Richard I. Bong likely didn’t barnstorm bridge

By Teri Cadeau tcadeau@duluthnews.com

The rumor that World War II flying ace Richard I. Bong once flew his P-38 through the Aerial Lift Bridge is very familiar to Briana Fiandt, curator of collections at the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center.

“This rumor has been floating around forever, but we have never seen any proof of it,” Fiandt said. “We have extensive newspaper clippings about Maj. Bong, but I’ve never read any article that talks about him doing that.”

Fiandt said that for years she’s had people come in and say that a relative remembers seeing him fly under the bridge, but that she never talked to anyone who says they saw it themselves.

For decades, the story has been up for debate. In 2006, the News Tribune’s Chuck Frederick investigated the story and spoke with two people who claimed to have seen either the event itself or a photo of the flight in the newspaper the following day. (“Tales of daredevil pilots live on,” June 10, 2006). To this day, a clipping of the photo has yet to emerge.

The person who claimed to have seen the stunt, John Hoff, said that he remembers seeing the P-38, nicknamed “Marge,” rise above the water fly toward the Alworth building downtown. He was 11 years old in summer 1944 and remembers seeing the flight from the window in his father’s office.

When he rushed to talk with the people in his father’s office about what he’d just witnessed, no one else claimed to have seen it. Hoff died in February 2013, taking his memory of the flight with him.

There are reports of other pilots flying through the bridge. These included flying boat “Lark of Duluth” in 1913, airmail pilot William Magie in 1924, “Dusty Rhodes,” a pilot and occasional bootlegger flew through in 1929, and Jack Daniel Brown, a Duluth Army Air Corps pilot who reportedly buzzed a P-38 by his brother’s house on Park Point and then barnstormed the bridge.

While evidence of Bong flying through the lift bridge is scarce, there are accounts of him flying under the Golden Gate Bridge. According to Fiandt, Bong always denied flying under the bridge, but he did admit to buzzing a friend’s house and flying low down Market Street while he was training in California.

“Gen. George Kenney said he had a report of Dick and two other pilots going under the bridge in ‘Dick Bong, Ace of Aces,’” Fiandt said. “But this is a memoir, not a serious historical work, so I don’t necessarily take everything Kenney writes at face value. I think he tended to play things up for a better story.”

Carl Bong also published a book of Bong’s letters and included his own memories called “Dear Mom: So We Have a War.” Carl also sticks to Bong’s story about buzzing a friend’s house, but that the other two pilots got into more trouble because they actually flew under the bridge, while Bong did not.

Fiandt also said there were stories of Bong flying his P-38 over town, over the Walter Butler shipyards, over Marjorie Bong Drucker’s house and over his hometown of Poplar, Wisconsin, while he was flying around the country raising war bonds.

But as for Fiandt, she doesn’t believe the flight through the lift bridge happened.

“I think it would be incredible if there were proof of it, but my guess is that it didn’t happen,” she said.