Paul Irvin "Pappy" Gunn was a former United States naval aviator known mainly for his actions in the Second World War as an officer in the United States Army Air Forces.
11 Facts About Paul Gunn
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Paul Gunn was known as "an expert in dare-devil low-level flying," and recognized for numerous feats of heroism and mechanical ingenuity, especially modifications to the Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber and B-25 Mitchell medium bomber that turned them into attack aircraft.
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Paul Gunn served in the Tophatters, one of the Navy's oldest fighter squadrons then known as VF-1B, and served as a flight instructor at NAS Pensacola before retiring from the Navy as a Chief Petty Officer in December 1939 after 21 years' service.
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Paul Gunn then helped start Philippine Air Lines, using five privately owned Beechcraft planes.
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Paul Gunn was operating a civilian air freight operation in the Philippines at the start of World War II.
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Paul Gunn flew evacuation missions for US military personnel out of Japanese-held territory on a volunteer basis before being directly commissioned into the US Army Air Forces.
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Paul Gunn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1942 for flying an unarmed, unarmored airplane into hostile airspace to deliver medical supplies to the besieged troops on Bataan.
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Paul Gunn found Gunn converting the A-20s of the 3d Bombardment Group into strafers by adding four.
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When Gen Kenney learned that Paul Gunn was using weapons from wrecked fighters, he was impressed by Paul Gunn's innovative abilities and immediately made him a member of his personal staff, placing the old naval aviator in charge of special projects.
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Paul Gunn's converted A-20s and B-25s played the major role in the Allied victory in the 1943 Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
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Paul Gunn died when his plane crashed in a storm over the Philippines on October 11,1957.