{"id":1399,"date":"2006-02-27T22:28:34","date_gmt":"2006-02-28T04:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2006-02-27T22:29:31","modified_gmt":"2006-02-28T04:29:31","slug":"wwii-ace-scott-dies-at-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1399","title":{"rendered":"WWII Ace Scott Dies at 97"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flying Tiger, ace, author, general and Olympic torch bearer — truly a life to be celebrated and a passing<\/a> to be mourned.<\/p>\n

Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, the World War II flying ace who told of his exploits in the China-Burma-India theater in his book “God is My Co-Pilot,” died Monday. He was 97.<\/p>\n

His death was announced by Paul Hibbitts, director of the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base, where Scott worked in recent years.<\/p>\n

The Georgia-born Scott rose to nationwide prominence during World War II as a fighter ace in the skies over Asia, then with his best-selling 1943 book, made into a 1945 movie starring Dennis Morgan as Scott.<\/p>\n

Among his other books were “The Day I Owned the Sky” and “Flying Tiger: Chennault of China.”<\/p>\n

Scott, who retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general, won three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Silver Stars and five Air Medals before he was called home to travel the country giving speeches for the war effort.<\/p>\n

He shot down 22 enemy planes with his P-40 Warhawk, though he recalled some were listed as “probable” kills.<\/p>\n

“You had to have two witnesses in the formation, or you needed a gun camera to take a picture,” he once said. “Only we didn’t have gun cameras in China. I actually had 22 aerial victims, but I only had proof of 13.”<\/p>\n

He worked with the Flying Tigers, Gen. Claire Chennault’s famed volunteer force of pilots who fought in China, but he was not one of its original members in mid-1941. With the Flying Tigers, he earned five of his aerial kills in May 1942 when he flew more than 200 hours in combat.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

From the mid-1980s onward, Scott was an active staffer at the Robins air base’s aviation museum.<\/p>\n

Scott, who had more than 33,000 flying hours during his 60 years of flying, credited the museum with giving him a new lease on life, Hibbitts said.<\/p>\n

Despite his age, he remained active until a few years ago, carrying the Olympic torch in 1996, piloting an F-15 fighter jet on his 88th birthday and flying a B-1 bomber on his 89th birthday, Hibbitts said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rest in peace, sir. You’ve most assuredly earned it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flying Tiger, ace, author, general and Olympic torch bearer — truly a life to be celebrated and a passing to be mourned. Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, the World War II flying ace who told of his exploits in the China-Burma-India theater in his book “God is My Co-Pilot,” died Monday. He was 97. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}