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Pilot missed ace status, but heroic exploits were many

Retired Col. John A. Carey spent more than 30 years in uniform and toted up an extraordinary list of achievements. He was “Air Force blue through and through,” according to a family member.

The Washington, D.C., native is one of the few pilots to have flown the Spitfire, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang in combat in World War II. He also flew the F-86 Sabre in Korea.

Carey enlisted in the Army in 1939 and qualified for pilot training. He pinned on pilot wings and second lieutenant’s bars five days after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

His first overseas duty was flying British-built Spitfire Mk. 5 and Mk. 9 fighters in England, Gibraltar and North Africa with the 52nd Fighter Group. Carey was shot down twice, wounded and once nearly captured by German troops. He just missed ace status, shooting down 4½ German aircraft. (A pilot is considered an ace once he shoots down five enemy planes. Pilots receive half a credit when they share a “kill” with another pilot.)

Carey returned stateside to form and command the 391st Fighter Squadron, part of the 366th Fighter Group, equipped with P-47 Thunderbolts. He took the squadron to Europe and was over the beaches of Normandy during the Allied invasion June 6, 1944.

Two days later, Carey landed in an open field behind German lines to rescue a fellow P-47 pilot who’d been shot down. The two escaped together in Carey’s single-seat fighter. “I landed, braked pretty hard with flaps down,” Carey said in a telephone interview. “I threw out my parachute to make space for him. I said, ‘Get in!’ I took off with my canopy open and my head sticking out of the airplane.”

The unorthodox rescue earned Carey a dressing-down via telephone from supreme commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower — for risking his own aircraft — but it was clear that Ike admired Carey’s daring act. “He congratulated me on saving someone but said, ‘Please don’t do it again,’.” Carey remembered. “I said, ‘Yes, sir!’.”

During the Korean War, Carey was a squadron and deputy group commander flying F-86 Sabres in high-speed air duels with the Soviet MiG-15. On April 3, 1951, he was credited with damaging two MiGs.

Carey was a colonel and key staff officer in Korea on Jan. 23, 1968, when North Korea seized the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo. Carey said he tried to prevent the Pueblo seizure by diverting South Korean F-5A Freedom Fighters to the scene but could not obtain permission from U.S. authorities.

Carey retired in 1970. His awards include the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.

Robert F. Dorr, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is co-author of “Hell Hawks,” a history of an American fighter group. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net. Army veteran Fred L. Borch is the regimental historian for the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and the author of “The Silver Star,” a history of America’s third highest award for combat heroism. His e-mail address is borchfj@aol.com