Above and Beyond the Call of Duty
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W  hile the heroism of the World War I aviator could not be discounted, the value of the airplane as a military weapon faced an uphill battle among traditional military planners. In the two decades of relative peace the United States enjoyed after The War to End all Wars, military aviators continued to prove their courage to demonstrate the value of flight. Congress recognized the non-combat heroism of aviators who pushed the envelope with specially authorized Medals of Honor. Two Naval aviators, Commander Richard Byrd and Machinist Floyd Bennett received Medals of Honor for their aerial expedition to the North Pole in 1926. The Army Air Corps followed that historic flight the following year when the LONE EAGLE, a reserve pilot, demonstrated that aerial flight knew no geographical boundaries, and flew alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
A  ny doubts about the value of airpower or the effectiveness of the airplane as a military weapon were quickly dispelled in the stunning December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. In less than two hours 360 Japanese airplanes literally destroyed the American Pacific fleet, killing nearly 2,500 Americans, and with a loss of less than a dozen of their own aircraft. Reeling from the staggering losses, America needed a glimmer of hope in the early dark days of World War II. Four months after the Day of Infamy, 80 Army aviators performed the unthinkable, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of an aircraft carrier 400 miles from the Japanese homeland, to strike back. The first moral victory of World War II was appropriately achieved by the knights of the air, and was achieved not only because of their great valor, but also because of their ingenuity. America's airmen continued to push the envelope. Airmen from all branches of service gained a new respect, and the sole surviving Medal of Honor aviation hero of World War I found himself returning to the combat airfields less than a year after the Pearl Harbor attack, to share his experiences and encourage a new generation of fliers. (Eddie Rickenbacker was paid $1 per day for this special mission, during which his transport plane crashed in the Pacific and he spent 21 days surviving in a small life raft adrift in the war zone.) For more than four years pilots and co-pilots, gunners, bombardiers and navigators continued to build the legacy of the American airman. And, just as the pilots of the Army Air Corps gave our Nation its first ray of hope in the early days of the war, it was Army aviators who brought it all to a conclusion with the historic flight of the Enola Gay. Along the way, our Nation gained...and lost...many heroes.
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