The Truth About America's Second Leading Ace

The Thomas McGuire story is certainly not what it seems. They actually gave him a Medal of Honor for the poor decision making that resulted in the deaths of himself and one of those under his command. He almost got the whole flight (4) killed. The two survivors took battle damage. The sortie was apparently not officially authorized. It was a sortie to allow McGuire to pick the kills rather than have the flight destroy the enemy as efficiently and as safely as possible. You see, McGuire was only 2 kills from Richard Bong and he was already overdue to rotate State Side. The sortie was a "Glory Sortie" set up by McGuire, for McGuire.

Additionally, it was a sortie in poor visibility conditions and McGuires uncontroverted orders to "Hold the Drop Tanks" should have disqualified him from the Medal of Honor. Usually, you need to save the lives of your comrades to earn that medal, but sometimes the truth and morale aren't necessarily compatible. This is a fact in the U.S. Military, or any military for that matter. The U.S. Military doesn't have dibbs on lying. At least not in the WWII era.

But, I digress. Theres only one from McGuire's final sortie alive now. If anyone is really interested in how and why brave men die following are a couple links I'd recommend reading. Iraq should be proof enough that you can't trust the Pentagon.

What Really Happened to Tom McGuire?: [url]http://www.aerothentic.com/history/articles/McGuire.htm
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Captain Weavers "Combat" Report: [url]http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/afp/tmcr.htm [/url]

I'll go on reading some of them right now...

People do make mistakes especialy when ego/history get to do the thinking. Boington had a little help in that area too.