Army Air Corps Officer and Hero of World War II. His awards include the Distinguished Service Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor for valor), the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal and the European-Africa-Middle East Campaign Medal. Born in Fort Valley, Georgia, he graduated from the Martin Institute High School, and attended the University of Georgia. Nicknamed “Rocky,” his colleagues and friends considered him a warm, caring person, with a good sense of humor, quick to accept a challenge, and one who championed an underdog. Finding college studies boring, he liked to spend his afternoons at the local airfield, where he began to take flying lessons. After one year of college, he dropped out and enlisted in the US Coast Guard, serving as a radioman on the USCG Cutter Argo. After three years he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, where he served in Panama. Three years later, he left the Army to work for the Texaco Oil Company in its oil fields in Columbia, until 1939 when he returned to Georgia. In early 1941, he enlisted again in the Army Air Corps, this time qualifying for flight training. He received his wings as a pilot and a commission of 2nd Lieutenant at Kelly Field, Texas, and was assigned to the 27th Bombardment Group in Savannah, Georgia, where he trained on A-24 dive-bombers. While there he met and married Ruth Evans on October 11, 1941; they would have one son, Damon Lance Gause. In late November 1941, the 27th Bomb Group was reassigned to the Philippine Islands, arriving just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When American forces abandoned Manila, he went with them to Bataan. Lacking aircraft, he was given command of a machine gun company. When Bataan surrendered, he was taken to a POW camp, where he escaped after killing a guard, and swam to the American held island of Corregidor. When Corregidor fell to the Japanese on May 6, 1942, Gause and a fellow Filipino pilot swam for the Luzon shore, six miles away. Only Gause made it, where he continued his escape, with the aid of Filipino natives. Joining another American, Captain William Lloyd Osborne, the two men stole a boat from the Japanese and sailed 3,200 miles to Australia. After a year of promoting war bonds and being hailed as a hero, he volunteered to return to active service at the front lines. In 1943, he was assigned to the 365th Fighter Group, and was shipped to England. Given P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, they trained for low altitude dive bombing missions in preparation for the upcoming Normandy Invasion. On March 9, 1944, Major Gause was killed while test flying a modified P-47 south of London near the Isle of Wight, testing the plane for its future mission in close air support to the Allied Invasion of Normandy.







Took off on a test hop. He failed to pull out of dive, cause unknown. He flew in the Pacifict theater before he went to England. The manifold pressure fan had cut out. Plane was P-47D # 42-75236



DSC/Air Medal