Major Ray Wetmore -- the man who flew Daddy's Girl -- was from Kerman, California, enlisted at 18, and became one of the most feared fighter pilots in the Eighth Air Force. With 21.25 victories, 16 of them in Mustangs, he was the top scorer of the 359th Fighter Group -- the highest score in the group and eighth best of all Americans in the European Theater. He named the aircraft after his baby daughter, Diane. At year's end 1944 he was a captain with nearly 15 kills, flying that Mustang named Daddy's Girl.
But here's the story nobody tells -- during the Battle of the Bulge, Wetmore's Daddy's Girl was hit by American anti-aircraft gunners at the Remagen bridge who hadn't been notified the Mustangs were coming. The starboard wing caught fire and the canopy jammed -- it got caught on a camera installed behind the armour plate. Wetmore couldn't eject. The fire in the wing eventually died out and he belly-landed in Belgium. His wingman who witnessed it said describing it as simply "shot up by flak and belly-landed" missed entirely the drama of being trapped in a burning aircraft.
His final kill on March 15, 1945 was an Me-163 Komet rocket fighter -- the fourth and last Me-163 to fall to the guns of Eighth Air Force Mustangs. His airspeed indicator showed 600 mph during the chase.
On February 14, 1951, Ray took off from Los Angeles in an F-86 Sabre on a trip to Otis Air Force Base. On final approach his plane suddenly shot skyward, then turned toward the ground and crashed. He was killed instantly. He was 21 years old on VE-Day. He was 27 when he died. The ace who survived being shot at by his own side over Belgium, who chased rocket-powered jets at 600 mph, who put 21 kills on his airplane -- was killed in peacetime on Valentine's Day, six years after the war ended, in a plane he couldn't control.
This plane is a tribute to the 4 time ace.