Born on a farm near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as the oldest son of Olouse and Mary Lacey Foss, Joe Foss grew up in a farmhouse without electricity. When he was 12, he visited a local airfield in Renner to see Charles Lindbergh on tour with his aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis. Four years later, he and his father paid $1 for their first airplane ride.
In 1933, while returning from the fields during a storm, Foss’s father died after driving over a downed electrical cable and was electrocuted when he stepped out of his automobile. Dropping out of school at the age of 17, Joe and his mother took over running the family farm. Farming was made difficult by dust storms, which over the next two years took a heavy toll on crops and livestock.
After watching a Marine Corps aerial team led by Captain Foss—he began working at a service station to pay for books and college tuition, and to begin flight lessons from Roy Lanning at the Sioux Skyway Airfield in 1938. Scraping together $65 to pay for instruction, Foss’s younger brother took over management of the farm, allowing Joe to return to school and graduate from Sioux Falls College.
While at the University of South Dakota (USD), Foss and other like-minded students convinced university authorities to set up a Civil Aeronautics Authority flying course. By graduation, he had built up 100 flight hours. Foss paid his way through university by bussing tables. He joined the Sigma chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and excelled in sports at USD, fighting on the college boxing team, participating in track, and serving as a second-string guard on the football team.
Foss served as a Private in the 147th Field Artillery, Sioux Falls, SD National Guard from 1937 to 1940.
### World War II and the Cactus Air Force
On October 9, Foss and his group were catapult-launched off the USS Copahee escort carrier and flew 350 miles north to Guadalcanal. Their air group, code-named “Cactus,” based at Henderson Field, became known as the Cactus Air Force. Their presence played a pivotal role in the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Foss quickly gained a reputation for aggressive close-in fighter tactics and uncanny gunnery skills. On his first combat mission on October 13, he shot down a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero; however, his F4F Wildcat was heavily damaged. With a dead engine and three more Zeros on his tail, he managed a difficult landing on the American-held runway at Guadalcanal, narrowly missing a grove of palm trees.
As lead pilot of a flight of eight Wildcats, the group became known as Foss’s Flying Circus, with two sections he nicknamed “Farm Boys” and “City Slickers.” Conditions in the jungle were extreme, and in December 1942, Foss was stricken with malaria. He was sent to Sydney, Australia, for rehabilitation, where he met British ace Clive “Killer” Caldwell and delivered lectures on operational flying to RAF pilots newly assigned to the theater.
On January 1, 1943, Foss returned to Guadalcanal and his squadron to continue combat operations, which lasted until February 9, 1943. During three months of sustained combat, Foss’s Flying Circus shot down 72 Japanese aircraft, including 26 credited to Foss himself.
Upon matching the 26 kills held by America’s top World War I ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, Foss was honored as America’s first “ace-of-aces” in World War II.
### Return to the U.S. and Recognition
Foss returned to the United States in March 1943. On May 18, 1943, he received the Medal of Honor from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The White House ceremony was featured in Life magazine, with the reluctant Captain Foss appearing on the magazine’s cover. Subsequently, he participated in a war bond tour that extended into 1944.
### After the War: Air National Guard and Military Service
In August 1945, Foss was released to inactive duty and opened Joe Foss Flying Service, a charter flying service and flight instruction school in Sioux Falls that eventually grew into a 35-aircraft operation. Later, with a friend, he owned a Packard car dealership in town.
In October 1945, Foss was ordered to Iowa to appear at Navy Day ceremonies in four cities and was finally relieved from active duty in December 1945, though he remained in the Marine Corps Reserve on inactive duty until 1947.
In 1946, Foss was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the South Dakota Air National Guard and instructed to form the South Dakota Air National Guard. He became the commanding officer of the Guard’s 175th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. During the unit’s early years, Foss was actively involved in administration and flying with the squadron, even joining their P-51 Mustang air demonstration team.
During the Korean War, Foss, then a colonel, was called to active duty with the United States Air Force. He served as Director of Operations and Training for the Central Air Defense Command and eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier General.
### Political Career
Campaigning from the cockpit of a light aircraft, Foss served two terms as a Republican representative in the South Dakota legislature. Beginning in 1955, at age 39, he became the state’s youngest governor.
During his tenure as governor, Foss appeared on the television game show “Two for the Money” alongside high school student Tom Brokaw, then Governor of South Dakota American Legion Boys State. In 1958, Foss ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives, losing to Democrat George Stanley McGovern in a particularly difficult year for Republicans.
Foss tried re-entering politics in 1962 during the race to succeed the late Senator Francis Case but lost to Joseph H. Bottum, who went on to lose to McGovern in the general election.
