Scott, "God is My Co-Pilot" author, dies at 97

[Charlie Brown]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/obits/stories/0228metobscott.html

WARNER ROBINS — Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, author of "God is My Co-Pilot," died early Monday. He was 97.

Scott, a native of Macon, rose to nationwide prominence during World War II, first as a fighter ace in the China-Burma-India theater then as author of "God is My Co-Pilot," an account of his wartime exploits.

The book was later made into a 1945 feature-length movie. Scott, who retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general, never lost his "fighter ace" prominence and later used that fame to great effect in supporting Middle Georgia's Museum of Aviation.

Scott's story is the stuff of legend: He flew a homemade glider off the roof of a three-story house at age 12 and crash landed on a spiky Cherokee rose bush. With the Flying Tigers, he earned five of his 22 aerial victories in May 1942 when he flew more than 200 hours in combat.

[Greeby]

1. So long General

:patriot:

[meegbear]

2. God was my co-pilot ...

but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.

[ret5hd]

4. sounds like YOU should have been the copilot...

just sayin...

[snooper2]

5. The greatest bumper sticker of all time!

[951-Riverside]

7. LOL! Cute n/t

[meegbear]

9. Got it on a fridge magnet

one of my favorite sayings

[bleedingheart]

3. I will have to ask my father-in-law if he ever met him...

he was a navigator in the China-Burma-India theatre...

[ewagner]

6. RIP General

and thank you, Sir, for you gallant service. :patriot:

[El Supremo]

8. That title sure has made the rounds - even to this day.

My dad, who was an airline captain, used to kid his new first officers by greeting them in the cockpit with, "God, is this my copilot?"

And my pastor has a bumper sticker on his car that says, "DOG is my copilot."

[AnneD]

10. That combat theatre

was one of the roughest and IMHO one of the least reported. These guys were heroes in the truest sense.

[Charlie Brown]

11. Here's an interview with Scott from 1996

He sounds pretty awesome.

http://www.thehistorynet.com/wwii/blrobertsmith/

I was never seriously wounded, but once I had caught some plexiglass fragments in the back of my neck. Dr. Fred Manget, a medical missionary, and his Cantonese intern were removing them from my neck, and the intern kept talking to me to take my mind off the pain. Commenting on how many things I had to do up there at one time -- fire the machine guns, change fuel tanks, drop the bombs and so forth -- he asked me who had been up there with me, and I said, "I was up there alone." Looking at the potential seriousness of the wound, Dr. Manget said: "You're not up there alone -- not with all the things you've been through. You've got the greatest co-pilot in the world even if there is only one of you in the fighter ship -- no, you're not alone." He was right. I had already been in a hundred experiences where I could have gotten killed, but here I was. My brother went up once and received a bad wound. I was never seriously wounded. Scribner didn't want me to use the title. He said that people would think it was the book of a religious nut. He later told me that he had been wrong and that I had known more than he did.