"Ace of Aces" Dies at 86

Ace of Aces David McCampbell was the Navy's most decorated WWII pilot and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor

David McCampbell, a onetime student at Georgia Tech and the most decorated Navy fighter pilot of World War II, died June 30 at a Veterans Administration hosptial in Riviera Beach, Fla., at the age of 86.

Called the "Ace of Aces" for shooting down 34 enemy aircraft and destroying another 24 planes on the ground, Mr. McCampbell, Cls '32, once downed nine Japanese Zeroes in 90 minutes during one of the Battles of Leyte Gulf in 1944. On Oct. 24 of that year, Cmdr. McCampbell's Grumman Hellcat and one other American plane confronted a Japanese force of some 60 aircraft; the Japanese fighters abandoned their mission before even reaching the fleet they were to attack.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Mr. McCampbell the Congressional Medal of Honor on Jan. 10, 1945. The feat of nine kills in a single mission is believed to be a record in the annals of aerial combat. The medal's accompanying citation reads, "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty ... during this single engagment in which the outnumbering attack force was utterly routed and virtually annihilated."

The day after the action in Leyte Gulf, McCampbell was assigned as target coordiantor for a strike force that destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser and one destroyer, along with damaging numerous other enemy ships, earning him the Navy Cross.

Capt. McCampbell retired from the Navy in 1964 after 31 years of service. He was the only holder of the Medal of Honor ever to command an aircraft carrier, and he was one of only two Navy pilots to be awarded the Medal of Honor for air-to-air combat.

After briefly trying his hand at real estate in the Bahamas, he retired to Hypoluxo, Fla., where he was active in the local civic association. His Hellcat fighter plane sits in a Pensacola museum. The last few years found him working on his golf game, his fishing and his bridge-playing.

"I brag about the planes I shot down, but I don't brag about the number of people I killed," Mr. McCampbell said in a recent interview with the Palm Beach Post. "For 32 years, all I did was try to forget all of it."