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Re: Col. Don Blakeslee
I don't know of anyone offhand that tops Blakeslee in total combat missions for USAAF.. my first reaction would be to look into John Landers who flew combat from Feb 42 through the end of the war and was with the 49th (P-40's), the 55th (P-38's), 357th (GpExec) and 78th(CO) in P-51's.
I'd look next to Ed Rector and Tex Hill who started in AVG and finished with 23rd..
But Blakeslee flew combat from 1941 to Sep 1944 continuously and fudged his logs (kept lower than actual) so they wouldn't send him home. He recorded more than 1000 hours of Pursuit time (all from UK) so estimates go as high as 1500 actual combat hours and over 500 missions.
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