Levi R. Chase
American flying ace (1917-1994)
Major General Levi R. Chase (23 December 1917 – 4 September 1994) was an American fighter pilot and double flying ace during World War II. Chase served for 33 years including four combat tours across three different wars: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, he flew 512 combat missions in total.
Early life and education
He was born in Cortland, New York, in 1917. He graduated from Cortland High School, in 1936, and attended Syracuse University from 1937 through 1940.
Military career
He entered active military duty in the United States Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet in February 1941, and graduated from advanced flying training at Maxwell Field, Alabama, with his commission as Second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps and pilot wings in September 1941.
He then was assigned to the 8th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) at Mitchel Field, New York, as a pilot. He joined the 58th Pursuit Squadron, 33d Pursuit Group, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in December 1941. As a member of the 33d Pursuit Group, he flew a P-40 Warhawk from the aircraft carrier USS Chenango during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. As commander of the 60th Fighter Squadron he completed his first combat tour as the leading American ace in Tunisia with 10 victories.
From July 1943 to March 1944, he served as an assistant operations officer for the I Fighter Command Headquarters at Mitchel Field. From March through June 1944 he was base commander at Hills Grove Army Air Field, New York, and then operations officer and later deputy commander, 2d Air Commando Group, Lakeland Army Air Field, Florida.
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This entry incorporates text from “Levi R. Chase” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.