At 11:23 on the morning of August 13th, 1945, First Lieutenant Oscar Perommo banked his P47N Thunderbolt hard left over Kjo, Korea, watching five Japanese fighters break formation 8,000 ft below. 26 years old, nine combat missions, zero kills. The son of a Mexican immigrant who had ridden with Ponchovilla was about to change that in the next 4 minutes.

50 plus Japanese aircraft had risen to meet 38 American Thunderbolts over what would later become Soul. The Americans were outnumbered. They were 750 mi from home. And the war that everyone assumed would last another year was 48 hours from ending. Nobody in either formation knew it yet.

 The atomic bombs had already fallen. Hiroshima on August 6th, Nagasaki on August 9th. Emperor Hirohito was meeting with his war council at that very moment, debating surrender. But over Korea, Japanese pilots were still flying, American pilots were still hunting, and Oscar Purdomo was diving toward the three trailing enemy fighters with eight 50 caliber machine guns loaded and ready.

 His P47N carried a name painted on the nose. Lil Mey’s Meat Chopper. The artwork showed a baby in a diaper chomping a cigar, wearing a derby hat, clutching a rifle. It was a tribute to his infant son, Kenneth, waiting back home in Los Angeles. Purdommo had no way of knowing whether he would see that boy again.

 The mission profile called for 8 hours of flying, 1500 m round trip, most of it over open ocean, where a single engine failure meant death. The P47N was built for exactly this kind of mission. Republic Aviation had redesigned the Thunderbolt specifically for the Pacific theater, adding wet wings that carried 93 gall of fuel in each wing route.

 The aircraft could haul over,200 gallons when fully loaded with external tanks. It had the range to escort B29 Superfortresses all the way to Japan and back. It had the firepower to destroy anything it caught. eight Browning machine guns, 3,000 rounds of ammunition, a 2,800 horsepower Pratt and Whitney radial engine that could push the 7-tonon fighter past 460 mph.

But range and firepower meant nothing if you could not find the enemy. For 6 weeks, the 57th Fighter Group had flown mission after mission from their base on Eashima, a tiny island 4 mi northwest of Okinawa. They had escorted bombers. They had strafed airfields. They had burned fuel and dropped bombs on targets that rarely shot back.

 The Japanese were hoarding their aircraft, saving them for the invasion everyone expected. Pilots joked that the enemy had simply run out of planes. August 13th proved them wrong. Mission 507-35 had launched 53 Thunderbolts at dawn. 15 had turned back with mechanical problems or navigation errors. The remaining 38 had droned northwest across the East China Sea, crossed the Korean coastline, and were approaching KJO when radar operators reported contacts.

 Lots of contacts. The Japanese 22nd and 85th centis had scrambled everything they had. Nakajima Ki 84 Frank fighters, Nakajima Key 43 Oscars, even a pair of Yokosa K5 Y willow trainers that had somehow found themselves in the wrong piece of sky. If you want to see how Purdomo’s meat chopper earned its name that morning, please hit that like button.

 It helps us share these forgotten stories with more viewers. Subscribe if you are new here. Back to Purdomo. He had selected the trailing three fighters from the enemy formation. Standard tactics. Hit the rear aircraft first. The leaders would not know they were under attack until their wingmen started burning. Perdomo pushed the throttle forward, felt the thunderbolt surge, and watched the distance close.

2,000 yd,500 1,000. At 800 yards, he centered his gunsite on the nearest enemy fighter and pressed the trigger. The war was about to end. Oscar Purdomo was about to become the last pilot in history to shoot down five aircraft in a single day. And he had exactly 4 minutes of ammunition left. The first burst caught the trailing Kai 84 exactly where Purdomo had aimed.

Engine cowling, cockpit. The Japanese fighter shuddered, belched black smoke, and began a spiral that would end in the Korean countryside 8,000 ft below. Perdomo did not watch it fall. He was already shifting his gunsite to the second aircraft. Nine combat missions without a single kill. 6 weeks of escort duty, strafing runs, and empty skies.

