Alexander Vraciu, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAlexander Vraciu
US Navy World War II fighter ace
Date of Birth: 02-Nov-1918
Place of Birth: East Chicago, Indiana, United States
Date of Death: 29-Jan-2015
Profession: military officer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Scorpio 
About Alexander Vraciu
- Alexander Vraciu (November 2, 1918 – January 29, 2015) was a United States Navy fighter ace, a Navy Cross recipient (having been downgraded from a Medal of Honor) during World War II.
- At the end of the war, Vraciu ranked fourth among the U.S.
- Navy's flying aces, with 19 enemy planes downed during flight and 21 destroyed on the ground.
- After the war, he served as a test pilot and was instrumental in forming the post-war Naval and Marine Air Reserve program.
- From 1956 to 1958 Vraciu led his own fighter squadron, VF-51, for twenty-two months.
- He retired from the U.S.
- Navy with the rank of commander on December 31, 1963.
- Vraciu later moved to Danville, California, and worked for Wells Fargo. Vraciu was born in East Chicago, Indiana, of Romanian immigrant parents.
- He graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and began his military career in 1941, when he enlisted in the U.S.
- Navy.
- During his military service in World War II, Vraciu flew Grumman F6F Hellcats in the Pacific, spending five months as a wingman to his mentor, Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the navy's first ace of the war.
- Vraciu's greatest success took place on June 19, 1944, during what became known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," when he engaged a Japanese fighter squadron in air-to-air combat, downing six Japanese aircraft in eight minutes using only 360 rounds of ammunition.
- In December 1944 Vraciu parachuted from his downed plane during a mission over the Philippines and spent five weeks with Filipino resistance fighters before rejoining American military forces and returning to USS Lexington.
- Vraciu spent the last few months of the war serving at the Naval Air Test Center in Patuxent, Maryland.
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