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A legendary warbird at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum — a shark-mouthed P-40 Warhawk — was recently joined by something far more rare: a 100-year-old pilot who flew the fighter in World War II. Read more

A legendary warbird at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum — a shark-mouthed P-40 Warhawk — was recently joined by something far more rare: a 100-year-old pilot who flew the fighter in World War II.

Retired Air Force Col. Bruce Hunt, who piloted 172 combat missions in North Africa and Italy, was a special guest at the museum earlier this month in honor of his 100th birthday on Feb. 23.

P-40s rose from Oahu to face Japanese attackers on Dec. 7, 1941, and gained fame with the Flying Tigers, whose volunteer pilots flew against the Japanese in China and Burma.

The sturdy aircraft, first flown in 1938, was a workhorse of the war. Hunt, who lives in Kapolei, got a chance to get up close and personal with the museum version of his fighter.

“It makes me realize how old I am,” he joked after taking a look at the plane during his March 4 museum visit. “No, I can remember many of the flights. It was a good airplane to fly.”

Hunt was assigned to the 314th Fighter Squadron and supported British 8th Army operations against the Germans in North Africa, attacking tanks and bridges, according to the museum.

The Curtiss-made P-40 “was very maneuverable,” the centenarian said. “It could turn inside of anything that the Germans had, which made it a safe airplane. When you are talking about the characteristics of it, it was not that fast, and the rate of climb was not that great, but as long as you could turn inside of an aircraft, you were in pretty good shape.”

The Warhawk, not a good high-altitude fighter, either, was kept out of the way of better German fighters in Northwest Europe but played a critical role in North Africa, Italy and Eastern Europe.

The 314th arrived in Egypt in December of 1942 and the next year moved to Libya and Tunisia, according to the Air Force. In October of 1943, the squadron moved to Cercola, Italy, and continued to provide close air support to Allied ground forces.

Hunt, the squadron’s commander in 1944, once belly-­landed his P-40 in Italy next to the runway after his crew chief mistakenly pumped antifreeze into the aircraft instead of hydraulic fluid.

“I didn’t want to muss up the runway, so I just landed on the side of the runway,” he recalled.

The museum said Hunt shot down a German Me-109, had another probable kill and damaged a third. His P-40 was hit by anti-aircraft fire at least six times, but he escaped with no injuries or serious damage to his aircraft.

Another squadron pilot wasn’t as lucky. The formation had gone on a dive-bombing run and then was told to strafe targets of opportunity, “and you are down low to do that, but we had to do it,” Hunt said.

The other pilot’s plane was hit just off the coast of Italy, and at about 300 feet he turned the aircraft over, bailed out and started to drift to shore, Hunt said.

Hunt flew back to base, refueled and went back out. “I knew there was nothing I could do,” he said. “There he was, standing on the (shore), the Germans were around him, so I flew over, waggled my wings and off I went.”

Decades later, Hunt found out the pilot had survived.

Hunt also flew 125 combat missions in Vietnam in an EC-47. Special Forces aboard the cargo plane would mark targets for bombing runs and take photos, he said.

The World War II and Vietnam pilot, accompanied by several family members, attended a luncheon at the aviation museum, officials said.

“Dad is in really pretty good physical health,” said his daughter, Christiana Lovelace. He takes no medications, she said.

Up until December, when he moved from Waikiki to Kapolei, Hunt was still a volunteer docent at the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii at Fort DeRussy.