Now the enemy had finally appeared, and Oscar Purdomo discovered something about himself. He was good at this. Very good. The Kai 84 Frank was Japan’s best fighter in August 1945. Faster than the Zero, better armed, capable of climbing with American aircraft that had dominated the Pacific for 2 years.

 Japanese pilots called it the Gale. Allied intelligence had classified it as one of the few enemy fighters that could challenge American air superiority on equal terms. The 22nd and 85th Centis flying over Korea that morning had some of Japan’s most experienced pilots at the controls. None of that mattered when 850 caliber machine guns found their mark.

Purdommo’s second target tried to break right. Too slow. The P47N weighed nearly 20,000 lb fully loaded. It could not turn with a Japanese fighter. It could not climb as fast, but it could dive like nothing else in the sky. And when a Thunderbolt pilot caught an enemy from above and behind, the mathematics of aerial combat became simple.

 Speed plus firepower plus surprise equal destruction. The second Kai 84 took hits across its entire fuselage. Perdomo saw pieces separate from the aircraft. A section of wing, part of the tail assembly. Then flames erupted from the fuel tanks and the fighter became a fireball tumbling toward Earth. Two kills in less than 60 seconds.

 The third Japanese pilot had seen enough. He rolled inverted and dove for the deck, accelerating away from the American who had just killed his wingman. Perommo let him go. The Thunderbolt had the speed to chase, but pursuing a single fleeing enemy meant losing sight of the larger battle. Somewhere in the chaos above Korea, 37 other American pilots were fighting 50 plus Japanese aircraft.

 Purdommo needed to find his squadron. He pulled the P-47N into a climbing turn, scanning the sky for the distinctive silhouettes of friendly thunderbolts. The morning sun made identification difficult. Aircraft twisted and dove in every direction. Smoke trails marked the paths of damaged machines.

 At least three parachutes drifted below, though Purdomo could not tell whether they carried American or Japanese pilots. The fuel gauge showed the mission clock ticking. eight hours total flight time. Every minute of combat burned fuel at three times the cruise rate. The external tanks had been dropped before the engagement. Now Purdomo was running on internal fuel only and the return flight to Yashima would take nearly 4 hours.

 Mathematics again, simple and unforgiving. He spotted movement at 800 ft. Two aircraft flying in close formation heading northeast by planes. Perdomo blinked, uncertain what he was seeing. The silhouettes belong to training aircraft, not combat fighters. Yokosuka K5 Y willows, canvas covered relics from another era.

 What they were doing in the middle of an air battle over Korea made no tactical sense. It did not matter. They wore Japanese markings. They were legitimate targets. Purdomo rolled the thunderbolt inverted and pulled toward the earth, building speed for the intercept. The biplane saw him coming. They separated, each pilot choosing a different escape route.

 Perdomo selected the closer aircraft and opened fire. A willow trainer had a maximum speed of 132 mph. The P47N was diving at over 400. The engagement lasted approximately 3 seconds. Purdomo watched the biplane catch fire, spiral right, and impact the ground in a column of black smoke. His third kill of the morning. He searched for the second willow but could not locate it.

 The pilot had escaped into a cloud bank or simply disappeared against the terrain below. Purdommo pulled up, regaining altitude and checked his ammunition counters. The numbers had dropped significantly. Three kills had consumed nearly half his rounds. The meat chopper still had teeth, but they were getting shorter. He climbed above the clouds, searching for friendly aircraft.

 What he found instead were four Japanese fighters waiting an ambush. Four Nakajima Key 84 Franks held the altitude advantage. They had seen the American Thunderbolt climbing through the clouds. They had positioned themselves perfectly. Sun behind them, speed building, the textbook bounce that had killed hundreds of Allied pilots over the Pacific.

 Perdomo saw them at the last possible moment. Four shapes diving out of the glare, growing larger with terrifying speed. He had perhaps two seconds to react, two seconds to make a decision that would determine whether his son Kenneth ever saw his father again. He did not try to run. Running from a diving fighter meant taking hits in the engine or the cockpit.

