Gabby Gabreski: America's Greatest Fighter Ace

Francis Stanley Gabreski was born in Oil City, Pennsylvania, in nineteen nineteen, the son of Polish immigrants. He would become one of only seven American pilots to become an ace in both World War Two and the Korean War.

In World War Two he flew P Forty-Seven Thunderbolts with the Fifty-sixth Fighter Group over Europe, downing twenty-eight German aircraft before being captured in nineteen forty-four when he flew too low on a strafing run and clipped the ground. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. In Korea he added six and a half more aerial victories, bringing his total to thirty-four and a half. Known as Gabby for his garrulous personality, he trained his squadron mates in fighter tactics and was decorated by the United States and multiple Allied nations. Oil City sent him to war; he came back a legend.