Morning clue. Thanks; Ernie P.
What warbird pilot do I describe?
Clues:
1. He was an ace.
2. And he was a top one.
3. He earned his private pilot’s license before the war.
4. Although he was working in dentistry at the time.
5. And when the war started, he joined an infantry unit.
6. After being wounded, he switched to the air service.
7. As a dental assistant.
8. Before finally being accepted for pilot training.
9. Whereupon, he was put to work as an instructor and was used to ferry aircraft.
10. Even when he finally got into combat, he wasn’t assigned as a fighter pilot.
11. When he finally was trained as a fighter pilot, and assigned to a front line unit, he quickly began to distinguish himself.
12. He scored three victories in less than three weeks, and was promptly reassigned to an elite unit.
13. In six months or so, he had scored 18 victories.
14. He was commissioned as an officer a few months later.
15. Shortly thereafter, he was injured in a crash and put out of action for several months.
16. In his first month back in action, flying a new type of fighter aircraft, he scored 16 more victories.
17. His aircraft carried his personal insignia; one well known.
18. In the same month, he was shot down in flames, but escaped his burning aircraft and parachuted to safety.
19. His first three victories were balloons.
20. He scored more than 40 victories in less than one year of actual combat flying.
21. After the war, he worked as a manual laborer before finally opening a dentist’s office.
22. One of his patients supposedly used his name in an iconic war novel.
23. He later founded his own aircraft company.
24. He died in an air crash.
25. While testing a new prototype fighter.