James H. Howard - Military Service

Military Service

Howard initially was a U.S. Navy pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6), based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, beginning in 1939. In June 1941, he left the Navy to become a P-40 fighter pilot with the American Volunteer Group (AVG), the famous Flying Tigers in Burma. He flew 56 missions and was credited with shooting down six Japanese airplanes. Following the disbandment of the Flying Tigers on July 4, 1942, Howard returned to the U.S. and was commissioned a captain in the Army Air Force. In 1943, he was promoted to the rank of major and given command of the 356th Fighter Squadron in the 354th Fighter Group, based in the United Kingdom.

On January 11, 1944, Howard single-handedly flew his P-51 into some thirty Luftwaffe fighters that were attacking a formation of American B-17 Flying Fortress bombers over Oschersleben, Germany. For more than a half-hour, Howard defended the heavy bombers of the 401st Bomb Group against the swarm of Luftwaffe fighters, repeatedly attacking the enemy airplanes and shooting down as many as six. The leader of the bomber formation later reported that, "For sheer determination and guts, it was the greatest exhibition I've ever seen. It was a case of one lone American against what seemed to be the entire Luftwaffe. He was all over the wing, across and around it. They can't give that boy a big enough award."

The following week, the Air Force held a press conference in London at which Major Howard described the attack to reporters, including the BBC, the Associated Press, CBS reporter Walter Cronkite, and Andy Rooney, then a reporter for Stars and Stripes. The story was a media sensation, prompting articles such as "Mustang Whip" in the Saturday Evening Post, "Fighting at 425 Miles Per Hour" in Popular Science, and "One Man Air Force" in True magazine. The New York Times reported on January 19, 1944, that after Howard's P-51 ran out of ammunition, he continued to dive on enemy airplanes. "An attack by a single fighter on four or five times his own number wasn't uncommon," wrote a fellow World War II fighter pilot in his postwar memoirs of Howard's performance, "but a deliberate attack by a single fighter against thirty plus enemy fighters without tactical advantage of height or surprise is rare almost to the point of extinction." The following month, Howard was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and in June 1944, he was presented the Medal of Honor by General Carl Spaatz for his January 11 valor.

In early 1945, Howard was promoted to full Colonel and assigned as base commander of Pinellas Army Airfield (now St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport) in Florida. With the establishment of the United States Air Force as a separate service in 1947, then-Colonel Howard was transferred to the Air Force In 1948, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force, commanding the reserve 96th Bomb Wing.