### American Football League
After serving as governor, Foss briefly worked for Raven Industries before becoming the first Commissioner of the newly created American Football League (AFL) in 1959. He oversaw the league’s emergence as the foundation of modern professional football.
During his seven years as commissioner, Foss helped expand the league and secured lucrative television deals, including a five-year, $10.6 million contract with ABC in 1960 to broadcast AFL games. He stepped down as commissioner in 1966, two months before the historic agreement leading to the merger of the AFL and NFL and the creation of the Super Bowl.
### Television Career
Drawing on his lifelong love for hunting and the outdoors, Foss hosted ABC’s “The American Sportsman” from 1964 to 1967, traveling worldwide for hunting and fishing expeditions. He went on to host and produce his own syndicated outdoors TV series, “The Outdoorsman: Joe Foss,” from 1967 to 1974.
In 1972, Foss began a six-year tenure as Director of Public Affairs for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
### National Rifle Association
Starting in 1988, Foss was elected to two consecutive one-year terms as president of the National Rifle Association (NRA). In his later years, he maintained a rigorous speaking schedule, advocating conservative causes and defending gun owners’ rights.
Foss was even featured on the cover of Time magazine wearing his trademark Stetson hat and holding a revolver.
### Philanthropy
Foss, who had a daughter with cerebral palsy, served as president of the National Society of Crippled Children and Adults. His charitable work also included the Easter Seals campaign, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Arizona programs for disadvantaged youths.
In 2001, Foss and his second wife, “Didi,” founded The Joe Foss Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, public service, integrity, and an appreciation for America’s freedoms. The institute recruits military veterans to visit classrooms across the country to interact with students. Foss himself actively participated in these school visits, speaking about service, responsibility, and commitment.
### Other Honors and Recognition
Foss co-authored or was the subject of three books: *Joe Foss: Flying Marine* (with Walter Simmons), *Top Guns* (with Matthew Brennan), and *A Proud American* by his wife, Donna Wild Foss.
Tom Brokaw described Foss as having “a hero’s swagger but a winning smile to go with his plain talk and movie-star looks. Joe Foss was larger than life, and his heroics in the skies over the Pacific were just the beginning of a journey that would take him to places far from that farm with no electricity and not much hope north of Sioux Falls.”
A 1955 postwar film project about Foss’s life titled *Brave Eagle*, starring his friend John Wayne, fell through in 1956 when Foss refused to allow the addition of a fictitious love story.
The award-winning, hour-long television documentary *American Ace: The Joe Foss Story*, produced by South Dakota Public Broadcasting, first aired in fall 2006.
Foss also served as a former president and board chairman of the Air Force Association and as a director of the United States Air Force Academy.
In 2000, he served as a consultant for Microsoft’s popular computer game *Combat Flight Simulator 2*.
### Later Years
On January 11, 2002, at the age of 86, Foss made headlines when he was detained by airport security at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Scheduled to deliver an address at the National Rifle Association and to speak at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Foss was required to undergo a search due to his pacemaker precluding metal detector screening.
During the search, officials discovered his star-shaped Medal of Honor along with a dummy-bullet keychain, a replica bullet, and a small nail file bearing the Medal of Honor insignia. Security personnel did not recognize the medal and requested its confiscation and destruction, as well as asking Foss to remove his boots, hat, and belt. This caused significant inconvenience and embarrassment and demonstrated a lack of respect for a decorated war hero.
Foss commented, “I wasn’t upset for me. I was upset for the Medal of Honor, that they just didn’t know what it even was. It represents all of the guys who lost their lives, the guys who never came back. Everyone who put their lives on the line for their country. You’re supposed to know what the Medal of Honor is.”
The incident sparked a national debate about post-9/11 airport security practices.
Foss suffered a severe stroke in October 2002 caused by bleeding from a cerebral aneurysm. He died three months later on New Year’s Day, 2003, without having regained consciousness.
### Death and Legacy
Joe Foss died in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he and his wife had made their home in later years. Vice President Dick Cheney, retired Colonel Oliver North, and South Dakota native and NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw were among those attending his funeral. North delivered the eulogy, and actor Charlton Heston gave a brief but powerful tribute.
Foss was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 7A, Lot 162 on January 21, 2003. Family, friends, military personnel, and dignitaries remembered him fondly both at Arlington and at an earlier “Memorial Service for an American Patriot” held at the old chapel at nearby Fort Myer.
### Memorials
Several institutions and locations have been named in honor of Joe Foss, including:
– Joe Foss Field Air National Guard Station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
– Joe Foss Field at Sioux Falls Regional Airport
– Joe Foss High School in Sioux Falls
– The State Building in Pierre, South Dakota
A larger-than-life bronze statue of Foss stands in the lobby of the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, commemorating his legacy as a war hero, public servant, and influential figure in American history.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4343184/posts