World War II Triple Ace Dies

Lt. Gen. Gordon M. Graham logged more than 9,000 flying hours during his career in the Air Force.

But Graham's first flying experience came while he was working as a teenager at an airport in California in the early 1930s. Told one payday there wasn't enough money to pay him, he accepted an offer of a flying lesson instead, said his wife of 40 years, Vivian Fox Graham of Irvington.

That first experience piloting a plane became a passion for Graham, who destruction of at least 16 enemy planes during World War II made him a triple ace.

...By the end of World War II, he had flown 73 combat missions in P-51 Mustang fighter planes. He also saw combat in Korea and Vietnam, being credited with more than 1,000 combat hours in fighters.

Read the whole thing. He died Saturday in Virginia, 90 years old. He'll be buried in Arlington in July.

He wrote an autobiography in 1996: "Double for Down: Anecdotes of a Fighter Pilot." That’s going on my list.