ANTIGO — The Antigo Public Library will host Mike O’Connor, the author of two nonfiction books about American fighter pilots, this Friday, May 10 at 2 p.m.
O’Connor’s first book on the topic, “Ace of Aces,” tells the story of Poplar, Wis. native Richard Bong, the top American fighter ace of all time, while his second, “Badger Aces,” chronicles the lives of all the aces — there were 44 in total — that Wisconsin ever produced.
O’Connor, who worked as a reference librarian at the Marathon County Public Library for 40 years, called military aviation a “life-long interest.”
“My dad was in the 9th Air Force in World War II and he flew on the paratrooper drop the night before D-Day,” O’Connor said. “That sparked my interest in military aviation, and over the years, I kind of specialized on the topic of fighter aces, because they’re kind of an elite within an elite. Military pilots generally are the elite in the piloting fraternity, and at the top of the heap are fighter aces, because every fighter pilot wants to be a fighter ace, to shoot down five enemy aircraft and get official confirmation.”
“When I got interested in that, I was really kind of blown away by the fact that the top American fighter ace of all time was from Wisconsin.”
O’Connor never interviewed any of the pilots he profiles in “Badger Aces,” which was published in 2022, as they had all passed away before his research began. Instead, he pored through on combat reports, letters, newspaper articles, and medal citations to piece together their lives.
“I got to know them fairly well by all the research I did,” he said. “I tried to differentiate each one so that the readers got an idea of what kind of a person each of these guys was. Some were typical greatest generation people that said, ‘I’m not a hero — I just did my job.’ But there were some other pilots that were real characters, real extroverts, and real interesting character studies. I also tried to give readers a lot of descriptions of exciting air battles, because that’s what fighter pilots were engaged in.”
While no “Badger Aces” were from Langlade County, O’Connor said there were Eagle River, Shawano, and Wausau natives that he featured in his book.
O’Connor said Friday’s event, which will include a powerpoint presentation and Q&A session about the “Wisconsin and national hero” pilots, will appeal to a variety of people.
“People enjoy hearing about hometown heroes that made good,” he said. “There also might be some interest in fighter aircraft, and I think a lot of the people that come to the program just have a general curiosity about history and 20th century history and World War I and World War II. There were two badger aces in World War I, 39 in World War II, two in Korea, and one in Vietnam. So you’re really looking at the whole 20th Century history there of air warfare, so that might be the draw for some people to my presentations.”
O’Connor can be reached via email at moconnor@dwave.net.
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