WWII Pilot Awarded Medal 63 Years After Death

MSNBC - USA

Lt. Jack Scanlan Honored In Louisville

By Andy Alcock/WLKY
WLKY.com
updated 12:18 a.m. ET, Sat., Feb. 28, 2009

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - More than 60 years after his death, a Louisville native and World War II fighter pilot was honored with the Prisoner of War Medal.


His family's struggle to have Lt. John V. "Jack" Scanlan honored began more than 15 years ago and reached its long-awaited conclusion Friday at Scanlan's alma mater, St. Xavier High School.

Niece Catherine Anne Wiggins comforted Jack's brother, her 86-year-old uncle, Bill Scanlan, who was overcome by emotion.

Jack Scanlan was a P-51 fighter pilot. On June 23, 1945, he flew wing along Lt. Bob Scamara in a deadly battle over Japan.

Through multiple twists, turns and moves to avoid gunfire, Scamara shot down three planes and damaged four others.

"That's when I noticed Scanlan was still on my wing," Scamara said in a History Channel documentary shown at the ceremony.

On their way back to Iwo Jima, a Japanese Zero shot down Scanlan's plane.

Scanlan jumped out with a parachute. A Japanese captain found him, treated his injuries and took him to the hospital, but at that hospital, angry civilians demanded and were granted Scanlan's release to them.

Then they killed him.

"I'd have gladly given back those three victories to save John, but didn't happen that way," Scamara said in the documentary.

In 1993, the late Joe Scanlan started an application to have his brother Jack honored with the Prisoner of War Medal, but there was a problem: Jack's records had been destroyed in a fire at a St. Louis warehouse.

Three years ago, when Wiggins was moving her father, Joe, to a nursing home, she found the application.

She said with the help of Sen. Mitch McConnell's office and months and months of work, Gen. Michael Dornbush of the Kentucky Air National Guard awarded the medal to Jack's other brother, Bill.

"It's overwhelming, it's rewarding," Wiggins said. "It was really important to get it done."

"There isn't a proper word to apply to it," said Bill Scanlan.

In addition to Friday's medal ceremony more than 60 years after his death, Jack Scanlan was given another honor in December when his great-nephew and his wife had their first child, a boy they named "Jack."