AUTHOR’S NOTE:

McWhorter married Louise Edel in 1943. “He did everything he wanted to do and left us suddenly,” Louise said. McWhorter flew in the postwar Navy, retired as a commander in 1969 and was a civilian flight instructor for two decades. “He was always proud when one of his students went on to the airlines,” Louise said. He wrote an autobiography, The First Hellcat Ace, with Jay A. Stout (Pacifica, Calif.: Pacific Military History, 2000). “He was never satisfied with anything that didn’t involve flying,” Louise said.