Edward S. Michael

Edward Stanley Michael (May 2, 1918 – May 10, 1994) was a United States Army Air Forces officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

Edward S. Michael was born at Chicago, Illinois, 2 May 1918. He was the son of Stanley W. Michael and Lillian Harriet Konior Michael. He graduated from Chicago High School in 1936 and joined the Army Air Corps from his birth city of Chicago, Illinois in November 1940.

In 1941, private Michael was transferred to Wheeler Field, Hawaii to train as a mechanic. At first he failed the aviation cadet examination and was preparing to retake it when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. In mid 1942 he was accepted for a pilot training and on 12 April 1943 he received a commissioning and his pilot wings at Douglas Army Air Field, Arizona.

By April 1944 he was a first lieutenant piloting B-17 Flying Fortresses with the 364th Bomb Squadron, 305th Bombardment Group. He named his aircraft after his first wife, Bertie Lee. On 11 April, while flying a mission over Germany, his aircraft was singled out by enemy fighters and severely damaged by their cannon fire. As flames burned in the plane's bomb bay, Michael, who had been seriously wounded, ordered his crew to bail out. Finding that one crewman's parachute was unusable, he returned to the controls and managed to evade the enemy fighters and heavy anti-aircraft fire to fly his bomber into Allied territory. He lost consciousness due to blood loss from his wounds, but awoke in time to make a successful crash landing on English soil. All of the seven crewmembers who escaped from the aircraft were captured by the Germans and held as prisoners of war. For his actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor nine months later, on January 15, 1945.

Michael returned to the United States for hospitalization. Later, as a captain, he was ferrying aircraft from Love Field, Dallas, Texas.

After the war he transferred to the newly created U.S. Air Force and served at Fort Totten, Washington D.C. In April 1949, he graduated from Air University and for the next three years was a pilot at Hill AFB, Utah.

In September 1952, he was assigned to Guam and then to Hickam Field, Hawaii, where he served as chief of the Reserve Affairs Branch at Headquarters 1500th Air Base Wing.

In June 1955, Michael returned to the Continental United States and served in various positions at Fort Douglas, Utah, McConnell AFB, Kansas (in the rank of major), Travis AFB, California.

On 1 August 1963, Michael was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

He retired in 1971.

After his retirement Michael settled in Fairfield, California.

He died at age 76 and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Springville, Utah.