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Contact Info
Home Town New York City, NY
Last Address Castle AFB, California
Date of Passing Feb 16, 1956
Location of Interment Cedar Cemetery - Jamestown, Rhode Island
He shot down 19 enemy aircraft as a Naval Aviator during WWII, making him the 4th highest scoring U.S. Navy Ace of the war. He engaged only nineteen targets during six combat missions between Nov. 5, 1944 and Feb. 17, 1945; he shot down all nineteen.
On Oct 15, 1952 he was involved in the 1st deep-penetration overflight of the USSR.
He was killed in the first ever crash of a B-52. One reference suggests that he bailed out but that his chute caught fire.
His Navy Cross citation: Awarded for actions during World War II
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant Patrick Dawson Fleming (NSN: 0-100296), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Fighter Plane in Bombing Fighting Squadron EIGHTY (VBF-80), attached to the U.S.S. HANCOCK (CV-19), in the action against Tokyo air fields on 16 February 1945. He skillfully and courageously led a division of planes on a fighter sweep against enemy airpower. During the action, he personally destroyed five aircraft in the air amid heavy anti-aircraft fire. His skill and courage coupled with his leadership and complete disregard for his personal safety were at all times in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
General Orders: Commander Air Forces Pacific: Serial 25349 (December 9, 1945)
Awarded posthumously for actions during the Cold War
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal (Army Design) (Posthumously) to Colonel Patrick Dawson Fleming (NSN: 0-100296), United States Air Force, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in a position of great responsibility to the Government of the United States, from February 1954 to February 1956. As Deputy Wing Commander, 93d Bombardment Wing (Heavy), Colonel Fleming was directly instrumental in developing more efficient, safer, and easier methods for utilizing equipment in training of personnel in modern jet bombardment operations. His depth of knowledge and profound understanding of aircraft performance and bombardment operations, and his ability to lecture, educate and indoctrinate personnel in methods of improving procedures, significantly contributed to the successful conversion of this wing to jet bombardment aircraft. The untiring efforts and adept resourcefulness and dedicated devotion of Colonel Fleming to the attainment of a high state of combat readiness greatly improved the managerial effectiveness of the command aircraft conversion and training program. His actions may be readily associated with the increased operational capability of the Strategic Air Command. The outstanding contributions to national security rendered by Colonel Fleming have reflected the greatest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.
General Orders: Department of the Air Force, General Orders No. 60 (1956)
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.