Quentin C. Aanenson

Who was Quentin C. Aanenson?

Quentin C. Aanenson was a World War II veteran fighter pilot and former Captain of the 391st Fighter Squadron, 366th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, U.S. Army Air Corps. He flew the P-47 Thunderbolt in the Normandy D-Day invasion and subsequent European campaign.

Aanenson enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1942 but was not called up to active duty until February 1943. He left for Santa Ana Air Force Base for pre-flight training and then to Primary Flight School at Thunderbird Field near Phoenix, Arizona. In September 1943, he left for Basic Flight School at Gardner Field near Bakersfield, California. Aanenson then left for Advanced Flight Training at Luke Field, Phoenix, Arizona where he was commissioned a second lieutenant on January 7, 1944. From January to May 1944, he trained at Harding Field in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he met his wife Jackie.

Aanenson demonstrated exceptional courage and ability as a fighter pilot, amassing tens of kills and beating all odds to survive the early months of his tour of duty. Later in the war, Aanenson was taken out of the cockpit, embedded with advance troops, and his skills put to good use as a quick-response aircraft attack co-ordinator. He eventually documented his experiences for his family. This was later turned into a documentary video which he wrote, produced and narrated. A Fighter Pilot's Story was first televised on 11 December or 12 November 1993, then broadcast on over 300 public television stations in June 1994. Up until August 2007, it was available for purchase on DVD. The three-hour documentary, made all the more effective by being narrated throughout in his flat, affectless voice, tells of a young, enthusiastic, cheery boy very rapidly aged by too much death. It also tells of a remarkably wide range of combat duties, and details many harrowing individual missions, like the one where he and his wing man came upon a German convoy, destroyed the vehicles, and when his wing man's guns jammed, how Aanenson worked-over the roadside ditches where the convoy soldiers had hidden, making multiple passes, "walking" his rudder to spread his fire more effectively, so that there would be as few survivors as possible.