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Robert Lee Scott Jr. was born in
Waynesboro, Georgia on April 12, 1908, to Ola Burkhalter and Robert Lee Scott Sr.
The oldest of three children, he grew up and was educated in Macon. He
gained his love for flying as a very young child and dreamed of being a
fighter pilot throughout his youth.
At age 12, he flew a home-built glider
off the roof of a three-story house and crash-landed in a flower bed. As
Scott told the story: "Gliders were built out of spruce, but I didn't
have enough money, so I made mine out of knotty pine. I cleared the
first magnolia, but then the main wing strut broke and I came down in
Mrs. Napier's rose bushes. It's the only plane I ever crashed."
 Scott
entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1928. After graduation he toured
Europe and Asia on a motorcycle before returning as a second lieutenant
to Randolph Field, Texas, in the fall of 1932 to begin flight training.
In 1934 he married Catharine Rix Green of Fort Valley, and they moved to
Mitchell Field, New York, for his first assignment. That same year U.S.
president Franklin D. Roosevelt assigned the U.S. Army Air Corps to fly
airmail. In spite of a shortage of pilots, crews, and good planes, they
kept the mails on schedule and proved the merit of the air corps. Flying
"Hell Stretch" from Newark, New Jersey, to Cleveland, Ohio, Scott became
an experienced pilot. After the air corps experiment ended, he moved to
Panama for three years and then entered Cal-Aero Academy Flying School
in Ontario, California. Scott is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the
Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
Scott was at Cal-Aero when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii,
an event that precipitated U.S. entry into World War II (1941-45). By
then a major, he wanted to fly combat missions, but at the age of
thirty-four he was at first deemed too old. But in March of 1942, he
volunteered for a secret mission, "lied" about being qualified to fly
the B-17 bomber and met Gen. Claire Chennault, the legendary commander
of the Flying Tigers. He was assigned to a top-secret B-17 raid on
Tokyo, Japan, designated Task Force Aquila. When that mission was
canceled, he found himself in Karachi, India. Soon thereafter he was
appointed deputy of operations for the Assam-Burma-China Ferry Command,
which flew supplies over the Himalaya Mountains to, among others,
General Claire Lee Chennault and his American Volunteer Group (AVG) or
"Flying Tigers." Scott and Chennault became friends, and in July 1942,
when the AVG became the Fourteenth Air Force of the U.S. Army Air
Forces, Chennault made Scott the commander of the renowned Twenty-third
Fighter Group. During this period, he frequently repainted the propeller
spinner in different colors to create the illusion of a much larger
fighter force in the area than a single aircraft.
In July 1942, at the request of Generalissmo Chiang Kai-Shek Scott was
named commander of the newly formed 23rd Fighter Group, formed by
General Claire Chennault. Popular accounts stated that Scott inherited
command of the Flying Tigers which actually disbanded that same month.
The 23rd later become part of the 14th Air Force.
Colonel Scott flew 388 combat missions in 925 hours from July 1942 to
October 1943, shooting down at least 13 Japanese aircraft to become one
of America's earliest fighter aces of the war. For his combat record
against the enemy, Scott received two Silver Stars, three Distinguished
Flying Crosses and three Air Medals, and was ordered back to the U.S. in
October 1943 as deputy for operations in the School of Applied Tactics
at Orlando, Florida.
 He
wrote about his experiences in God Is My Co-Pilot. Published in
1943, it is still regarded as a classic wartime memoir. Warner Brothers
bought the rights to the book and made a movie of the same name starring
Dennis Morgan as Scott. It premiered in Macon on February 21, 1945.
He returned to China in 1944 to fly fighter aircraft equipped with
experimental rockets directed against Japanese supply locomotives in
eastern China. He then went to Okinawa to direct the same type of
strikes against enemy shipping as the war ended.
After the war Scott was assigned to command the first jet-flying school
at Williams Field, Arizona. In 1950 he assumed command of the
Thirty-sixth Fighter Bomber Wing in Germany and in 1953 entered the
National War College in Washington, D.C. After graduation he was
promoted to brigadier general and was assigned to Plans at Headquarters
U.S. Air Force, and then to the position of Director of Information
under the Secretary of the Air Force. His often outspoken style did not
endear him to the Washington bureaucracy, however, and in October 1956
he went to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, as base commanding officer.
