September 24, 1920 – August 6, 1945

“Hey! Look out buddy! You’ve got a Zero on your tail!” Oh! Hey there. I’m Richard Bong and I’m up in the sky flying my P-38 in an aerial battle. I’m in a major battle with my wingmates over the enemy airfield Rabaul. I’m trying to find a target. . I want to have at least one victory today. Do you know how much I hate these clouds? They really get in the way when trying to find the enemy. Right now it’s really hard to see anything up here. “Buddy! You’ve got a. . .” Too late. He was counter-attacked. That kid always focused on looking ahead of him rather than paying attention to what’s behind him.

I didn’t know that ya’ll were watching me. Well, rather than you just watching me fly a plane in the midst of battle, how about I tell you some things about me?

My parents were Carl and Dora. My father was a Swedish immigrant, so I’m part Swedish. I was the first of nine children that my mother had. I remember my mother being a busy woman taking care of all those children. But it was my duty to help out on the farm with my father. We all lived on a farm near Poplar. During the small free time that I had, I fished and hunted. I was told that I was a good shot with the hunting rifle.

But that was my life before the summer of 1928. That summer, the president was vacationing in Superior, a neighboring town. Our mail was delivered to us daily by an airplane. When I first saw the plane fly over our house, I was fascinated and I then knew that I wanted to be a pilot. It wasn’t too soon after that that I started building model airplanes.

I went to Wisconsin State Teacher’s College following high school. It was then that I decided to follow my interests and I joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program. During that time I took private flying lessons and it wasn’t too long after that that I got my Private Flyer’s License.

The year of 1941 was one of the greatest years of my life. At about spring time, I enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation Program. From there, I was sent to a lot of places for training. I first went to Rankin Aeronautical Academy and after that, I went to Gardner field. Following that, I went to Luke Field. When I was there, I had to learn gunnery. I thought of myself pitiful at gunnery, but others said that I was great at it. Captain Goldwater was my gunnery instructor. The greatest time that I had there was when I was flying with a P-38 check pilot and I was on his tail the whole time, though I was flying the slowest plane. He said that I was the “best natural pilot he’d ever met” (Stephen).