered that he had no brakes and one of the
wheels was punctured. He ended up in a ditch alive,
but his plane was a total loss. The plates behind
his head was pitted with dance, and the plane had
fifty bullet holes in it. Both fuel tanks were punctured,
(06:05):
but a self cealing rubber system that kept them from leaking.
In another engagement, he was circling above the jungle, where
a pilot had ditched below him. Soldiers had gotten in
a rubber boat to cross a lake to get to
the pilot, and Bong sided a crocodile following them. He
dipped low to the water siding and blasted the encroaching
crocodile with a twenty millimeter round. Captain Bong was granted
(06:28):
leave stateside when he reached twenty one confirmed kills. He
was able to spend the holidays at nineteen forty three
at home in Wisconsin, where he met Marjorie Vetendahl and
began dating herd He also participated in a ship launching
where the Weldaretts named him their number one pinup boy.
When asked how he was so good at what he did,
he modestly answered, Oh, I'm just lucky. I guess a
(06:50):
lot of Japanese happened to get in my way. I
keep shooting plenty of lead and finally some of them
get hit. When he returned to the Pacific in nineteen
forty four, he christened his plane March and had his
girl's face painted on the nose. He was reassigned to
the Fifth Air Force HQ, but allowed to freelance. Bong
had on April twelfth been credited with three more victories,
(07:10):
which brought his totals twenty eight, officially beating Eddie Rickenbacker's
twenty six. During World War One, Kenny made Bong a
major and took the chance to send him home. Rickenbacker
and Kenny had earlier promised cases of Scots whoever beat
Rickenbacker's record first, and both of them sent along a case.
For three months, he was on leave in the United States,
doing publicity tours, surging civilians to buy bonds and generally
(07:33):
supporting the war effort. When he got back, he was
put in charge of gunnery training and told not to
engage except in self defense. On October tenth, he accompanied
his trainees shot down two more planes, so many in
self defense. Of course, still officially gunner instructor and not
required to fly combat missions, continued to find ways to
do so. In between October tenth and November fifteenth, he
(07:54):
engaged in unusually hazardous sorties and shot down eight more planes.
He was recommended for and received the Medal of Honor.
MacArthur gave it to him personally with a short congratulations.
Major Richard Irabar, who has ruled the air from New
Guinea to the Philippines. I now induct you into the
society of the bravest of the brave, the wearers of
(08:15):
the Congressional Medal of Honor of the United States. But
Scember seventeenth, Bong got his fortieth victory and Kenny ordered
him home. In fact, Kenny was convinced that Bong actually
had many more victories than that. Stories abounded that he
had given away kills to wingmen when he had really
done the shooting. He had flown one hundred forty six
combat missions and had four hundred hours of combat time.
(08:40):
Richard Irabong married Marjorie Battendahl on February tenth, nineteen forty five.
Having already given so much in the services, country, took
on one of the most dangerous jobs a nation could ask,
becoming a test pilot for Lockheed testing their new P
eighty shooting star jet. On August sixth, nineteen forty five,
Bong took off his twelfth flight in the plane. A
(09:02):
wackeed service mechanic later reported, we knew something was wrong
when we saw a puff of black smoke come out
just as he level off in flight. Within four minutes
of takeoff, the plane exploded just some fifty feet off
the ground over North Hollywood. A witness quoted in the
Los Angeles Time saw a Bong eject from the plane,
but he was too low for his parachute to open
and it was caught in the explosion. America's Ace of
(09:22):
Aces died the same day the first atomic bomb was
detonated over Hiroshima. His death shared front page news with
the first reports. Among American fighter pilots in the Second
World War, only five percent became aces, and yet those
five percent accounted for half of all enemy aircraft claimed
an air to air combat. And simply put that means
(09:45):
that a huge burden was placed on the shoulders of
a very few. When Major Dick Bong died, he was
just twenty four. In his brief life, he became one
of the most decorated pilots in American history, having earned
the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars,
(10:06):
seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, and fifteen Air Medals. And a
special thanks to Greg Hangler for the terrific production into
the History Guy, who you can find at his YouTube channel.
The history, guy, History deserves to be remembered. And my goodness,
what a story. One hundred and forty six missions. That's crazy,
(10:28):
The story of Richard Dick Bond. Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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