 The P47N could absorb tremendous punishment, but not from four aircraft firing simultaneously. Instead, Purdomo did something that violated every instinct a pilot possessed. He turned into the attack. The maneuver caught the Japanese formation offguard. They had expected the American to dive or break away.

 Instead, the Thunderbolt was climbing toward them, nose high, speed bleeding away. For a brief moment, all four key 84 pilots had to adjust their aim. That moment was enough. Purdomo rolled the P47N onto its back and pulled hard, reversing direction while the Japanese fighters overshot. Their diving speed carried them past and below exactly as he had planned.

 Now the geometry had changed. The hunters had become targets. He selected the trailing aircraft and opened fire. The key 84 pilot never saw the tracers coming. 50 caliber rounds tore through the engine cowling and the Japanese fighter exploded in a ball of orange flame. Four kills. Oscar Purdomo had just become an ace.

 Not over months of combat, not through dozens of missions. In a single engagement lasting less than 5 minutes. The remaining three key 84s scattered. One dove for the deck. One climbed toward the clouds. The third tried to circle back for another pass. Perdomo ignored them all. His ammunition counters showed critically low numbers. Perhaps 30 seconds of firing time remained.

 He needed to find his squadron and begin the long flight home. The sky over Kjo had transformed into chaos. Smoke columns rose from at least a dozen crash sites. Aircraft circled at every altitude, some fighting, others simply trying to survive. Purdomo spotted a pair of P47Ns at 3,000 ft. Their distinctive paddleblade propellers catching the sun. Friendlies.

 He banked toward them. Then he saw what they were fighting. A single Ki 84 had latched onto the tail of one Thunderbolt and refused to let go. The American pilot was jinking hard, trying to shake his pursuer, but the Japanese fighter matched every move. The second P47N was attempting to help, but the angles were wrong.

 Every time the wingman lined up a shot, his squadron mate flew into the line of fire. Purdomo pushed the throttle to maximum power and dove toward the engagement. The meat chopper had perhaps 20 seconds of ammunition remaining, maybe less. It would have to be enough. He came in from above and behind the same attack profile that had worked four times already.

 The KI84 pilot was focused entirely on his target, watching the American Thunderbolt fill his gunsite, waiting for the perfect moment to fire. He never checked his 6:00. He never saw Purdommo diving toward him at 400 mph. Perdomo pressed the trigger and held it down. Tracers reached across the sky, converging on the Japanese fighter.

 Hits sparkled along the fuselage. The KI84 shuddered. Smoke began pouring from the engine. Then the guns went silent. Not a gradual slowdown, not a few final rounds, complete silence. All eight Browning machine guns had run dry simultaneously. 3,000 rounds of 50 caliber ammunition, enough firepower to destroy a small building, had been expended in less than 6 minutes of combat.

 The KI84 was damaged, but still flying. Smoke trailed from its engine, but the aircraft remained under control. The Japanese pilot, suddenly realizing he was under attack from a new direction, broke off his pursuit of the American Thunderbolt and turned toward Purdomo. Oscar Purdomo was now 750 mi from home, alone in hostile airspace.

With a wounded enemy fighter turning to kill him and exactly zero rounds of ammunition remaining, most pilots would have run. The mathematics demanded it. An unarmed fighter against a damaged but still dangerous enemy represented a calculation with only one rational answer. Dive for the deck. Use the Thunderbolt superior speed.

 Put as much distance as possible between yourself and the threat. Return to base. Live to fight another day. Oscar Perdomo did not run. The KI84 completed its turn and pointed its nose at the American Thunderbolt. The Japanese pilot could see the distinctive checkered cowling of the 57th Fighter Group. He could not know that the aircraft in front of him had expended every round of ammunition.

From his perspective, this was simply another American who needed killing. Purdommo watched the enemy fighter stabilize and begin its attack run. Smoke still poured from the damaged engine, but the aircraft was flying. The Japanese pilot had guns. Purdomo did not. The next 60 seconds would be determined entirely by skill, nerve, and the willingness to die.

