Legislating honor for bravery

Fairport Road Bridge moves one step closer to being named after decorated WWII hero

Col. Donald James Matthew Blakeslee was reluctant to talk about his accomplishments, his daughter told the New York Times in 2008.

But his accomplishments spoke for themselves. The Fairport Harbor native was one of America’s most decorated fighter pilots during World War

II.

“He had so many medals, I don’t know what they all were,” his sister-in-law Evelyn Blakeslee told the News-Herald in 2008.

Those medals include the Distinguished Service Cross with one cluster, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross with seven clusters, the British Distinguished

Flying Cross and the Air Medal with 30 clusters, she said.

The colonel will soon be getting another honor.

Following Gov. Mike DeWine’s expected signature, the Fairport Road Bridge over the Grand River will be named after the local hero.

“Colonel Blakeslee’s military service during World War II, and later in the Korean War, is an exemplary case of great selflessness and heroism,” Ohio Rep. John Rogers, D-Mentor-onthe-Lake, said in a statement. “I am appreciative of the support of my colleagues in the Ohio House and Senate, who helped with the passage of this legislation that will mark the primary entry and exit to and from the Village of Fairport Harbor, Blakeslee’s birthplace and boyhood hometown.”

Blakeslee was born in Fairport Harbor in 1917 and first became excited about flying after attending the Cleveland National Air Races.

Saving money from his job at Diamond Alkali Company, Blakeslee and a friend bought a Piper J-3 in the mid-1930s. After his friend crashed the plane in 1940, Blakeslee went to Canada to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.

He reassured his mother that he would only be an instructor, but he shot down his first German Me-109 in November 1941.

“She didn’t like it too well when she found out,”

Evelyn Blakeslee said in the 2008 News-Herald article.

When America entered World War II, Blakeslee returned to the states and entered the Army Air Corps.

During the war, he was the commander of the first American fighter squadrons to reach Berlin.

Blakeslee was the Fourth Fighter Group of the Eighth Fighter Command. By the end of the war, Fourth Fighter Group was credited with destroying 1,020 German aircraft, 550 shot out of the air and 470 hit while on the ground, according to the New York Times.

Barrett Tillman, a former executive secretary of the American Fighter Aces Association, told the New York Times Blakeslee flew nearly 500 missions and had about 1,000 combat hours to his credit, during his four years in the European theater.

That’s believed to be more missions and hours than any other American fighter pilot in the war.

Blakeslee spent 30 years in the Air Force, serving also in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

He was laid to rest with his wife Leola at Arlington National Cemetery following his death in September 2008 at age 90.

The Col. Donald Blakeslee Memorial Bridge naming is part of House Bill 276, which also renames a portion of state Route 2 after Mentor police officer Mathew Mazany who was struck and killed by an impaired driver while assisting another officer.

Barrett Tillman, a former executive secretary of the American Fighter Aces Association, told the New York Times Blakeslee flew nearly 500 missions and had about 1,000 combat hours to his credit, during his four years in the European theater. That’s believed to be more missions and hours than any other American fighter pilot in the war.