Hottest Pilot

At a Sabre base in Korea one morning last week, a sergeant line mechanic put down his tools as a slim, thin-faced pilot walked by on his way to another hard-stand. "There he goes," said the sergeant in baffled admiration to another mechanic. "The hottest pilot since they invented jets--and so help me, he looks about as aggressive as Bugs Bunny."

The subject of this observation is Major George Andrew Davis Jr., 31, top ace in the Korean air war. Davis arrived in October, flew ten missions as a wingman, became a squadron leader in November. In the unbelievably short span of 17 days, he shot down nine MIGs and three twin-engine Red bombers. Last week Davis brought down four enemy jets in one day for a record bag. "It's just my job, my business," he says. "And I think it's a pretty good profession."

On the ground^ he is anything but a swashbuckler. Back home in Lubbock, Texas, where he has a wife and two children, Davis likes to putter in the kitchen (specialties: steak and pot roasts). The seventh of nine children, Davis went up for a $2.50 ride in a barnstormer's crate when he was 13. From then on, he knew what his life's work was going to be. He enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1942, flew 266 missions in propeller-driven P-475 and P-515 from Philippine bases, downed seven Japanese planes.

Davis gives much credit to the unsung wingmen--whose primary job is not to down MIGs but to protect their leaders. Davis has never brought his plane back bearing a trace of battle damage. Last week, on the day he downed four MIGs, he chased two MIGs away from his own wingman's tail.

Until recently, it was Fifth Air Force practice to rotate a man home as soon as he became an ace (five kills). But Major Davis and the two other squadron leaders in his wing all became aces about the same time, and they could not be spared. This week, with 32 missions, Major Davis, professional fighting airman, expected to round out 100 missions before going home. At 31, he is on the elderly side for jet combat, but is unworried. "Up to the point of physical deterioration," he says, "it depends on the individual."

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