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Ace of three theaters — Europe, the Pacific, and Korea
On the record
Walker Melville Mahurin was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, on December 5, 1918 — some obituaries say Fort Wayne or Ann Arbor, and both are wrong — and grew up in Fort Wayne, at 927 Wildwood Avenue. He graduated from South Side High School in 1937 and learned to fly at Smith Field. Flying with the 56th Fighter Group, in November 1943 he became the first American double ace in the European theater; shot down over France in March 1944, he escaped with the help of the Resistance. He finished the Second World War with 20.75 victories across Europe and the Pacific, then added 3.5 MiG-15s in Korea — 24.25 in all, the only Air Force pilot to score in Europe, the Pacific, and Korea — before being shot down there and spending sixteen months as a prisoner of war. He died in Newport Beach, California, on May 11, 2010, and is buried at Arlington. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's obituary claimed him plainly as the city's own war hero.
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- § 06 — people of the record · famous-people supplement
Sources: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (obituary, May 2010); The Washington Post (obituary).