Col Parker joined the Army Air Corps after attending Franklin College on a football scholarship. In those days, the scholarship only paid for the fall semester. When the money ran out, Parker joined the Army Air Corps because he wanted to fly.



Led the 102nd Combat Bomb Wing during their mission to Hannover on 17 July 1943. On the way home Parker's aircraft was attacked by fighters and caught fire. Parker received a concussion, leaving his Co-pilot Lt Col Buck to take control of the aircraft. Parker then helped the crew to extinguish the fire. While doing this Parker suffered from lack of oxygen but managed to get a walk around bottle which revived him for several minutes, while he continued to spray the fire. He repeated this routine several times suffering some near black-outs. After using the last oxygen bottle, Parker managed to get back to the ball turret and plug in on a good line on the right side of ship, which he used intermittently while he continued to fight the fire.



Enemy fighters continued to target the aircraft after seeing smoke and flames rising from it. Lt Col Buck remarked “We had to depend almost entirely on our evasive action as both our nose guns and one top turret gun were out.”



Parker praised Buck after the event: “The cool manner in which he took over the controls while we fought the fire, and the clever evasive action he used in out-guessing the fighters, was responsible for getting us back.”