Colonel John Voll: Twenty-One Kills Over the Mediterranean

Goshen, Ohio is home to one of World War Two's most decorated fighter pilots. John Voll flew P-fifty-one Mustangs with the Fifteenth United States Army Air Force based in Italy, the force that ranged across the Mediterranean theater striking targets across southern and central Europe. By the time the war ended, he had been credited with twenty-one aerial victories, making him the highest-scoring ace of the entire Fifteenth Air Force.

He earned those kills in one of the most demanding combat environments of the war, flying long escort missions over heavily defended territory, far from friendly airfields and rescue. After the war he eventually rose to the rank of Colonel. A marker here in his hometown of Goshen honors a young pilot who flew his combat missions in his early twenties.