One For The Road: Happy Birthday, Butch O'Hare
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 13, 2012 10:30PM
Today is Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare's 98th birthday. The naval aviator won the Navy's first "flying ace" and received the Medal of Honor in WWII when he shot down five Japanese planes in a single battle and saved his aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Lexington. O'Hare's face was put on a recruiting poster, and he was the hero the U.S. needed to boost morale shortly after Pearl Harbor.
O'Hare's plane was shot down in 1943, and Chicago's Orchard Depot Airport was renamed in his honor in 1945. By the way, O'Hare's father Edward J. O'Hare, aka "Easy Eddy," was Al Capone's lawyer, who was murdered under suspicious circumstances after he maybe gave up some information that got Capone arrested. Critical Past has raw video of O'Hare in flight. Below is a 25-minute documentary detailing O'Hare's life. The first two minutes are sufficient if you're in a hurry, but the whole piece is good.