COL. JACKIE L. CARWELL | U.S. ARMY
P-47 THUNDERBOLT PILOT • WWII COMBAT VETERAN
TWO D-DAY MISSIONS • 96 COMBAT MISSIONS
Jackie Leroy Carwell was born December 30, 1923, in Louisville, Kentucky. As a young man attending Male High School, he wanted to fly. He entered military service during World War II and initially found himself in the Army Reserve helping construct “igloo” ammunition-storage facilities. In October 1942, he passed the examination for Aviation Cadet training and was sent to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas.
Carwell earned his pilot wings on November 12, 1943. After advanced training in the T-6 and P-40 at McAllen, Texas, he reported to Fort Myers, Florida, in January 1944 to learn the aircraft that would carry him into combat: the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
In February 1944, Carwell was sent to England and assigned to the 62nd Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group, the legendary “Zemke’s Wolfpack.” Flying the P-47 from England, he escorted B-17 and B-24 bombers on missions over occupied Europe and attacked German troops, armor and transportation targets in support of Allied ground forces.
On June 6, 1944, Carwell flew two low-level sorties in support of the D-Day landings in Normandy, encountering flak and small-arms fire below. During his combat tour he completed 96 missions and was credited with shooting down a German Focke-Wulf Fw 190.
For his World War II service, Carwell received decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and Bronze Star.
The end of the war did not end Carwell’s military service or his flying.
He attended the University of Kentucky after the war and returned to active duty with the newly established U.S. Air Force in 1948. By 1950, Captain Carwell was serving as a flight leader with the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 165th Fighter Squadron. He later flew P-51 Mustangs and F-86 Sabres with the Kentucky Air National Guard.
In 1954, Carwell returned to Kentucky to attend dental school at the University of Louisville. After earning his dental degree, he entered the U.S. Army Dental Corps, beginning a second military profession far removed from the cockpit of a P-47.
That career eventually took him to another war.
In 1967, Carwell served in Vietnam as a dental officer with the 25th Infantry Division. The former fighter pilot who had battled German aircraft and ground fire over Europe summed up his experience of war from the ground simply: “Ground war is hell.”
Carwell retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 1974, completing more than three decades of military service.
He established a successful dental practice in Bowling Green, but aviation remained part of his life long after his military flying career ended. Carwell continued piloting his own aircraft into his eighties.
Colonel Jackie Leroy Carwell died May 7, 2016, at age 92.
His career spanned an extraordinary stretch of American military history: from a P-47 cockpit over Normandy on D-Day, through the creation of the independent U.S. Air Force, service in the Kentucky Air National Guard, and finally the ground war in Vietnam. Through it all, he remained an aviator.
