For the Allied forces, the skies over Europe from 1942 to 1943 brought near ruinous casualty numbers. The odds of a B-17 crewman surviving the 25 missions required to complete a tour were only one in four. Casualties totaled among the tens of thousands.
Amid the carnage, one of America’s gilded elite stepped forward, and without his near fanatical guidance, America’s bombing campaign against Germany may well have failed — with the Allied plans for D-Day postponed or potentially scrubbed all together.
Tommy Hitchcock, one of America’s most renowned polo players and the youngest American to win a pilot’s commission during the First World War, has become the archetype of the potency of individual human achievement.
Born on Feb. 11, 1900, in Aiken, South Carolina, the soft-spoken Hitchcock rose to prominence for his aggressive, hard charging ways during polo matches. His marriage to a Mellon family heiress in 1928 only helped to cement his celebrity status.
