Army Air Forces Station F-356, Debden, Essex, for duty with the 334th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group. After completing his training in the fall of 1943, Flight Officer Hofer found himself headed for U.S. ![]() While his changeover to the USAAF in June 1943 gave him an immediate change of status from sergeant pilot, his RCAF rank, to flight officer (a rank bestowed on non-commissioned USAAF pilots), but he was required to undergo additional training on the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter before joining a frontline unit. P-51’s from the 325th Fighter Group prepare for take-off before a mission over Romania. With his flight time, he could expect to be placed in a combat unit then flying missions over occupied Europe. When months of additional training in England yielded no chance for action, Hofer eventually took the opportunity to transfer to the U.S. Despite no prior aviation experience, he had no trouble completing elementary and advanced flight training in Canada and in October 1942 was posted to Britain. Hofer Jumps to the USAAFĪs an American in the RCAF, Ralph Hofer was in good company, though the spontaneity of his enlistment surely set him apart. Immediately seizing the idea, Hofer was soon enrolled as an aviation cadet in Canada’s burgeoning air force. ![]() After crossing the Detroit River, he was directed to a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) recruiting office by a well-meaning immigration official who assumed that the young American had the crossed border to join the RCAF. In the fall of 1941, he struck north to Detroit, Mich., where he contracted to deliver a new 1942 Hudson automobile from the factory to a purchaser on the West Coast in exchange for travel expenses.īy chance, while awaiting the availability of the car, he took a day outing to Windsor, Ontario. Wood he hatched a scheme to pull up stakes yet again and headed for California where he hoped to make his way as a prize fighter. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1944, Hofer’s pre-war plans had included anything but learning to fly. According to Virginia Irwin, a war correspondent writing for the St. The carefree impulsiveness which typified Hofer’s career as a fighter pilot was also largely responsible for getting the young Missourian into the war. Though briefly enrolled in a junior college where he showed interest in becoming a commercial artist, he returned to his native Missouri in 1940, taking a civilian job at Fort Leonard Wood. Athletically inclined, Hofer boxed as a youth during the 1930s and, after moving to Chicago in the prewar years, had some success in Golden Gloves amateur tournaments. He was born Ralph Halbrook on a farm near Salem, Mo., in 1921, and later took his stepfather’s surname when his mother remarried. An Impulsive Start to His Career as a Fighter Pilotĭetails of Hofer’s somewhat restless early life are sketchy, many of them coming from wartime press interviews. Recent research, however, has uncovered a number of facts that bring closure to his story and which now make it possible to piece together the fate of this remarkable pilot. From his feat of downing an enemy plane on his first combat mission to his insatiable penchant for engaging the Luftwaffe wholly independent of flight, squadron, and group, “Kid” Hofer amazed and confounded his contemporaries and today remains a compelling figure in the history of the Eighth Air Force.ĭead at age 23 with official credit for 30.5 enemy planes destroyed in air combat and ground strafing, he was the second highest–scoring Eighth Air Force fighter pilot to be killed in action during World War II.įor decades since the war, Hofer’s exact fate has remained a mystery, leaving historians to speculate on the events of his final mission on July 2, 1944. Hofer’s meteoric rise as a high-scoring fighter pilot in World War II’s European theater has become the stuff of legend. ![]() A standout individualist in an outfit known for its individuality, Ralph K. He could be described as reckless, impulsive, undisciplined, lucky, fearless, and also as one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of the U.S.
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