Captain Robert A. Karr flew the P-51 Mustang 44-13469 while assigned to the 5th Fighter Squadron, 52nd Fighter Group, 15th USAAF, Mediterranean Theater of Operation. He enlisted in the USAAF as an aviation cadet on April 25, 1942, and graduated from flight school as a Second Lieutenant on November 3, 1943. He joined the 87th Fighter Group, and after completing replacement training in the P-47 Thunderbolt, he was assigned to the 52nd Fighter Group in May, 1944. Flying out of Madna Airfield, Italy, he scored his first air-to-air victory, a Bf 109 over the Adriatic Sea, on June 9, 1944. On July 7, 1944, he added two more Bf 109s to his air-to-air victory total over Oppeln, Poland. Promoted to Captain, on December 17, 1944, he shot down three more Bf 109s over Biata, Poland, making him an Ace. He finished the war with six air-to-air victories, and two damaged. His crew chief was S/Sgt George Hahn, Jr., whose name appears below Capt. R. A. Karr on the fuselage. By January 31, 1945, he had flown 69 combat missions, and he returned to the United States in June, 1945. He retired from the United States Air Force as a Lt. Col. on November 1, 1976. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, and the Air Medal with 8 Oak Leaf Clusters.

From covering the early landings in North Africa in November, 1942, till the German surrender in May, 1945, the 52nd Squadrons scored 425.33 confirmed aerial victories, plus 35 probables, 137 damaged, and pinned down and destroyed countless enemy resources on the ground. The 52nd Fighter Group was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations, one for a mission to Germany on June 9, 1944, and the second for a mission to Rumania on August 31, 1944. - Signed by Robert A. Karr.