In Action Again

Carrying on where he left off in World War II, Lt. Col. John C. Meyer '41, leading ace of the Army Air Force, has raised his record of enemy planes shot down in combat to 38½.

In the biggest air battle to date in Korea, Colonel Meyer as group commander of the 4th Fighter-Intercepter group, led one of the two flights of eight American F-86 Sabre jet fighter planes against Russian-made MIG-15 jets, numbered at 25. Without damage or loss to the American planes and fighting at altitudes ranging from 30,000 feet to treetop level, five enemy jets were shot to earth and one disintegrated in mid-air. A seventh was damaged. The Sabre jet fighter, newly employed in the Korean war, holds the official world speed record for planes, with 670.981 miles per hour.

At the close of World War II Colonel Meyer's score was 371/2 kills. He had received 22 decorations and a Presidential Citation. In 1946, after almost seven years in service, he was integrated into the Regular Air Force and returned to Dartmouth to finish his college course. He served as Air Force liaison officer to the House of Representatives, and in 1949 was appointed Commander of Air Service Post 501 of the American Legion. Colonel Meyer is married to a former Wave officer and is the father of two children, a boy and a girl.