He Shot Down 4 Japanese Planes On December 7, 1941 and Went On To Great Things

Profile photo for Lyle F. Padilla Lyle F. Padilla · Follow Retired US Army Armor Officer, former USAF F-4 WSOFeb 9 Did any pilots who survived Pearl Harbor continue to fly in combat missions? How did their experiences differ from attacking ships at Pearl Harbor to flying over Japan? I can’t address any Japanese pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor, but the US Army Air Force fighter pilot who shot down the most Japanese planes (four confirmed) over Pearl Harbor and the surrounding area on December 7, 1941, 2nd Lieutenant George S. Welch, went on to have a distinguished combat record during the remainder of World War II and then as a test pilot in the postwar era. Welch remained at his base at Wheeler Field in Hawaii for several months after Pearl Harbor before transferring to another squadron during the New Guinea Campaign and started scoring more kills on the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, then accumulated a total of 16 kills (including the four at Pearl Harbor) over the next ten months. He was then pulled out of combat flying and released from Active Duty to the Air Forces Reserve at the rank of major after contracting malaria, but was hired as a test pilot for North American Aviation and resumed flying in that capacity. He was the chief test pilot for North American’s P-82 Twin Mustang, then the swept-wing jet P-86 Sabre. He is believed to have actually broken the sound barrier in the prototype P-86 two weeks before Chuck Yeager was credited for doing so in a the Bell XS-1 rocket plane in October 1947, with the Air Force keeping quiet about it for several decades as it did not want to reveal the fact that their newest fighter, soon redesignated the F-86 and about to dominate the skies in the Korean War, had a supersonic capability. Welch made several trips to the front line air bases in Korea as a technical representative of North American, and it is believed that he flew a number of missions over “MiG Alley” in North Korea and scored additional kills over communist MiG-15s which were kept off the books and credited to other pilots because of his civilian official status. Welch then became the chief test pilot for the North American F-100 Super Sabre, a larger and more powered engine derivative of the F-86 which was the first production fighter to go supersonic in level flight. Sadly, he was killed in 1954 testing an F-100 which had stability problems. 32.6K views View 445 upvotes View 5 shares 1 of 5 answers