The Day I Owned the Sky

New York: Bantam Books, 1988. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xviii, 238 pages. Illustrations. Index. Robert Lee Scott Jr. (12 April 1908 - 27 February 2006) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force and a flying ace of World War II, credited with shooting down 13 Japanese aircraft. Scott is best known for his autobiography God is My Co-Pilot about his exploits in World War II with the Flying Tigers and the United States Army Air Forces in China and Burma. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1932, Scott completed pilot training at Kelly Field, Texas. Colonel Scott flew 388 combat missions from July 1942 to October 1943, shooting down 13 Japanese aircraft to become one of America's earliest flying aces of the war. Scott was ordered back to the U.S. in October 1943 to become deputy for operations at the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics at Orlando Army Air Base, Florida. He returned to China in 1944 to fly fighter aircraft equipped with experimental rockets directed against Japanese supply locomotives in eastern China. He then went to Okinawa to direct the same type of strikes against enemy shipping as the war ended. In this autobiography, he recaps his career as the right-hand man of Gen. Claire Chennault of Flying Tigers fame and adds information about his adventures since the end of that war. Most absorbing are his tales of the near-realization of two dreams of his youth: retracing the route of Marco Polo from Venice to Beijing and walking the Great Wall of China. He did not accomplish the first adventure in its entirety because of political considerations; he did achieve the second at the age of 76, disguised as a Chinese for part of the journey. Also entertaining are Scott's stories of his years in the peacetime Air Force, for, like his mentor Chennault, he is given to speaking his mind. Rich with frank anecdotes of a life dedicated to flying, General Scott's story is full of vitality and driving energy--just like the great fighter pilot who lived it.