NOTABLE ARKANSANS

He was born in 1899, in Quitman, a small town southwest of Heber Springs, where his father was town marshal. His father died when he was 15, and he began working as a self-taught mechanic for local bootleggers. Salvaging parts from old vehicles, he put together a car of his own, which was good enough for deliveries.

During World War I, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became an aviation mechanic’s mate. After being discharged, he took flying lessons and bought his own airplane from military surplus. In 1923, he re-enlisted in the Navy, this time as a fighter pilot. He later served as an instructor at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. Retiring after a 21-year career, he moved his family to Hawaii and then to the Philippines to help start — with one twin-engine, five-seat Beechcraft airplane — Philippine Air Lines.

At the start of World War II, he flew volunteer missions, airlifting U.S. military personnel from Japanese territory and was commissioned as a captain in the Army Air Corps. Flying an unarmed, unarmored plane, he delivered medical supplies to besieged troops on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula, a heroic act that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1942, he had to leave his wife and four children in Manila, to fly key U.S. key military personnel to Australia, ahead of the imminent Japanese invasion. His family was interned at a Manila university by the Japanese and wouldn’t be liberated until 1945.

In 1942, he used his mechanical skills to remove .50-caliber machine guns from wrecked fighters and attach them to medium bombers, dramatically increasing their ability to wreak havoc on enemy ships. He also developed new tactics to optimize their use.

The young fliers he worked with started calling him a distinctive nickname, which stuck with him the rest of his life. By the end of the war, he had been awarded a second Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Air Medal, nine Purple Hearts and the WWII Victory Medal.