Summary Col. Patrick Fleming made history as a fighter pilot and bomber pilot. He was the first SAC pilot to fly the B-52 Stratofortress.
Tragically, he also perished in the first-ever B-52 crash. Fleming, a WWII USN ace and later a USAF bomber pilot, earned numerous accolades in his short but illustrious career. Col.
Patrick D. Fleming was an American combat aviator who made history as both a fighter pilot and a bomber pilot (and in two different services to boot). Alas, the bomber pilot phase of his storied career turned out to be fatally tragic.
Simple Flying now delves into the story of this great aviator. 4-engines were mainly the purview of strategic bombers during WWII. The Allied examples were more famous, but the Axis also made their fair share.
Patrick Fleming's early life and initial military career Patrick Dawson Fleming was born in New York City on January 17, 1918. As Samantha Franco writes in her article for War History Online detailing Patrick Dawson's military career: "Patrick Fleming fell in love with flying early on in life, and he worked nights at a filling station to pay for lessons. In 1935, he enlisted in the US Navy, serving onboard the USS Hull (DD-350), a Farragut-class destroyer.
He was then transferred to the USS Saratoga (CV-3), where he became a second-class seaman responsible for repositioning the arresting hooks of aircraft after they landed on the aircraft carrier." Fleming attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School, where he was fast-track.