Neptunus Lex

David Lee “Tex” Hill, a naval aviator who left the service to join the Flying Tigers in the defense of China from Imperial Japanese aggression, died Thursday at his home near San Antonio, surrounded by his family. He was 92 years old.

Made up of volunteers flying obsolete planes half a world away, the Flying Tigers first tangled with Japanese pilots about two weeks after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, shooting down nine enemy planes and killing 63 airmen over Kunming. They had flown as U.S. military aviators until being secretly recruited to fight as mercenaries over China, which had no air force.

The Flying Tigers came to Asia carrying passports that identified them as farmers, traders, vaudeville entertainers and missionaries. Some of the real missionaries on board their Java-bound ocean liner, the Bloemfontein, sang hymns each morning as the pilots slept off their hangovers. The pilots retaliated each night by playing swing music on a phonograph…

‚ÄúHe’s been a role model for a whole lot of fighter pilots,‚Äù said famed flier Chuck Yeager, a retired Air Force one-star general who was a flight student when he first met Hill. ‚ÄúHe was in the right place and the right time, and also was able to take advantage of the situation.‚Äù

A humble but direct and sometimes blunt man, Hill was the proverbial preacher’s son who closed the bar, ‚Äúand held (his liquor) better than anyone I’ve ever seen, too,‚Äù laughed Schaupp. At home after his first combat tour in early 1943, he condemned a coal strike, saying, ‚ÄúI don’t know if those strikers realize that their actions are costing lives out there. If I run into any of those guys, I’ll probably get thrown in jail. I’d treat them like enemy agents.‚Äù

Deeply loyal to his comrades in arms, Hill defied orders to make pilots fly who had logged more than 100 missions in China – and were dying in alarming numbers. He also held great affection for his ground crews, who worked long hours in difficult conditions – sometimes under fire - and often were forced to scrounge for spare parts.

Hill garnered 10 air kills in obsolescent P-40 aircraft, while also conducting air-to-ground strikes and harassment.

After the deactivation of the Flying Tigers in July 1942, Hill was one of only five Flying Tigers to join its USAAF successor, the 23rd Fighter Group. He was promoted to major in the Army Air Corps, and activated the 75th Fighter Squadron and later to command the 23rd Fighter Group.

Before returning to the states in late 1944, “Tex” Hill and his P-51 Mustang scratched another six Japanese aircraft. It is believed that he was the first to down a Zero with a P-51. Altogether, Hill destroyed 18.25 enemy aircraft.

On Thanksgiving Day 1943, he led a force of 12 B-25s, 10 P-38s, and 8 new P-51 Mustangs from Saichwan, China, on the first strike against Formosa. The Japanese had 100 bombers and 100 fighters located at Shimchiku Airfield, and the bombers were landing as “Tex” Hill‚Äôs force arrived. The enemy managed to get seven fighters airborne, but they were promptly shot down. Forty-two Japanese airplanes were destroyed and 12 more were probably destroyed in the attack. The American force returned home with no casualties.

During the closing months of World War II, Hill commanded the 412th Fighter Group, the first jet unit in the Army Air Forces. The group flew the Bell XP-59 and later the Lockheed P-80.

Naval aviator, Flying Tiger, Army Air Corps and US Air Force officer, Air National Guard general, beloved husband and father: Soar brother, once more unchained, unbound.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

–Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, No 412 squadron, RCAF,
Killed 11 December 1941