Amid the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end comes the death of what is believed to be America’s last surviving ace, Don McPherson. He was 103.
McPherson stands out among the “Greatest Generation” as the last American pilot credited with five aerial victories to earn the status of “ace.” Perhaps appropriately, he got them all during the war’s last major campaign: Okinawa.
Born in Adams, Nebraska on May 25, 1922, Donald Melvin McPherson grew up working on his family’s farm during the Great Depression. He was trying to raise money to go to college when World War II broke out.
His father persuaded him to avoid being drafted into the infantry by enlisting in the U.S. Navy, which he did on Feb. 4, 1943. After 18 months of training, he qualified for a naval aviator’s golden wings and an ensign’s commission on Aug. 12, 1944. He celebrated on the 17th by marrying his high school sweetheart, Thelma Johnston, with whom he would have two daughters and a son.
In February 1945 McPherson got a combat posting aboard the aircraft carrier Essex (CV-9) with VF-83, a fighter squadron equipped with the Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat.
His first combat mission came on March 19, 1945, a raid on the Ryukyu Islands in preparation for the coming Okinawa invasion.
During the sun McPherson got a first-hand look at why the defensive combat air patrols (CAPs) he and his fellow Hellcat pilots flew over the fleet, mattered. During an otherwise successful strike on the Japanese mainland, a single Yokosuka D4Y3 dive bomber (Allied codename “Judy”) had emerged from a cloud and landed two 250-pound bombs on the carrier Franklin (CV-13).
“I was one of three pilots that were transported to the carrier to fly off one of only three good planes that they had left,” McPherson said in a previous interview with Military Times. “When we went down to the hanger deck to get those planes, there were hundreds of dead sailors on cots covered — their loss was tremendous.”
On April 1 American forces landed on Okinawa, to face a grueling ordeal as the Japanese Thirty-Second Army, under Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, conducted a fighting retreat aimed at inflicting maximum casualties while delaying its own inevitable destruction for as long as possible.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Fifth Fleet faced a variety of suicide weapons, of which the most effective were aircraft flown by hastily trained pilots.
At Okinawa these special attack planes, called kamikaze or “divine wind” by the Japanese navy, came in anything from lone attacks to massed formations called kikusui (“floating chrysanthemums”). The latter afforded a target-rich environment to the U.S. Navy and Marine fighter pilots, but they faced a grimly urgent task, since every suicide crash would severely damage or even sink one of the ships they were charged to protect.
The first of 10 massed attacks on the fleet, Kikusui Operation No.1, kicked off on April 6, with 230 Japanese navy kamikazes, 130 army “special attack” planes, 130 army and navy fighters to provide escort and a number of conventional dive bombers.
They were opposed by fighters from 19 U.S. Navy and Marine squadrons, which claimed a total of 275 attackers.
McPherson was flying an early afternoon sweep by three divisions of VF-83 and two of VBF-83 in search of enemy ships when they encountered small formations Japanese “Judy” and “Val” dive bombers as well as “Kate” torpedo bombers. The enemy bombers were escorted by “Zeke” fighters, “Sonia” dive bombers and “Tony” fighters.
McPherson recalled:
Our division was alone and had been sent to tear up the airfield at Kikai Shima, which was being used as a staging base for kamikazes. As we were retiring we spotted two Vals on a converging course to us, about 1,000 feet above the water. We were at 1,800 feet. I was lucky — I still had some ammunition left and I hadn’t put my guns on ‘safe.’ I just pushed the stick forward, went down and strafed the first guy. The pilot slumped forward into the cockpit, so I figured I must have killed him as he went down. I did a wingover and went after the other one which was heading for the field. I gave my plane full throttle to catch up, strafed him and he blew up. The anti-aircraft guns on the airfield then opened up and I had to take some fancy evasive action to get out of there.
McPherson would not have another opportunity to score until May 4. At dawn that morning the Japanese launched Kikusui No.5, a fresh wave of not-so-fresh aircraft.
While the Japanese army assembled some 50 “special attack” planes at Chiran Airbase, the navy scraped together 75 — most of which were obsolete — floatplanes.
Preceding these expendable aircraft were 15 army fighters and 35 Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-kai (George) fighters of the navy’s elite 343rd Kokutai.
Whatever the tactical theory to this aerial onslaught, it fell apart in practice.
The 343rd Kokutai bounced a division of VBF-12 from the carrier Randolph, but its Hellcat pilots went into a mutually supporting weave and claimed 12 enemy fighters.
Proceeding south, the Japanese suicide planes ran into a defensive scrimmage of U.S. Navy and Marine fighters. Two divisions of VF-83 were on CAP over three destroyers of Radar Picket Station 1 when they faced a mass attack by obsolete but nimble “Type 93” float biplanes.
“They were tough,” said McPherson, who encountered the first Alf floatplanes at about 0730 hours. “They were coming in so low on the water that we couldn’t make a high side attack without risking dipping a wing in the water. But we had to stop them — they were packed with explosives and there was even flammable material in the floats.”
Attacked from the port side at 0740, Fletcher-class destroyer Luce shot down one attacker, but its exploding bomb disabled the ship’s electrical system and a second kamikaze scored a hit astern that sank it with 126 crewmen dead.
A fighter and three low-flying Alfs also crashed into the destroyer Morrison, which went down with 152 of its crew.
That left the destroyer Ingraham, blazing away with its antiaircraft guns while VF-83 took on its suicidal assailants. A Nakajima Ki.84 “Frank” fighter crashed into the destroyer, killing 15 crewmen.
Still the Alfs came.
McPherson recalled:
I was flying wing on the division leader, Lieutenant Carlos Soffe, and we soon determined that the Alfs were so slow that there would only be time for a short burst from the rear. We overshot the first one, but I got the second one. The division leader then ordered us to split up our formation and get all of them that we could. So we lowered our landing flaps and wheels to slow us down even more and then succeeded in getting in quick bursts; that helped me score the second one. I received the DFC with stars for the second and third victories. Carlos Soffe was also credited with three air to air victories.
McPherson destroyed a third Alf at 0915, bringing his overall tally to five and acedom.
Total Navy and Marine claims that day came to 167; VF-83 accounted for 34 of them.
“Years since then I was thinking,” McPherson observed in retrospect, “what is more important to success in a war; my shooting down a Jap Zero and killing one pilot or shooting down one older kamikaze and saving the lives of many Navy personnel?”
I have never felt as good about my accomplishments in the war as I was when I received a phone call from Frank Jones, a gunner from the Ingraham, thanking me for saving them from being sunk. He commented that we pilots were really brave as we were coming right on in to protect them when we knew that they were shooting at that same plane. As a result of their ship reunion, they sent me a large photo of the ship with 37 signatures attached!”
By the end of the war VF-83 was credited with 137 victories for the loss of only six pilots. It produced 11 aces, the highest-scoring of whom were aces in a day.
Separated from active service on Nov. 23, 1945 with the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and three gold stars, McPherson completed his Navy Reserve obligation on Oct. 1, 1956.
He then worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a rural mail carrier, retiring in 1988 to become a farmer. Alongside that, he coached youth sports and was the Boy Scout leader for Troop 280. In January 2015 he was named to the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame and on May 20 of that year he was one of 37 fighter aces awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C.
On Sept. 28, 2024, McPherson once again took to the skies in a restored Hellcat fighter, telling KARE NBC at the time that the flight “Brought back some really, really cool memories.”
His exceptional life came around full circle on Aug. 14, 2025, when he died in Adams and buried in Highland Cemetery, Nebraska.
