Distinguished Flying Cross Award March 30, 2012

Instead of an early Spring rv trip to Colorado Springs, we flew in to celebrate Gus' birthday and to participate in a family surprise with an award at his Congressman's office of the nine WWII medals that had not been awarded to him at the close of the war.  The Distinguished Flying Cross had been awarded for "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight".  Gus had been an Navy fighter pilot (Gruman Hellcat) that flew off the aircraft carrier Cowpens.

While we could not find the original Navy letter describing the circumstances, I think it goes something like this:  At the ripe old age of 22, Gus was on a routine rescue mission in conjunction with a submarine.  In this type of mission, Gus would spot a downed pilot and crew in the water, and then he would radio the sub to come pick them up.  At this point in the war, servicemen were very afraid of being captured by the Japanese.  The Japanese had little respect for prisoners in as much as they considered them cowards for surrendering in the first place, but they wanted them for the intelligence they could provide.  Graphic stories of prison camp atrocities and torture made the prospect of capture horrifying.

On this day, when Gus spotted a downed pilot in the water, he also spotted a Japanese destroyer moving fast to make its own capture.  Gus began to strafe the destroyer to slow them down.  Apparently his wingman (another fighter plane) thought this was too dangerous and went home.  Gus continued to go after the destroyer (and I'm sure with every one of their guns blasting away at him).  At some point in time, his shots hit something important and the destroyer stopped dead in the water.  He continued to strafe to insure the safety of the downed pilot until he could be rescued.

In addition to the the award ceremony, we had a wonderful family reunion with typical Colorado Spring weather.  Two of the days sported temperatures that were in the 80's, and the last two days it got so cold and nasty it actually snowed.  Our plane had to be de-iced before it could take off.