Colonel Richard G. Candelaria flew the P-51 Mustang 44-41175, which he named “My Pride N’ Joy”, when he was assigned to the 435th Fighter Squadron, 479th Fighter Group, 8th USAAF, European Theater of Operation. He was born in Pasadena, California on July 14, 1922, and after completing primary and basic flight training in California, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and received his pilot wings on February 8, 1944, at Williams Field, Arizona. He joined the 479th FG on September 22, 1944, and scored his first victories on December 5, 1944, when he downed two FW190s northwest of Berlin, Germany. On April 7, 1945, he shot down four Bf 109s from the Schulungslehrgang Elbe, whose mission was to ram their fighters into Allied bombers. The same day he was also credited with a probable Me 262 destroyed. His final tally was 6 air-to-air, 1 air-to-air probable, and 6 air-to-ground victories. He is one of only five Hispanic Aces. On April 13, 1945, he was shot down while strafing an airfield near Tarnewitz, Germany, and evaded capture for 10 days. He escaped three times, only to be captured again, and on May 1st, he and two other pilots escaped, stole the local Bergermeister’s Opel car, kidnapped a German Captain, and drove over 200 miles in Germany where they met a British armor unit, then continued on to Brussels, Belgium. The war ended a few days later when he was in Paris, France, and he was the last man to walk aboard the Queen Elizabeth coming home from England. He retired from the United States Air Force in June, 1961. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal with 12 Oak Leaf Clusters, and the French Legion of Honor.

The 479th Fighter Group was known as the “Riddle’s Raiders” and destroyed 155 aircraft in the air and 279 aircraft on the ground. It was the last Fighter Group to join the 8th USAAF, yet claimed the first victory of a Me 163 Komet jet by Arthur Jeffery on July 29, 1944, and the last enemy aircraft destroyed by the 8th USAAF on April 25, 1945, by Lt. Hilton Thompson. The 479th FG received three Distinguished Unit Citations for strafing and air combat on August 18th, September 5th, and September 25th, 1944.