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From; The Pioneer Press
WWII ace who flew with cat dies at 84
From news services
To make a point to fellow fighter pilots in World War II, Col. Fred J. Christensen always flew with Sinbad, a stray black cat he had found.
Seeing him return safe from combat missions — black cat and all — helped motivate the other pilots, his daughter Diane Haagensen said Sunday.
And counter to traditional superstitions, Sinbad was very good luck for her father, who shot down 22 Nazi planes during the war, including six in a two-minute span of one air battle.
Christensen, who the Massachusetts Air National Guard said was believed to be the last living U.S. ace from World War II, died April 4 in a Northborough, Mass., nursing center. He was 84 and was being treated for complications from diabetes.
Though he flew 107 combat missions against the German Luftwaffe, "he was a very humble man," his daughter said in a telephone interview. "He didn't want to be known as a war hero."
Christensen "was happy for the opportunity to speak with people, especially children, because he wanted them to know about history and that wars were not always good things," she said, "because people had to make sacrifices and their families had to make sacrifices."
His older brother, also a pilot, died during the Korean War — a loss Christensen never got over.
Christensen had studied at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the nascent days of World War II and sought to join the military after Germany invaded Norway, where his ancestors were from and his extended family lived.
He had always wanted to fly.
"From a very early age, he did anything he could to get to the airport or befriend those at school whose dads had planes," his daughter said, adding, "As children, we thought he could fly without wings."
A second lieutenant and captain in the Army Air Corps, he flew P-47 Thunderbolts with the 56th Fighter Group — Colonel Hubert "Hub" Zemke's Wolfpack — and shot down six enemy planes July 7, 1944.
One time, a reporter and photographer arrived to do a feature on the Wolfpack. When the photographer tried to get a picture of Sinbad, the cat kept leaping among the packed parachutes. That day, Haagensen said, all the pilots whose gear Sinbad had touched returned with air victories, increasing the cat's legend.
For his service in combat, he was awarded some of the most prestigious medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star and the Air Medal.
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The WWII fighter pilot,their shoes can never be filled.
Robbie
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Fly Fast Make Noise!
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