 He turned toward the KI84. The maneuver made no tactical sense. An unarmed aircraft charging an armed enemy violated every principle of aerial combat. But Purdomo understood something that the mathematics could not capture. The Japanese pilot did not know the Thunderbolts guns were empty. All he could see was an American fighter coming straight at him, nose tonose, at a combined closing speed of nearly 800 mph.

Aerial chicken, the deadliest game in the sky. The Ki 84 pilot flinched first. With his engine trailing smoke and an apparently armed enemy boring in, he broke right, abandoning his attack run. Perdomo followed, turning inside the Japanese fighter, maintaining the illusion of an offensive posture. Every second he kept the enemy defensive was a second his squadron mates could use to reach the fight.

 He keyed his radio and called for help. Somewhere in the chaos over Korea, another P47N pilot heard the transmission. An American was in trouble. Engaged with an enemy needed assistance. The response was immediate. Perdomo continued his deadly dance with the Ki 84. Turn, counterturn, dive, climb. The Thunderbolts empty guns pointed at the Japanese fighter again and again, each time forcing the enemy pilot to react defensively.

 The deception could not last forever. Eventually, the Japanese pilot would realize that no tracers were coming. Eventually, he would understand that his opponent was bluffing with an empty hand. The help arrived before that moment came. A second P47N dropped out of the clouds at full power. The pilot had seen the engagement, understood the geometry, and positioned himself for a clean shot.

 The KI84, focused entirely on the Thunderbolt that had been chasing it for the past 90 seconds, never saw the new threat approaching from above. Eight 50 caliber machine guns opened fire simultaneously. The Japanese fighter disintegrated under the concentrated barrage. Wings separated from fuselage. The engine tore free and tumbled earth.

 What remained of the aircraft scattered across the Korean sky in a cloud of burning debris. Five kills. Oscar Purdomo had just achieved something that fewer than 100 American pilots accomplished during the entire war. He had become an ace in a single day. The last pilot in United States history to earn that distinction. The designation would not become official until intelligence officers reviewed his gun camera footage back on Eosima.

 The film would confirm that his first four kills were actually KI 84 Franks, not the KI43 Oscars that initial reports suggested. It would document the biplane trainer, the absurd Willow that had wandered into the wrong battle, and it would show the final engagement, the damaged KI84 that Purdomo had attacked, chased, and harassed until his squadron mate could deliver the killing blow.

 All five victories belong to him. The gun camera did not lie. But Oscar Purdomo’s war was not over yet. He was still 750 mi from home. His fuel gauges showed numbers that demanded immediate attention. And the sky over Korea still contained Japanese aircraft who wanted very much to kill him. The morning was only half finished.

The flight home would kill more pilots than enemy fighters ever could. 750 mi of open ocean stretched between Korea and Ishima. No landmarks, no emergency airfields, no rescue ships positioned along the route. A pilot who ran out of fuel or suffered engine failure over the East China Sea had exactly two options.

Ditch in the water and hope for rescue that would probably never come, or ride the aircraft down and die on impact. Purdomo checked his fuel gauges and performed the calculations every Pacific pilot learned to do in his sleep. Remaining fuel, distance to base, fuel consumption at cruise power. The numbers worked, but barely.

 Any deviation from the direct route would turn a marginal situation into a fatal one. The 57th Fighter Group began reassembling over the Korean coastline. Thunderbolts appeared from every direction, some trailing smoke, others showing visible battle damage. Squadron leaders conducted radio checks, counting aircraft, identifying who had survived and who had not.

 The morning’s engagement had scattered the formation across 50 mi of Korean airspace. 20 Japanese aircraft had fallen to American guns. The 57th had lost none. It was the kind of kill ratio that commanders dreamed about, the kind of victory that earned unit citations and medal recommendations. But the mission was only half complete.

 Every pilot still had to fly home. Purdommo joined a loose formation of P47Ns heading southeast toward the coast. The Thunderbolts flew at 12,000 ft, high enough to glide toward land if an engine failed, low enough to conserve fuel. Conversation on the radio remained minimal. Pilots monitored their instruments, watched their fuel gauges, and counted the minutes until Ishima appeared on the horizon.

