User:StephenCupp/sandbox

James Cupp was born on March 28, 1921 and died on June 2, 2004. He was honored eighteen times for valor and bravery during both World War II and the Korean War, and is recognized as being amongst the top thirty Marine Corps aces fighting over the Pacific during World War II. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross three times, the Bronze Star twice, the Navy Cross - the second highest military decoration for valor that can be awarded to a member of the Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard -, and, lastly, a Purple Heart when he was shot down over “the slot” in the Solomon Islands near Guadalcanal and burned over sixty per cent of his body. He had been tangling with a Japanese bomber known as a “Betty” (a Mitsubishi G4M) over the Pacific. Military historians, the Marine Corps, and pilots from all the services recognized him as a “Double Ace” with thirteen “kills” attributed to him. The record-keepers go back and forth as to whether his record is twelve or thirteen. Most settle on thirteen. When he was shot down in his last fight in his F4U Corsair, the “Daphne C”, his wingmen, Lieutenants Fred Avey and Walter Stewart, searched out the bomber my father had been fighting with, and found it downed in the water with seven Japanese crewmen sitting on the plane’s wings.