Lt. Levi Chase, 58th Pursuit Squadron, 33rd Pursuit Group. North Africa, 1943.

Maj. Gen. Levi Chase

Lt. Levi Chase also began his fighter-pilot career in North Africa, flying a P-40F for the 58th Pursuit Squadron, 33d Pursuit Group. In six weeks from mid-December 1942 to the beginning of February 1943, he scored four Me-109s plus a German bomber, recorded variously as an He-111 or Ju-88. Then, after six weeks of quiet in which he upgraded to a P-40L (a lightened P-40F), in the last half of March he downed an FW-190 (no mean feat in any P-40) and, on a bomber-escort mission to Mezzouna, Tunisia, an Italian C.202. Then, at the beginning of April 1943, Chase scored two double victories, on the 1st and 5th, all Messerschmitt 109s. He rose to command of the 60th Fighter Squadron before completing his first combat tour. Ten victories made him the top American ace over Tunisia.

From July 1943 Chase served in the States with the I Fighter Command, then became deputy commander, 2d Air Commando Group, when it transferred to the China-Burma-India Theater in July 1944. On March 15, 1945, Chase led perhaps the longest fighter raids of the war: 1,569 miles from Cox's Bazar in far eastern India (now Bangladesh) to Bangkok, Thailand. In his P-51, Smiling Jack, he shot down a Nakajima Ki-43 “Oscar” and destroyed two more enemy planes on the ground (uncredited). Chase won the Silver Star for the mission.

He scored another Oscar on March 26th; “At 06.25 hours we were approaching the target when I saw three Japanese aircraft coming towards us; they had just taken off, and were climbing to the west,” Chase reported. “We immediately pulled up to get them, one of us taking the one on the right, another the one to the left, and I attacking the middle one. We all poured it into them and they went down and hit the ground in formation, forming a 'V' in fire. I pulled over to the left, and was then warned that I was losing coolant.” Hit by flak, Chase bellied-in his Mustang and was sheltered by sympathetic locals until a Stinson L-5 Sentinel rescue plane arrived and flew him out. He finished the war with twelve victories.

Over 33 years, including four combat tours in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, Chase flew 512 combat missions. He won the Silver Star (with two oak leaf clusters) Distinguished Flying Cross (with five oak leaf clusters), Bronze Star (4 clusters), Purple Heart, Air Medal (27 oak leaf clusters), the British Distinguished Flying Cross (with bar), and the French Croix de Guerre (with palm).