Robin Olds, an Air Force brigadier general who was a flamboyant legend of military aviation as a fighter pilot in World War II and Vietnam, died June 14 at his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He was 84.

Olds, whose father was a World War I fighter pilot and a key planner of early bombing tactics, aimed for the air from his youth. After graduating in 1943 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was an All-American football player, he immediately earned his wings as a fighter pilot in World War II.

Flying P-38 Lightnings and later P-51 Mustangs, he shot down 13 German aircraft, making him a double ace. He had to wait 22 years to return to combat.

Olds, who often bucked the military system and ignored rules that he considered silly, grew a rakish handlebar mustache in Vietnam in disregard of Air Force standards. He also planned and executed Operation Bolo, a daring strike against North Vietnamese MiGs on January 2, 1967, that was the most decisive U.S. air victory at that point in the war.

When he returned to the United States after his Vietnam tour, Olds still sporting his waxed mustache was ushered into the office of Air Force Chief-of-Staff John McConnell.

“I walked briskly through the door, stopped and snapped a salute,” Olds later recalled. “He walked up to me, stuck a finger under my nose and said, “Take it off!” And I said, “Yes, sir!” And that was the end of that.

When Olds retired in 1973, his honors included the Air Force Cross, a Distinguished Service Medal, four Silver Stars, a Legion of Merit, six Distinguished Flying Crosses and 40 Air Medals.

Olds appeared in November 2006 as a commentator on the History Cannel’s series “Dogfights,” describing Operation Bolo and his air battles in World War II.


I would have really liked this guy!

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