Robert Scott Dies

Robert Scott, War-Hero Author, Dies at 97 - New York Times

Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott Jr., one of America’s most celebrated World War II fighter pilots and author of the best-selling wartime memoir “God Is My Co-Pilot,” died yesterday at an assisted living center in Warner Robins, Ga., home of Robins Air Force Base, near Macon. He was 97.
His death was announced by Paul Hibbitts, director of the Museum of Aviation at the base. General Scott was the honorary chairman of the museum’s foundation.In the spring of 1942, Robert Scott, then a colonel in the Army Air Forces, was awarded the Silver Star for helping to evacuate thousands of Allied troops and refugees trapped when the Japanese overran Burma. Braving blinding storms and pursued by Japanese fighters, he ferried evacuees to India aboard a C-47 transport plane, flying over 17,000-foot peaks.

Piloting a Curtiss P-40 fighter painted with the single eye and tiger-shark teeth of the Flying Tigers, he also roamed the skies on one-man missions. Operating out of Dinjan, India, he strafed Japanese truck columns on the Burma Road linking Burma to China, dropped 500-pound bombs on bridges across the Salween River and hit barges loaded with Japanese troops.

Comments

  1. Chief RZ wrote:

    I believe that Scott AFB was named for him near Bellville, Illinois, not far from where I was born.
    I went TDY there twice. Not bad in the summer!

  2. Marvin Champion wrote:

    No. Scott AFB was named for the first enlisted man to die in an aircraft accident (a balloon crash, I believe).

    Gen Scott’s energy and enthusiasm for life were infectious. He will be sorely missed by the Middle Georgia aviation community.