Richard I. Bong, who would become America's "Aces of Aces" was born on September 24, 1920. He was the son of a sewdish immigrant. He grew up on a farm near the small town of Poplar, Wisconsin. Richard's nickname was Dick. Richard did good in high school, worked on the farm and persued many interests as a teenager. He did his primary flight training at Rakin Aeronatical Academy in California in June 1941, and completed basics at Gardner Field, California. He went to Luke Field near Phoenix, for advanced training in single-engine planes, where he learned to master AT-6 under Captain Barry Goldwater, who later said "I taught him fighter gunnery." He shot down a total of 40 enemy aircraft. On August 6, 1945, while half a world away Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Bong stepped into an airplane for the last time. His P-80 malfunctioned just after take-off and while he bailed out, he never had a chance.