 The East China Sea passed beneath them in an endless expanse of gray blue water. August heat created thermals that bounced the heavy fighters unpredictably. Purdommo trimmed the aircraft for maximum efficiency, adjusting throttle and mixture to squeeze every possible mile from his remaining fuel. The autopilot helped, holding course while he rested his hands and processed what had just happened.

 Five kills in one morning. The number seemed impossible. nine missions of empty skies and then everything had changed in six minutes of concentrated violence. He could still see the tracers reaching out from his guns, still see the Japanese fighters catching fire, still feel the thunderbolt shutter as 3,000 rounds of ammunition poured through eight machine gun barrels.

 The gun camera would confirm everything. Film did not lie. Intelligence officers would review the footage frame by frame, matching each burst of fire to each enemy aircraft destroyed. The process took days, sometimes weeks. Until then, Purdomo’s claims remained exactly that, claims. Every pilot made them. Not every pilot could prove them.

 2 hours into the return flight, the formation crossed the invisible line where ocean became friendly territory. Okinawa appeared as a smudge on the southern horizon. Yashima lay just beyond a flat speck of coral and sand that had become home to three fighter groups and thousands of support personnel. The island had seen its share of death.

 Ernie Pile, the most famous war correspondent in America, had died there 4 months earlier, killed by a Japanese machine gun bullet during the invasion. His grave marker stood near the beach where Marines had stormed ashore. Now the island served as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, launching missions against the Japanese homeland day after day.

 Pradomo’s fuel gauges showed nearly empty tanks as Yoshima filled his windscreen. Other pilots in the formation reported similar numbers. The mission had pushed the P47N’s range to its absolute limit. Another 50 mi would have meant ditched aircraft and dead pilots floating in the East China Sea. The Thunderbolts entered the landing pattern.

 One by one, wheels down, flaps extended, final approach over the beach where Ernie Pile had fallen. Perdomo touched down on the coral runway and felt the aircraft settle onto its landing gear. 8 hours and 18 minutes after takeoff, mission 507-35 was complete. He taxied to the hard stand where his crew chief waited. The man’s eyes went immediately to the gunports, checking for the carbon residue that indicated combat.

 He saw plenty. Then he looked at Purdomo’s face and knew something extraordinary had happened. The debriefing room filled with pilots, still wearing their flight suits, still smelling of sweat and aviation fuel and cordite. Intelligence officers moved between them, collecting initial reports, asking questions, cross-referencing claims.

20 Japanese aircraft destroyed. The number seemed almost too large to believe, but 38 pilots had witnessed the battle and their stories matched. Pradomo sat in a metal folding chair and recounted his morning. Five enemy aircraft, four fighters, and one trainer. The intelligence officer wrote everything down, his pencil moving steadily across the form.

 Initial claims would be filed immediately. Confirmation would wait for the gun camera footage. The 57th Fighter Group had entered combat on July 1st, 1945. 6 weeks of operations, dozens of missions, and until August 8th, they had encountered almost no aerial opposition. The Japanese had been saving their aircraft, husbanding their resources, preparing for an invasion that military planners on both sides expected to cost millions of lives.

 August 13th changed the calculus entirely. The 57th had stumbled into the largest concentration of Japanese fighters they would ever see. The result was the most one-sided aerial victory of the Pacific War’s final month. 20 enemy aircraft destroyed against zero American losses. The mathematics of that exchange rate would earn the entire group a presidential unit citation. But the war was ending.

Nobody on Eosima knew it yet, but the emperor had made his decision. Japan would surrender. The invasion would never happen. The millions of casualties that planners had grimly accepted would never materialize. August 13th, 1945 was one of the last days of aerial combat in World War II.

 Oscar Purdomo had become an ace on almost the final day it was possible to become one. The gun camera footage arrived at the intelligence section that evening. Technicians threaded the film into projectors and watched the morning’s combat unfold frame by frame. Purdomo’s camera had captured everything. The first KI84 taking hits, catching fire, spiraling down.

