Having been under the impression all these years, that when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, one of the only two U. S. fighter planes that were able to take off to battle the attacking Japanese planes was Piloted by Colin Kelly, I was shocked to find that this was not true .

The two planes were piloted by Kenneth Taylor, and George Welch.. Taylor is credited with shooting down two Japanese fighter planes and with two unconfirmed hits. Welch is credited with four hits. The men received the Distinguished Service Cross for their valor but were denied the Medal of Honor because they didn’t have time to report to their superiors, but went directly to their planes, and went into combat without orders. Their actions were portrayed in the 1970 film "Tora! Tora! Tora!"

When the Japanese attacked the Phillipines in concert with the Pearl Harbor attack, a U. S. bomber group was stationed there. Representative of their valor was a young B-17 pilot, Captain Colin Kelly, who, with a handful of others, flew the first American bombing missions of World War II. Three days after Pearl Harbor, with Clark Field under air attack, he made an emergency takeoff with three 600-pound bombs aboard. He located several Japanese cruisers shelling a landing area near Aparri. Kelly's plane bombed from 22,000 feet, amazingly, hitting a cruiser. On the way back to Clark, he and his crew were attacked by a squadron of Japanese Zeros led by top ace Saburo Sakai. They raked the Fortress from the rear in a running battle for several dozen miles, killing the waist gunner and injuring others. As the crippled ship began to fall to earth, Kelly held the controls steady while the others bailed out. As the sixth man left the ship, it blew up. His was the first B-17 lost in combat; Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.