On August 6, 1945, American newspapers carried the atomic bombing of Hiroshima alongside the obituary of a 24-year-old farm boy from Poplar, Wisconsin. Richard 'Dick' Bong, America's ace of aces with 40 confirmed victories, had died that same day not in combat but on a P-80 Shooting Star test flight in Burbank, California. It was only his 12th flight in a jet, with a total of four hours and 15 minutes of jet experience in his logbook.

This episode pieces together a man of contradictions: a record-breaking P-38 Lightning ace who firmly believed he was a poor marksman, a pilot grounded in June 1942 for buzzing a newlywed's house, flying down Market Street in San Francisco, and blowing a woman's laundry off her Oakland clothesline, and an 'advanced gunnery instructor' who ignored orders to only observe and kept shooting down enemy aircraft unt ...