Donald Blakeslee, 90; one of WWII's top fighter pilots, flew nearly 500 missions

Col. Donald Blakeslee is believed to have flown more missions than any US fighter pilot during World War II. General Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross. (US Army Air Corps)

NEW YORK - Colonel Donald Blakeslee, one of the most decorated fighter pilots of World War II and the commander of the first American fighter squadrons to reach Berlin as the Allies ground down the German Luftwaffe, died Sept. 3 at his home in Miami. He was 90.

The cause was heart failure, said his daughter and only immediate survivor, Dawn Blakeslee.

As commander of the Fourth Fighter Group of the Eighth Fighter Command, Mr. Blakeslee led three squadrons of 16 single-seat, single-engine P-51 Mustangs, each equipped with six machine guns mounted in the wings and sighted so that the bullet streams could converge on the Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulf fighters that were trying to down Allied bombers.

By the end of the war, the Fourth Fighter Group was credited with destroying 1,020 German aircraft, 550 shot out of the air and 470 hit while on the ground. That total surpassed the 992 German planes taken out by the 56th Fighter Group, led by another fighter ace, Colonel Hubert Zemke.

Walter J. Boyne, a former director of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution, said that Mr. Blakeslee was one of the cadre of commanders who "blunted the edge of the Luftwaffe" and "went on to lead the progressive destruction of the German air force."

In his four years in the European theater, Mr. Blakeslee flew nearly 500 missions and had about 1,000 combat hours to his credit, believed to be more missions and hours "than any other American fighter pilot of World War II," said Barrett Tillman, a former executive secretary of the American Fighter Aces Association.

On March 6, 1944, Mr. Blakeslee's fighter group became the first to fly above a fleet of B-17s and B-24s as they each dropped up to 4,000 pounds of bombs on Berlin. As German fighters tried to intercept the bombers, Mr. Blakeslee's planes swooped down.

Of the aerial combat, the colonel later told reporters: "There's nothing unusual in the missions. They all follow the same pattern. Either you get on Jerry's tail or he gets on yours. That's all."

"We got low enough to see Berlin only once," he said. "We were down to around 10,000 feet, and we could see that blocks and blocks of Berlin had been bombed absolutely flat."

On April 8, 1944, the Fourth Fighter Group set a record for the European theater, shooting down 31 planes in one day. In late June, Mr. Blakeslee led his fighters on one of their most arduous missions, escorting shuttle-bombers to the Soviet Union.

"When the war had progressed to a certain point where American bombers had the range to over-fly German-held territory," Boyne said, "the idea was to land them in the Soviet Union, then return and bomb on the way back. You double the utilization of your bombers.

"This required, particularly on the part of the fighters, great endurance and navigation abilities. It strained the plane and strained the pilot."

In a ceremony in England on March 6, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of Allied forces in Europe, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross to Mr. Blakeslee. Beside the colonel was Captain Don Gentile, a member of his flight group, who was receiving the same decoration for destroying 30 German planes.

In all, according to Tillman of the fighter aces association, Mr. Blakeslee received two Distinguished Service Crosses, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Silver Stars, six Air Medals and the British Distinguished Flying Cross. A decade later he received the Legion of Merit, another Distinguished Flying Cross, and four Air Medals for his service in the Korean War.

Donald James Mathew Blakeslee was born in Fairport Harbor, Ohio. As a child, he became fascinated with planes while watching the Cleveland National Air Races. In the mid-1930s, he and a friend bought a Piper Cub. In 1940, after his friend crashed, Mr. Blakeslee went to Canada to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.

After pilot training, he was sent to Britain, where he flew combat missions for the Royal Air Force, mostly with American Eagle squadrons composed of American volunteers. In September 1942, he was transferred to the US Army Air Forces and assigned to the Fourth Fighter Group. He became group commander in January 1944. That year, the colonel married Leola Fryer; she died in 2003. He retired from the Air Force in 1965.

Mr. Blakeslee was a taciturn man with a no-nonsense presence that commanded respect from his fighters. An article in The New York Times described how, on Sept. 11, 1944, he was "ill at ease" in front of photographers and reporters while being interviewed about his exploits.

"It's more fun facing a squadron of Jerries," he said.