Musings: Remembering Gabreski, a hero of two wars
Francis Gabreski, America's top scoring fighter pilot in World War II, shown in London in 1944. He later became an LIRR president. Credit: AP
During World War II, the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport in East Farmingdale was part of the Republic Aviation Company where nearly 10,000 P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes were built. As a museum volunteer, I learned that Francis (Gabby) Gabreski, who lived in Dix Hills after retiring from the Air Force, had been a “Top Gun” flying the Thunderbolts against the German Luftwaffe.
Gabreski was in the Army Air Forces when Pearl Harbor was attacked Dec. 7, 1941. During the war, flying P-47 fighters, he shot down 28 German planes. After his 28th kill, tops for U.S. aviators in Europe, he was scheduled to fly home, where preparations were being made for his wedding. He was packed and ready to fly back to the States on an Army transport when, on an impulse, he volunteered to fly “one last mission” in the war — which is what it proved to be.
While flying this mission, he saw a German bomber on an airfield and decided to strafe it. But he came in too low and his propeller hit the ground and forced him to crash-land in a farmer’s field a few miles away. Instead of going on a honeymoon, Gabreski spent the rest of the war, 10 months, in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
He remained in the service after the war and in 1951 was sent for a one-year tour in the Korean War. As an F-86 Sabre jet fighter pilot, he shot down six Russian MiG-15 jets and became an ace in two victorious wars.
In 1967, Gabreski retired as an Air Force colonel and lived in Dix Hills, working in executive positions for Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage until 1978. Along the way, he and his wife of 48 years had nine children.
He was president of the Long Island Rail Road from 1978 to 1981 and died at age 83 in 2002. His burial at Calverton National Cemetery was followed by a reception at the 56th Fighter Group Restaurant at Republic Airport. The 56th was Gabreski’s fighter group in World War II.
To honor his service, in 1991 Suffolk County Airport, located just north of Westhampton Beach in the Town of Southampton, was renamed Francis S. Gabreski Airport.
— Bill Domjan, Melville
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