This digital exhibit is provided by guest curator Autumn Wolter, intern at the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin. View the full digital collection at https://content.mpl.org/digital/collection/BVHC.
Richard (Dick) Ira Bong, America’s Ace of Aces, was born on September 24, 1920 in Superior, Wisconsin to Carl and Dora Bong. He was their firstborn child, and they went on to have 7 more children (Bud, Barbara, Jerry, Joyce, Sue, Nelda, and Jimmy). Dick grew up on a farm in Poplar, Wisconsin with his parents and siblings.
Due to President Calvin Coolidge’s stay at his summer White House in Superior, mail planes frequently flew over Poplar, causing Dick to gain a fascination with planes. After graduating from Superior Central High School in 1938, he attended the Superior State Teaching College (which is now the University of Wisconsin-Superior). In 1940 he joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program to earn his pilot’s license.
Dick joined the Army Air Corps as a Second Lieutenant on May 29, 1941. Upon joining the military, he began training, first with the AT-6, then with other planes, working up to the P-38 Lightning. During this time, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States got involved in World War II.
Lt. Bong started his first tour in New Guinea in September 1942, as a member of the 49th Fighter Squadron. He flew the P-38 Lightning, which, in a letter to his mother, he described as “[…] quite an airplane, It’s the fastest I have ever flown and is the easiest plane to fly that I have yet flown.” He quickly became an Ace during his first tour, earning the title in January 1943. After 10 months on tour, he achieved 21 victories, which started his journey to becoming the greatest pilot in the U.S. Military. He was promoted to Captain in Aug. 1943. After his first leave, he was sent back to the Pacific for his second tour in February 1944, this time having more freedom to choose his missions. This tour ended after he surpassed World War I pilot Eddie Rickenbacker’s record of 26 victories.
During his time back in the states, the now Major Bong was sent to promote war bonds across the country. During his tour, he met numerous celebrities, such as Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Betty Hutton, Reginald Gardiner, Andy Devine, Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Beryl Wallace, Jack Benny, and many others. He also took advanced gunnery courses in order to become a gunnery instructor.
Major Bong’s third, and final, tour began in Sept. 1944 in New Guinea and the Philippines to continue the march to take back the Philippines. He served as a gunnery instructor, but insisted that he still be allowed to fly on combat missions. On December 17, 1944, Major Bong achieved his 40th victory. At this time, General Kenney decided that morale would be too damaged if the Major was killed in action, so he was sent home. Before going home, Major Bong was first presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor on December 12, 1944, by General Douglas MacArthur at Tacloban Airfield, Philippines. During the awarding ceremony, General MacArthur said that Dick earned the medal “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action in the Southwest Pacific area from 10 October to 15 November 1944 […] His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down eight enemy airplanes during this period.” In total, he flew 207 combat missions over the course of his three tours.
Dick married his girlfriend, Marjorie (Marge), on February 10, 1945, at Concordia Lutheran Church in Superior. They went on their honeymoon in California.
Just a few months after getting married, Major Bong died while test piloting a P-80 Shooting Star jet over California. During the flight, an instrument malfunctioned, causing the jet to begin to fall toward a residential area. Rather than ejecting from the plane to save himself, he stayed to guide the jet toward an empty field. The wreckage showed that he ejected before crashing and tried to get his parachute out, but it was too late to save him. Major Richard Bong died on August 6, 1945, the same day that the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. His funeral service was on August 8, 1945, at Concordia Lutheran Church in Superior. His body was buried in the Poplar cemetery. Many admirers joined his friends and family at the funeral to show their respects to one of the nation’s greatest heroes.
After his death, Richard has been memorialized with museums and memorials both in the United States and in the Pacific. The Bong Memorial opened in 1955 in Poplar, with a P-38 on pylons and a museum. In 2002, the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center was opened in Superior. There is a bridge named after him in Annandale, Australia, and a movie theater on a Japanese airbase.
His widow, Marge, got married again in 1946, to James Biard, then later to Murray Drucker in 1953. She raised two children with Drucker, Karen and Kristina, in Burbank, California. Marge passed away on September 27, 2003, after a long fight with breast cancer. She was buried next to Richard in Poplar.
Sources
Bong, Carl and Mike O’Connor. America’s Ace of Aces: The Dick Bong Story. 2nd ed. Self published, 1985.
Bong, Carl. Dear Mom, So We Have a War. 4th ed. Burgess Pub., 1991.
Kenney, Gen. George. Dick Bong: America’s Ace of Aces. 3rd ed. Superior, WI: Richard I Bong Veterans Historical Center, 2014.
Richard I Bong Veterans Historical Center. Superior, WI. bongcenter.org.
Woo, Elaine. “Marjorie Drucker, 79; Wife of World War II Ace Richard Bong.” Los Angeles Times. October 10, 2003. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-oct-10-me-drucker10-story.html#:~:text=Drucker%20and%20her%20husband%2C%20who,of%20Irvine%2C%20who%20survive%20her
