Gen Gerald Johnson dies Sep 9, 2002

[-ammo-]

Another  war hero dies--

JOHNSON, GERALD W., 83, of St. Petersburg, died Monday (Sept. 9, 2002)
at the VA Medical Center at Bay Pines. Born in Owenton, Ky., he came
here in 2000 from Sarasota. He was an Air Force lieutenant general and
World War II fighter pilot ace, retiring in 1974 as inspector general of

the Air Force. In World War II, he fought with the 56th Fighter Group in

England. Flying the P-47 Thunderbolt, he shot down 18 enemy aircraft in
15 months before he was shot down. He spent 13 months as a POW. He also
was a veteran of the Korean War and commanded the 8th Air Force from
Guam during the Vietnam War. His autobiography, Called to Command, was
published in 1996. Survivors include his wife, Marjorie I.; a son,
Gerald W. Jr., Alpine, Texas; four daughters, Deborah A. Bennett,
Charlotte, N.C., Michelle Damon, Little Rock, Ark., Yvonne Leibold,
Carmel, Ind., and Christine Harrison, Great Falls, Va.; and 16
grandchildren. Anderson-McQueen Funeral Homes & Cremation Tribute
Center-Ninth Street Chapel, St. Petersburg.

[Pongo]

[Karnak]

I thank him for his service.

[Sancho]

General Johnson.

Gerald W Johnson had quite a career, as the attached image below shows.  He flew P-47s, F-86s, U-2s, B-58s, and B-52s.  His book details a lot of interesting experiences, including the supersonic, low level nuclear bomb delivery practice in the Hustler, and also a bit on how he learned to become one of the 56th FGs most prolific aces:

[size=-1]As I was growing up I did a lot of duck hunting.  Sitting in a duck blind for hours waiting for the ducks to fly over us, too often I would not hit a duck.  I shot out of range, or so my Dad told me.  I do not remember what my Dad had done to learn to shoot them in range, but I know what I did and it helped a lot.  Using a couple of boards, I put together something that did not look like a duck but it was the same size as a duck in flight.  The next fall for a week or so before the duck season opened, I put this wooden duck on top of a pole and measured from it the killing distance of my particular shotgun and load.  I then spent a lot of time standing at that distance looking at the wooden duck down the gun barrel of my shotgun until I knew exactly what a duck should look like at my killing range.  When hunting seaon opened that year I downed a lot more ducks.

During the early summer of 1943, I decided to apply my duck hunting experience to combat flying.  I had my crew chief position my airplane and put another P-47 200 yards directly in front of my airplane and raise the tails of each airplane so that they would look generally the same as in flight.  I spent a lot of time in the cockpit looking through the gunsight of my airplane at the other airplane and getting fixed in my mind just how large an enemy plane was when it was in range.  The P-47 was larger than the FW-190, but nevertheless I now had a fairly good picture fixed in my mind of what I was looking for.[/size]

Zemke, Gabby, and the other aces of the 56th regarded Gerry Johnson as one of the best natural shooters of the group.

[funkedup]

Gerry, Rest in Peace.