Distinguished Flying Cross recipients
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2 min readThe 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.
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.
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 wrote up the story for The Journal of Arizona History, Winter, 1995.
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.
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