 The second fighter disintegrating under concentrated fire. The Willow trainer burning against the Korean landscape. The fourth kill, the ambusher, who became the ambushed. The fifth kill presented a problem. Purdomo’s guns had run dry before the final KI84 was destroyed. His gun camera showed the damaged aircraft, showed the pursuit, showed the desperate maneuvering of an unarmed Thunderbolt chasing an armed enemy.

 But the killing burst had come from another pilot’s guns. Intelligence officers debated the credit. Purdommo had attacked the aircraft. He had damaged it. He had chased it until help arrived. The other pilot had delivered the fatal blow, but only because Purdomo had set up the shot. Standard procedure awarded credit based on who inflicted the lethal damage.

 By that measure, the fifth kill belonged to someone else. They gave it to Purdomo anyway. The reasoning was simple. Without his initial attack, the KI84 would have destroyed the American Thunderbolt it had been pursuing. Without his pursuit, the damaged Japanese fighter would have escaped. Without his willingness to chase an armed enemy with empty guns, the engagement would never have happened.

The fifth kill was a team effort, but Oscar Purdomo had made it possible. Five confirmed victories in a single day, ace in a day. The designation placed him in exclusive company. Fewer than 50 American pilots had achieved the same feat during the entire war. Chuck Jerger had done it over Europe.

 Papy Boington had done it in the Pacific. Now Oscar Purdomo’s name would join theirs in the record books. The next morning, August 14th, the 57th prepared for another mission. Pilots checked their aircraft. Crew chiefs loaded ammunition. Intelligence officers briefed the target. The war continued because nobody had told them it was over.

 Then the radio crackled with news that changed everything. Emperor Hirohito had announced Japan surrender. The war was over. Oscar Purdomo would never fly another combat mission. His five kills on August 13th would stand forever as the final ace in a day achievement in United States military history. The guns fell silent.

 The meat chopper had earned its name just in time. The distinguished service cross arrived with a citation that read like poetry written by bureaucrats. Extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy. The second highest award for valor. the United States Army could bestow, surpassed only by the Medal of Honor.

Oscar Pradomo, the son of Mexican immigrants, the kid from East Los Angeles who had worked at the Pacific Milk Crate Company before the war, now stood among the most decorated pilots in American military history. The air metal with oakleaf cluster followed. Then the presidential unit citation for the entire 57th Fighter Group.

 The paperwork accumulated in folders and filing cabinets. Official recognition of six minutes of violence over Korea that had changed one man’s life forever. 2 days after the surrender announcement, Purdomo witnessed something that few American pilots ever saw. Japanese aircraft approaching Eima. Not to attack, not to fight, to surrender.

 Mitsubishi G4M Betty bombers painted entirely white, their red rising sun insignas replaced with green crosses. They carried the first Japanese representatives to coordinate their nation’s capitulation. The same airfield that had launched Purdomo toward his five kills now received the enemy delegation. He watched the white-painted bombers touch down, watched Japanese officers emerge in formal uniforms, watched the beginning of the end of the war he had fought.

 The juxtaposition seemed almost impossible to process. 48 hours earlier, he had been killing men who flew aircraft just like these. Now those aircraft carried diplomats instead of bombs. The 57th remained on Eima through the fall of 1945. Occupation duties replaced combat missions. Pilots flew patrols over a defeated Japan, watching for resistance that never materialized.

In January 1946, the group transferred to Okinawa. 4 months later, it was deactivated entirely. Oscar Purdomo’s war had ended, but his flying career continued. He remained in the Army Air Forces after demobilization, one of the few wartime pilots retained for peacetime service. In 1947, the Air Force became an independent branch of the military and Purdomo transferred to the new service.

He flew different aircraft now, jets instead of propeller-driven fighters. The technology had advanced beyond recognition, but the fundamental skills remained the same. Stick and rudder, eyes outside the cockpit, the instincts that had kept him alive over Korea. He left active duty in January 1950, returning to civilian life in Los Angeles.

 His son Kenneth was 5 years old now, no longer the diapered baby depicted on the nose of Lil Mey’s meat chopper. Perommo joined the Air Force Reserve, maintaining his flying credentials while building a life outside the military. The transition seemed complete. Then North Korea invaded South Korea. June 1950, 5 years after Purdomo had shot down five aircraft over the Korean Peninsula, war returned to the same territory.

