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An 'Ace' in his field WWII flying Ace from Pratt inducted into the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame last month. By Clara Kilbourn - The Hutchinson News


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PRATT - As a young man with three years of college in Kansas behind him, George Chandler headed to the California School of Technology to study engineering and pursue a civilian pilot's license.

Along the way, he became a World War II Ace credited with shooting down five Japanese Zeros.

"I'm lucky, so lucky," he said. "I could see the war coming, and I wanted to fly airplanes in combat. I got to do everything I wanted to do."

When he returned home after the war, he joined the Chandler family of Kansas bankers.

Chandler's P-38 flying days go back six decades, but the memories of the air combat missions he flew in World War II remain crystal clear.

"We were fighting over the ocean," he said. "No borders, just the same big sea."

Chandler, 86, was inducted into the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame on Sept. 28 in Midland, Texas, as "an American airman who served in a manner that reflects credit upon the United States."

"He's very deserving of the honor," Chandler's long-time acquaintance Bill Small, of Pratt, said.

Chandler's military service began when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in November 1941, one month before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was 20 years old.

With flight school completed, he was assigned to the South Pacific, flying a two-engine P-38.

Weather permitting, he and his buddies combed the skies daily in search of Japanese planes. Their mission: to protect ground combat troops as they battled from one island to the next on the way toward Japan.

He downed his first Japanese Zero in May 1943, during an escort mission to protect a ship loaded with troops headed toward the island of Munda.

Chandler recounted the air battle: The American fliers were attacked and badly outnumbered by a group of Japanese fighters who chased them into heavy cloud cover.

"I thought they'd turn and go the other way," he said. "When I came out of the clouds, there was the guy who had been chasing me."

He headed back into the cloud when several more Zeros attacked. "That was my first fight and what a fight that was," he said. A bullet struck the plane's oil radiator, it began leaking and the engine went all to pieces, Chandler said.

"When you have an enemy fighter attacking, you can see the gun flashes and hear the shells hitting the wings of the plane," he said. "That wonderful P-38 took me home to Guadalcanal."

Another time on a bomber escort mission, Chandler headed back home after an engine malfunctioned. On the trip back, he corrected the problem and turned around to rejoin the mission when he encountered a single Zero lagging behind.

"That Zero and I had it out, just the two of us," Chandler said. "I knew I could turn better than him. I made a double circle and I could put my guns on him. The next thing I knew he rolled over in a dive and I caught him."

The ambition of every pilot was to shoot down five enemy planes and be named a World War II Ace.

In 1944, with his Ace status secured, Chandler was assigned to train new pilots for combat. He was discharged from active duty in January 1946 but remained in the Air Force Reserves.

His military service has remained a constant throughout his life: "No. 1, you're serving your country and you're proud of that. No. 2, you're in association with some fine, wonderful comrades and No. 3 you helped win the war," he said.