Congress authorized the award, which MacArthur personally presented to Bong. Throwing away his prepared speech, the smiling general said, “Major Richard Ira Bong, 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 the Medal of Honor of the United States of America.”

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When two Ki.43s tried to attack American shipping off Mindoro on December 15, Bong shot down one of them near Panubolon Island. On the 17th he was credited with another Oscar over San José, Mindoro. That brought his total to 40, along with seven probable victories and 11 enemy planes damaged in two years and 500 combat hours. When Kenney learned of it, he ordered Bong to park his P-38L and walk away from it. Like it or not, the American ace of aces was going home for the last time.

Bong arrived in the States on Christmas Eve to a hero’s welcome. After grounding Major Tommy McGuire just long enough for Bong to bask in the glory of his achievement (and endure another propaganda tour, which he described to a fellow ace as “worse than having a Zero on your tail”), Kenney let him resume his quest to surpass Bong’s score, but McGuire never did; after scoring 38 victories he was killed in action on January 7, 1945.

On February 10, 1945, Dick Bong married Marge in a ceremony attended by 1,200 guests. They honeymooned in California. When his leave was over, he was assigned to the Flight Test Section at Wright-Patterson air base in Ohio, to work with the Lockheed P-80 jet fighter. Bong was intrigued with the new plane, and in June he reported to Lockheed’s plant in Burbank, Calif.

Bong had logged 10 flights and accumulated four jet-flying hours when he got into P-80 Bureau No. 44-85048 and lifted off from Lockheed’s Runway 15 at 1450 hours on August 6. Eyewitnesses saw puffs of black smoke exit the tailpipe as he climbed to 300 or 400 feet, then the plane rolled right, the canopy flew off and the jet pitched nose-first into the ground. Two minutes after the takeoff, Bong’s body was found about 100 feet from the engine, partially wrapped in the shrouds of his parachute. Apparently he had not engaged the “takeoff and land” backup switch to his electric fuel pump prior to takeoff, and the engine had stalled.

Bong had survived many air battles only to die in a routine test flight accident. On the same day an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, heralding both the end of the war and the dawn of a new era. News of his death threw a pall over the entire FEAF. “You see,” General Kenny explained, “we not only loved him, we boasted about him, we were proud of him. That’s why each of us got a lump in our throats when we read that telegram about his death.” Richard I. Bong was buried in his home town of Poplar. His honors included the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star with oak leaf cluster, Distinguished Flying Cross with six oak leaf clusters and Air Medal with 14 oak leaves.

Bong is memorialized in a variety of ways in his home state. There is a Bong Memorial room in his high school, which includes his uniform, all 26 of his decorations, photographs, newspaper clippings and a fragment of the plane in which he was killed. His widow, Marge Bong Drucker, also worked to help build the Richard I. Bong Memorial Center in Superior, Wis. The center was dedicated on September 24, 2002, and includes a restored P-38L with Marge’s picture emblazoned on its side.

This article was written by Jon Guttman and originally published in the March 2007 issue of Aviation History magazine. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!

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