Richard Bong, the P thirty-eight Lightning, and the Forty Kills That Made America's Ace of Aces

Richard Ira Bong flew 40 confirmed aerial victories over Japanese aircraft in the Pacific Theater, making him the highest-scoring American fighter pilot in U.S. military history - a record no one has matched since. A quiet, reserved farm kid from Poplar, Wisconsin, he accomplished all of it before his twenty-fourth birthday, flying a twin-boom P-38 Lightning with an instinctive aggression that defied conventional tactics. He died on August 6, 1945 - the same afternoon an atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima - in a test flight accident in Burbank, California.

Who Was Richard Bong?

Bong was born in September 1920, the second of nine children in a family of Swedish descent in Poplar, Wisconsin - farm country in the far northwestern corner of the state, near Lake Superior. He began flying lessons as a student at Superior State Teachers College, where instructors noted something rare in the way he responded to an aircraft: not technical precision, but instinct.

He entered Army Air Corps flight training in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor. Even before combat, his talent announced itself. A widely repeated story - possibly embellished, but plausible - describes Bong flying his P-38 under the Golden Gate Bridge during training near San Francisco. General George Kenney, who would become his commanding officer in the Pacific, reportedly hauled the young lieutenant into his office, told him he owed an apology to every woman whose laundry he had blown off the clotheslines, and then put him to work.

The P-38 Lightning: Why It Mattered in the Pacific

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was unlike any other fighter in World War II. Its twin-boom, twin-engine configuration - with a center nacelle housing the pilot - gave it a distinctive silhouette that earned it a pair of well-known nicknames. German pilots called it “Der Gabelschwanz-Teufel” - the Fork-Tailed Devil. Japanese pilots called it “two-planes-one-pilot.”

More important than the nickname was the range. The Pacific Theater demanded it. The vast distances between islands could kill a pilot through fuel exhaustion before any enemy aircraft found him. The P-38 had that range. It also carried a 20mm cannon and four .50-caliber machine guns firing through the nose - no propeller synchronization required. You aimed the whole aircraft and the rounds went where you pointed.

How Bong Flew: The Close-Range Method

Bong arrived in the Southwest Pacific in the fall of 1942, assigned to the 49th Fighter Group under General Kenney’s Fifth Air Force. New Guinea was his proving ground - jungle, monsoons, and an operational environment where weather and mechanical failures killed as reliably as enemy fighters.

His first aerial kill came in December 1942. Then they kept coming.

By his own admission, Bong was not a particularly skilled marksman by technical standards. Other aces of the era scored kills at long range using deflection shooting. Bong’s method was different, and simpler: he closed the distance until he was nearly in the same piece of sky as his target, and then fired. At that range, even an average shot cannot miss.

The cost of that method was flying through the debris. Bong regularly passed through the wreckage of aircraft he had just destroyed. He took fire from gunners at ranges where a burst could nearly reach him by hand. He was a captain by 1943, continuing to press the fight at distances most pilots would consider suicidal.

Breaking Rickenbacker’s Record

As Bong’s kill count climbed through 1943 and into 1944, one number loomed larger than the rest: 26. That was Eddie Rickenbacker’s record from World War I - a quarter-century old and widely considered untouchable. Rickenbacker was a living legend, a national icon.

When Bong recorded his 27th aerial kill in July 1944, he became the new record holder. Rickenbacker sent him a case of scotch and a note of congratulations.

General Douglas MacArthur pinned the Medal of Honor on Bong’s chest in December 1944 at Leyte in the Philippines, announcing before assembled officers and press that Bong was the greatest combat pilot alive anywhere in the world.

Why General Kenney Sent Him Home

Bong reached 40 confirmed victories and stopped - not because the war ended, and not because he was finished flying. General Kenney grounded him and ordered him home.

The official reason was rest and a public relations tour. The real reason was understood by everyone: the Army had spent years building Bong into something of irreplaceable symbolic value. A living proof that American pilots could dominate Japanese airspace. Kenney and MacArthur were not willing to gamble that on one more mission.

Bong came home to parades, magazine covers, and Marjorie Vattendahl - the young woman whose photograph he had painted on the nose of his P-38, the aircraft he called Marge. He had carried her picture over every island from New Guinea to the Philippines. They were married in February 1945.

In interviews, Bong was consistently modest. He credited his ground crew, his wingmen, and his commanding officers. He told reporters he had simply been fortunate and placed in the right positions at the right times. He did not perform well as a public figure and did not seem to want to.

The Test Flight That Killed Him

Bong was a pilot. He could not stop flying.

A test pilot position opened at Lockheed. The aircraft was the P-80 Shooting Star, the first operational jet fighter the Army Air Forces would fly. Bong volunteered for the program.

On August 6, 1945, he taxied out to the runway at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, California. The P-80 was a machine he had flown before. He was familiar with it.

During the takeoff roll, the fuel boost pump failed. The engine flamed out on departure. Bong attempted to bail out of the aircraft. He was too low. The parachute did not have time to deploy.

Richard Ira Bong died at the age of 24 years, 10 months, and 12 days. That evening, the American public learned two things: that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, and that the Ace of Aces was dead. The atomic bomb dominated the headlines. Bong’s death ran in the back pages.

Marjorie Bong was 21 years old. They had been married for less than seven months.

Where He Rests - and What Remains

Bong is buried in Poplar, Wisconsin, the northern town where he grew up. Near Superior, Wisconsin - the closest city - the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center preserves his story and displays a P-38 on a pedestal outside. The museum is worth the drive for anyone passing through that part of the country.

For those who want to hear what Bong’s aircraft actually sounded like, the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, California flies an airworthy P-38. The sound of two Allison engines at full power is something that stays with you.

The primary biographical source on Bong is John Stanaway’s biography, with supporting records held by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and the National Archives.

Key Takeaways

• Richard Bong recorded 40 confirmed aerial victories over Japanese aircraft in the Pacific Theater - the highest total in U.S. military history, achieved before age 24.
• He flew the P-38 Lightning, chosen partly for its exceptional range over Pacific distances, and developed a close-range attack method that compensated for his average marksmanship.
• Bong broke Eddie Rickenbacker’s 26-kill World War I record in July 1944, with MacArthur personally awarding him the Medal of Honor that December.
• General Kenney grounded him at 40 kills and sent him home - not for rest, but because losing the Ace of Aces was a risk the Army refused to take.
• He died August 6, 1945 in a P-80 Shooting Star test flight accident caused by a fuel boost pump failure - the same day as the Hiroshima bombing - less than seven months after his wedding.