After washing out of flight school in the Army Air Corps, Pierce McKennon joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941 as a Sergeant Pilot, Flying with them out of England until his transfer to the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943. During the war he became a USAAF Air DOUBLE ACE, credited with destroying 11 enemy aircraft in aerial combat. After the end of the war, he was serving as an AT-6 instructor when he was killed in a flying accident on June 18, 1947.



