World War II pilot’s 100th birthday bash

Jack Hallett turned 100 years old, or should I say young, Nov. 17, 2020. To celebrate that day, he appeared at the local Florida Department of Motor Vehicles for his new driver’s license.

Jack probably had more butterflies in his stomach about this encounter than he did flying aerial cover in a P-38 over the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion of France in 1944. 

First was the eye test, and he was told to read the line indicated by the examiner but, as bad luck would have it, he read the wrong line. When told he read the wrong line, his heart skipped a beat. But no matter, because he read the line with the smaller print, so everybody was very impressed. 

Apparently, he kept up such a friendly and joking banter with all the examiners that when it came time for the driver’s test, they said he just seemed to be a healthy 80-year-old. They said “here is your new license and we will see you again in three years.”

It’s a good thing he bought that new car with an extended warranty.

Jack enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps right after Pearl Harbor and spent most of World War II serving in Europe flying the famed twin engine P-38 and then the single engine P-47, sometimes called the Jug.

He was shot down twice by enemy ground fire, but always managed to find his way back to Allied lines.

During his time in the Air Corps he flew just about all the fighter aircraft types the Army had. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and earned the rank of Major.

He can remember his wartime flying exploits like they occurred last week and can keep an audience on the edge of their chairs as he relates these stories, one after another.

Jack is an honored member of EAA Chapter 534 at the Leesburg International Airport in Leesburg, Florida. He has become an inspiration to the chapter’s Youth Group, as well as the adult members. As a matter of fact, there are a number of the gray beard members who say: “I hope I can be like Jack when I grow up.”

The Daytona Beach EAA Chapter 288, which makes its home at the nearby fly-in community of Spruce Creek, wanted to host Jack Hallett for a birthday banquet, so they contacted Joel Hargis, president of EAA Chapter 534, to make arrangements to pick up Jack at the EAA hangar in Leesburg on Nov. 21, 2020.

They flew a formation of four sleek and fast SX-300s over the airport, then broke for a landing one after another and came to a stop in front of the Chapter 534 hangar. 

Keith Phillips from Spruce Creek, who organized this event, introduced himself to the Chapter 534 members, introduced his fellow pilots and proceeded to brief all in attendance about how the return flight to Ormond Beach, Florida, would take place. 

They would be met there by a limousine that would take them to Bruce Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona for a Birthday Bash with a band and celebration lunch. After the event, the EAA Chapter 288 pilots did a formation flight over the restaurant and flew Jack back home to Leesburg. 

The fact that these two EAA chapters could work together on a worthwhile project like this is testimony to the fact that when general aviation enthusiasts want to make something good happen, there is no holding them back.