 The United States mobilized rapidly, recalling reser, activating units, preparing for a conflict that would last 3 years and kill nearly 40,000 Americans. Captain Oscar Purdomo reported for active duty on June 30th, 1950. The Air Force needed experienced pilots. The man who had become the last ace in a day over Korea was going back.

He flew F84 Thunderjets and F86 Sabers during his second war. The aircraft bore nose art. No pictures of babies with cigars and derby hats. Kenneth was a teenager now, too old for that kind of tribute. Purdomo flew training missions, qualified new pilots, helped build the force that would fight communist MiGs over the Yalu River.

 In February 1955, his skills saved lives one more time. Flying a T33 trainer with a student in the rear seat, Purdomo’s aircraft developed a severe fuel leak. Gasoline fumes filled the cockpit, burning his eyes, making it nearly impossible to see his instruments. Most pilots would have ejected, abandoning the aircraft to save themselves.

 Purdommo stayed with the plane, executed a dead stick landing without engine power, and brought both himself and his student safely to the ground. He retired from the Air Force in January 1958 with the rank of major, 20 years of service, two wars, five kills in a single day, a career that most pilots could only dream about.

 The man who had charged Japanese fighters with empty guns finally stopped flying. Oscar Perdomo settled into civilian life in Los Angeles. He had survived two wars. He had achieved something that would never be repeated. He had a wife, a home, and children who knew their father as something more than a name on a metal citation.

The years passed quietly. The memories of Korea faded into stories told at veterans gatherings. Details that grew sharper or softer depending on the audience. Then Vietnam took his son. Specialist Fourthclass Chris Mitchell Perdomo served as a door gunner on a UH1 Irakcoy helicopter. The same boy whose infant face had decorated the nose of Lil Mey’s meat chopper, the baby with the cigar and derby hat, had grown into a young man who flew into combat just as his father had done. 25 years earlier.

On May 5th, 1970, his helicopter crashed and exploded 5 miles southwest of Fuin in South Vietnam. Chris Mitchell Purdomo was one of three crew members killed. The loss destroyed Oscar Purdomo. He had survived Japanese fighters. He had survived empty guns and 8-hour missions over open ocean.

 He had survived fuel leaks and deadstick landings and two wars that killed millions. But he could not survive the death of his son. The man who had charged armed enemies with an empty aircraft began drinking. The alcohol consumed him the way flames had consumed those Japanese fighters over Korea.

 Major Oscar Francis Purdomo died on March 2nd, 1976 in Los Angeles. He was 56 years old. His family honored his wishes and scattered his ashes over the Pacific Ocean, the same waters he had crossed so many times during the war. The last ace in a day returned to the sky one final time. His achievement remains unique in American military history.

 Pilots in the jet age have claimed five kills in a single day, but none have been confirmed with the certainty that gun camera footage provided in 1945. Oscar Purdomo stands alone as the last undisputed ace in a day the United States has ever produced. The record has survived nearly 80 years. It will likely survive forever.

 The commemorative Air Force maintains a flying P47N Thunderbolt painted to replicate Lil Mey’s meat chopper. The nose art shows the same baby, the same cigar, the same derby hat. The aircraft appears at air shows across the country, introducing new generations to the story of a pilot who shot down five enemy aircraft in 6 minutes and then charged a sixth with empty guns.

 His name appears on the memorial wall at the United States Air Force Memorial in Washington. His personal papers rest in the archives of the San Diego Air and Space Museum. His distinguished service crossitation remains part of the official record, documenting extraordinary heroism that bureaucratic language cannot fully capture.

 August 13th, 1945, 48 hours before the end of the deadliest war in human history. 38 American thunderbolts against 50 Japanese fighters over Korea. One pilot from East Los Angeles, the son of a man who had ridden with Ponchovilla, flying an aircraft named after his infant son. Five kills, zero ammunition remaining. 750 m from home, the meat chopper earned its name that morning.

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