Scott retired from the United States Air
Force as a Brigadier General on September 30, 1957, and remained in
Arizona until the 1980s. He then lived Macon, Georgia, until his death
in 2006. General Scott wrote over a dozen books including God Is My
Copilot and Boring a Hole in the Sky.
Scott, by now a grandfather of four,
spent much of his early retirement in Arizona. After the death of his
wife in 1972 he continued to write, producing dozens of books and
articles, and to give lectures on his experiences. In 1980, at the age
of seventy-two, he spent ninety-three days walking and riding a camel
along the entire 2,000-mile length of the Great Wall of China.
Scott never lost his "fighter ace"
prominence and later used that fame to great effect in supporting Middle
Georgia's Museum of Aviation.
"He's been our resident hero, cheerleader and biggest fan," said Pat
Bartness, museum foundation president and chief operating officer. "He's
been the biggest drawing card we've had. Without him, the museum would
just be a different place and not as exciting. He will be sorely
missed."
 When
Scott joined the museum staff in the mid-1980s, he had accomplished more
than most people dream of, according to museum director Paul Hibbits.
Scott claims his association with the Museum of Aviation in Warner
Robins, Georgia not only inspired his move to Warner Robins, but also
saved his life. He told a Telegraph writer in 1996 that the museum gave
his life new purpose.
"I was dying on the vine," said Scott, who lived in Sun City, Ariz.,
before returning to Georgia. "I'll always be grateful for the chance to
come back."
Scott's close friend, retired Warner Robins physician Dan Callahan,
remembers how Scott's link with the local museum first developed. "He
came here to address an aircraft modelers association and met with Peggy
Young," Callahan remembered. Young was the museum's director at the
time. "She asked about (getting) some things for the museum and invited
him back." After several trips from Arizona with the trunk of his
Cadillac filled with memorabilia, Scott decided to move to Warner
Robins.
"His coming was a godsend," Callahan
said. "We needed that personality to guide the museum through the early
days. When he came on board, it was a foregone conclusion that it would
be a success."
Bartness said Scott made history come to life. "It's one thing to read
about history," he said. "It's another thing to sit with a guy who not
only lived it but had a role so over the top, so huge."
Bartness dismissed "the lie" Scott told about being qualified to fly the
B-17. "He was so goal-oriented, he would have done anything to get into
World War II," Bartness said. "When you put it into perspective, what he
wanted to do was defend his country. He never lost sight of his goal,
which was to make a difference in the war."
The museum executive said Scott's contributions will be chronicled and
long remembered. "Certainly we would not have had the 'God Is My
Co-Pilot' or 'The Flying Tigers' exhibits," he said, "nor our
relationship with the Hump Pilots. He also was a big part of helping us
build our archives."
The museum's former curator, the late Darwin Edwards, was asked several
years ago to assess Scott's impact on the museum. He agreed that Scott's
prestige-lending name was huge, along with his help in obtaining a
variety of exhibits. But Edwards said Scott's human touch was most
vivid.
 "He
was always talking to kids - kids of all ages," said Edwards. "He liked
kids. He liked people in uniform. He just liked people period. He was a
living legend. He added class, and the fact that he was a local boy just
added that much more. We would be far less of a museum without him."
"His vitality until just recently was extraordinary," he said. "When he
walked in the room, eyes would light up - for the kids, to be sure, but
also for a lot of grown-ups. The experiences he's had. The things he
tells you. He's lived two lifetimes. People just enjoyed being around
him. We'll miss him to be sure."
Scott continued to be active well into his retirement. In 1984, he flew
an F-16 Falcon jet fighter, and in 1995 an F-15 Eagle. On his
eighty-ninth birthday, in 1997, he flew in a B-1B Lancer bomber. During
the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Scott carried the Olympic
Flame along a section of Georgia Highway 247 named in his honor. In 2003
he was presented with a Governor's Award in the Humanities by the
Georgia Humanities Council.
Scott died in Warner Robins in 2006, at the age of ninety-seven. He is
buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.
Suggested Reading:
- Carl Molesworth, Sharks over China:
The 23rd Fighter Group in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's,
1994)
- Robert Lee Scott, God Is My Co-Pilot
(New York: Scribner, 1943)
- Robert Lee Scott, God Is Still My
Co-Pilot (Phoenix, Ariz.: Augury Press, 1967)
- Robert Lee Scott, The Day I Owned the Sky (New York: Bantam, 1988)
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