No one seems to have mentioned the death of Joe Foss (who died on New Year’s Day) here yet. As I have just read his obituary in the Daily Telegraph (link to article is currently down) I had better write something.
Joe Foss was a true American Hero, “Ace of Aces” in the struggle against the Japanese in the skies over the Pacific, destroying at least 27 enemy aircraft personnally. He was a fine officer and an inspiration to the men who served with him. He survived being shot down and spent hours drifting in shark invested waters. Joe Foss was also a fine thinking officer who never let his aircraft be tricked into hunting enemy fighters – if this meant letting enemy bombers through to attack U.S. air bases.
For his bravery and skill Joe Foss won the Congressional Medal of Honour and many other decoratons.
However, Joe Foss was not just a good Marine – he was also a man of grit in civilian life, helping to save his families’ farm in Depression hit South Dakota (after the early death of his father) by hard slog. After the war Joe Foss turned down a vast sum of money for the film rights to his life (he was to have been played by John Wayne) because the film company wished to include a love affair that did not occur.
From running a flight school in Sioux Falls South Dakota Joe Foss served his State as Governor and in the United States Congress – before being defeated by George McGovern.
Joe Foss then became an outstanding broadcaster famous for such long running series on American rural life as “Joe Foss Outdoorsman”.
Joe Foss’s commitment to liberty did not weaken with age and he was President of the National Rifle Association from 1988 to 1990 and was staunch in his belief that Americans had the right to be armed to defend themselves and others “period”.
He was most recently in the news for being hassled by America West Airlines’ security staff when he tried to board a plane while carrying his Medal of Honor.
Ah, another reason to dislike George McGovern.
Thanks for mentioning Foss’ NRA presidency. Many have overlooked this.
Let’s not forget his greatest contribution to American cuture- he was the first commisioner of the American Football League!
Better late than never. Obit in The Times January 17, 2003. Words like ‘hero’ and ‘great’ are bandied about all over the place nowadays, but Joe Foss was both – in spades.
Joe Foss
US Marine pilot who drove the Japanese from the skies over Guadalcanal and became a national hero
As a fighter pilot in the US Marine Corps, Joe Foss took part in the desperate air battles that raged in the skies over Guadalcanal in 1942 and early 1943. This inhospitable tropical island in the Solomons chain has become legendary in US military annals for the life-and-death struggle with the Japanese for control of its strategically important assets. For six months both sides strained every nerve on land, at sea and in the air to assert their mastery. It was the epic confrontation of the Pacific War, and by the end of it the Japanese could clearly be seen to have suffered not only a severe military loss but also a serious moral defeat.
Leading a force of Grumman Wildcat fighters which became renowned in American aviation circles as “Joe’s Flying Circus”, Foss repeatedly broke up Japanese bombing raids which aimed at crippling Henderson Field, the vitally important American base of air operations. By the end of the campaign, which resulted in the abandonment of Guadalcanal by the Japanese early in 1943, Foss’s unit had shot down 72 enemy aircraft. His own wartime tally of 26 combat victories made him, by the end of the war, the second-ranking Marine Corps ace and, virtually, a wartime pin-up. His picture featured on the cover of Life magazine in June 1943, dubbed “America’s No 1 ace” — as indeed he was at that time.
After the war Foss had a career as a politician in his native South Dakota, serving a term as Governor of the “Coyote State” in the 1950s. A farmboy through and through, he gloried in his redneck, huntin’-and-fishin’ image, featuring as a cover story again in the 1980s, this time in Time magazine, where, as president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), he sported a ten-gallon Stetson and carried a six-shooter.
Joe Foss was born in 1915 on a farm near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His imagination was fired as a boy by the exploits of Charles Lindbergh, who completed the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by air in 1927. But his father was killed in a road accident when he was in his teens and he had to turn to and help to work the farm. Through doing odd jobs he managed to raise the cost of private flying lessons, and in 1940 he joined the Marine Corps.
When war came to the United States in December 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was instructing at an air-base in Florida. When he applied to be put on operations he was told that at 27 he was too old to be a fighter pilot. But he persisted and was posted to the Advanced Carrier Training Group. Proving himself a fine shot during an intensive course on the rugged Grumman Wildcat naval fighter, he was sent to Guadalcanal where the Americans were determined to exploit their naval victory at Midway in June 1942.
The scene was set for a titanic clash in which fortunes at first swayed to and fro. The seizure by the Marines of Henderson Field from the Japanese gave the Marine Air Corps a base from which, as the Japanese fought back by land and air, they were eventually able to dominate the skies. Throughout October and November Foss and his Flying Circus repelled repeated waves of enemy bombers. They also carried out strikes on Japanese warships approaching Guadalcanal from the north. On one such occasion Foss’s engine failed over the sea and he came down in shark-infested waters, five miles from land. Breaking the chlorine capsule issued to naval flyers against such eventualities, he evaded the sharks’ attentions, was picked up after five hours and returned to operations.
In the period from October 9 to November 19 Foss shot down 23 Japanese aircraft and in the following January he added three more to his tally. For this remarkable performance as well as for his inspiring and astute leadership of his unit, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour — bestowed on him by President Roosevelt at a White House ceremony — the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. The hard-fought victory at Guadalcanal caught the public imagination and back home Foss found himslf lionised. Apart from his Life appearance he was in constant demand for interviews and appearances.
After the war he returned to South Dakota where he ran a flying service and operated a Packard dealership. He also helped to organise the state’s Air National Guard, rising to the rank of brigadier.
Going into state politics, he was elected to South Dakota’s House of Representatives in 1954. In 1958 he was defeated for a seat in the US House of Representatives by the future Senator George McGovern, who was later to run unsuccessfully for President against Richard Nixon. Foss served a four-year term as Governor of South Dakota from 1955.
He became the first commissioner of the fledgeling American Football League, expanding it and increasing its importance through lucrative television broadcasting deals in the face of the long established National Football League. His reputation as a rugged outdoorsman made him an attractive television proposition and he hosted ABC-TV’s show The American Sportsman from 1964 to 1967.
A man of uncompromisingly conservative opinions, Foss was very much the embodiment of the type of character aspired to on screen by John Wayne; Hollywood at one time wanted Wayne to portray Foss in a cinema version of his life. As Foss told Time when interviewed by the magazine for its NRA feature: “I say all guns are good guns. There are no bad guns. I say the whole nation should be armed. Period.” It was a sentiment in which Wayne would undoubtedly have concurred.
In 2001, having been settled for many years with his second wife in Scottsdale, Arizona, he established the Foss Institute, an organisation designed to foster an understanding of freedom and patriotism in school-age children in America.
Foss is survived by his wife Donna, whom he married in 1967, by two children from his first marriage, to June Shakstad, which was dissolved, and by two stepchildren.
Joe Foss, Second World War fighter ace and former Governor of South Dakota, was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on April 17, 1915. He died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on January 1, 2003, aged 87.