Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #114552
Cost: $225.00

Check Six

Frederick C. Blesse

WITH A PHOTOGRAPH SIGNED BY KOREAN WAR ACE “BOOTS” BLESSE

BLESSE, Frederick C. Check Six: A Fighter Pilot Looks Back. (Mesa, AZ): Champlin Fighter Museum Press, (1987). Octavo, original navy cloth, original dust jacket. $225.

First edition of Major General Frederick C. “Boots” Blesse’s autobiography, with a photograph of him with WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker mounted to the front free endpaper depicting the two men standing beside a WWI-era Spad biplane and an F-86 Sabre jet, signed and dated by Blesse: "Boots Blesse, Air Show Richmond Va., Feb 1953."

Blesse flew two combat tours during the Korean War; during the second tour, flying F-86 Sabres, he was officially credited with shooting down nine Soviet-made MiG-15s and one La-9. At the time of his return to the United States in October 1952, he was America's leading jet ace. During the Vietnam War, he served two further combat tours in Southeast Asia. His fighter tactics book, No Guts, No Glory, served as a standard training textbook for many years. His many awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star with two oak leaf clusters, the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is the United States' sixth ranking jet ace.

Book fine, dust jacket with a bit of creasing along upper edge, near-fine.

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