The Distinguished Flying Cross is the third-highest award – behind the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross – for recognizing airmen for valor in aerial combat operations.
The Distinguished Flying Cross is the third-highest award – behind the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross – for recognizing airmen for valor in aerial combat operations.
Lee Mifflin, who died May 15 at age 89, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Gold Stars for his service in WWII, his family wrote in his obituary for the Idaho Statesman.
Mifflin’s obit includes quotes from various Navy citations without specifying which incident matches each award. The former Navy pilot “succeeded in destroying one enemy plane in the air and damaging three on the ground,” “strafed and destroyed a locomotive,” “destroyed a submarine with two direct rocket hit” and “assisted in silencing an antiaircraft battery with a fragmentation bomb.”
On August 9th 1945, Lee flew in the formation providing fighter support for Bock’s Car, the B-29 Super Fortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki leading to Japan’s surrender less than a week later.
Gilbert Francis Bradley, a retired bank executive, who died April 11, received the Distinguished Flying Cross as a pilot during World War II, according to the obit in the Arizona Republic.
On February 25, 1944, Brad and his crew flying a mission in the Sophisticated Lady were shot down over Yugoslavia, in the territory of Marshall Tito’s Partisans. The Partisans guided them to a rescue air strip, traveling over mountain tops, through dense forests and around German camps. On April 3rd, they were evacuated.
Brad and his crew were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this mission. Their story appeared as a comic strip in The American Air Forces magazine, misidentifying their plane as the Pistol Packin’ Mama, the plane they had regularly flown until it was shot down manned by another crew.
Years later, Brad and Marion (his wife) wrote up the story for The Journal of Arizona History, Winter, 1995.
Wendell H. Davis, who died April 25 at age 93, flew B-17s, B-24s and B-29s with the 450th Bombardment Group, known as the Cottontails during World War II, according to the obit published in the Canton (Ohio) Repository. His service was exceptional, successfully completing 50 missions. He flew in fierce combat missions bombing the oil fields at Ploesti, Rumania, a turning point in the war. For his ‘courage and decisive action’ and ‘combat efficiency and devotion to duty’, in 1944 Wendell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and other military honors.
Daniel Brattoli served as a pilot with the Army Air Forces in the South Pacific during World War II, according to the family-prepared obit that appeared in the Morning Journal of Lorain, Ohio.
The retired carpenter and general contractor, who died May 4 at age 89, was awarded several medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross.
This post was contributed by Alana Baranick, a freelance obituary writer. She was the director of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers and chief author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers before she passed away in 2015.
