Utah lost one of its genuine World War II heroes this week with the death of retired Air Force Major General Chesley Peterson in California at age 69.
For many older Utahns, the name of Chesley Peterson revives memories of the desperate fights between the undermanned British Royal Air Force and Adolf Hitler's German pilots in 1940-41, the air war that has become known in history books as the Battle of Britain.During those crucial months, the fate of Britain hung on the outcome of the twisting clashes in the sky over beleaguered England. Although his own country of America was not yet at war, Peterson was one of those hailed at the time in the immortal words of Winston Churchill: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Young Peterson had been fascinated by airplanes since one landed near his Santaquin home and the pilot gave him a ride. When fighting in Europe began, he fibbed about his age and joined what was then the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was found out and discharged after two months.
They were less fussy in Britain where Peterson joined the famed Eagle Squadron made up of foreign volunteers, many of them Americans. It takes five "kills" - the shooting down of an enemy aircraft - to become known as an "ace." Peterson had nine confirmed kills and nine more "probables."
He won the Distinguished Service Order, Britain's second highest medal. He became commander of the Eagle Squadron at age 21 and a full colonel at age 23.
He retained that rank when he transferred to the U.S. air forces in 1943 and still holds the record for the youngest colonel in Air Force history. He flew more than 200 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, America's second highest medal.
Peterson made a career of the military after the war, rising to the rank of two-star general before retiring in 1970. For health reasons, he later moved to an Air Force retirement village in Riverside, Calif.
The young Santaquin farm boy served his country well. And he will always be remembered in history books as one of the "few" extolled by Churchill when the free world faced its darkest hours.