Neel E. Kearby
United States Army Air Forces Medal of Honor recipient (1911-1944)
Neel Ernest Kearby (June 5, 1911 – March 5, 1944) was a United States Army Air Forces colonel and P-47 Thunderbolt pilot in World War II who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat. Kearby is the first United States Army Air Forces fighter pilot to have received the Medal of Honor. He scored 22 aerial victories and was the top-scoring P-47 pilot in the Pacific Theater.
Early life
Kearby was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, on June 5, 1911, to John Gallatin and Bessie Lee (Stone) Kearby. He graduated from Arlington High School in 1928, and graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1936 (known then as North Texas Agricultural College) with a bachelor's degree in business administration.
Military career
Kearby joined the Army Air Corps in 1937, and received flight training at Randolph and Kelly Air Fields.
World War II
Kearby then served with the 94th and 40th Pursuit Squadrons of the 1st Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field in Michigan, until December 1940. Kearby commanded the 14th Pursuit Squadron in the Panama Canal Zone from December 1940 to August 1942, where he flew P-39 Airacobras.
He was transferred in October 1942 to Westover Field in Massachusetts to take command of the new 348th Fighter Group with the rank of major. In June 1943, now a lieutenant colonel, Kearby arrived in Australia with his fighter group after months of training on the P-47 Thunderbolt.
“Neel E. Kearby” enters the record as united States Army Air Forces Medal of Honor recipient (1911-1944). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Neel, Kearby and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6986702. VIAF identifies the subject as 50888000. The Library of Congress control number is n92105688. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1944, 1928 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Neel E. Kearby” 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.