Col. Stephen L. Bettinger
"Worlds greatest fighter pilot!"
The video below was shown at the reception following the mass
(see links at the bottom of the page for downloading)
funeral video by his longtime friend and fellow pilot Bud Granley
Program for funeral (click thumbnails)
Col. Bettinger died December 4th, 2010
he was buried with military honors on December 17, 2010
Col. Bettinger was the 39th and last jet ace of the Korean War. After he shot down his 5th MiG-15, he was himself shot down. He was captured and spent the last months of the war in a prison camp. He was the last pilot to make Ace solely with machine guns.
In World War II, Col. Bettinger flew P-47 Thunderbolts with the 57th fighter Group, 66th Squadron in north Africa, Corsica and Italy. He shot down one Me-109.
He retired from a full career in the airforce in 1973.
To download a copy of the Memorial Video, Right-click or Command-Click on the following link and choose "save link as..." from the menu
http://migkill.com/mov/migkillmemorial.mov
(you must have a quicktime capable player on your computer to view it. the file is 570 MB. it will take some time to download)
To download a copy of the entire audio track for the memorial video, click and save (as above), or click to play in a new window. This is the entire 50 minute speech Col. Bettinger gave some time in the '90's