Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian, Jr., Colonel, U.S. Army Air Forces Headquarters, 361st Fighter Group. Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson “Jack” Christian, Jr., O-21782, was the great-grandson of Stonewall” Jackson, one of the Confederacy’s outstanding commanders of the American Civil War. He was born on 19 November 1915, in San Francisco to Brigadier-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian Sr. and Bertha Marguerite Cook. Before entering in West Point in 1935, he graduated Chicago University High School in 1933 and spent 2 years in Chicago University. He was a member of the Illinois National Guard (122 field Artillery). He graduated 45th from a class of 456 at West Point in 1939 and choose first to follow his father into the Field Artillery branch of the U.S. Army. However soon after making this decision, he changed his mind and joined the Army Air Corps. From 1939 to 1941, Christian was a student in Texas at the Air Corps Primary Flying School at Love Field in Dallas; then the Air Corps Training Center at Randolph Field followed by the Air Corps Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field, both in San Antonio. On completion of pilot training in 1940, he was assigned as instructor at Randolph Field, Texas. In March 1941, he is transferred to the 19th Bombardment Group at Clark Field in the Philippines, where he flew B-18's and B-17’s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the disaster of the bombing of Clark Field by Japan on 8-Dec-41 (destroying more than 80% of the US planes in Philippines) he was reassigned to Bataan and then Australia where he ferried P-40 fighters and was later shot down and declared missing in action ‘somewhere’ in Timor Coast. He was able to return to the base after living with natives in the jungle. Assigned in May 1942 to 67th Pursuit Squadron, Christian was the first US Army Air Corps pilot that landed on Guadalcanal on 15-Aug-42. Flying P-400 (an export version of P-39 Airacobra) from Henderson Field, he flew more than sixty hours of combat missions and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. After being granted leave, he returned to the United States, where on 2-Jan-43, he married Marjorie Lou Ashcroft, whom he met while in Dallas. While in the USA he formed and trained the 361st Fighter Group (as a major) in Richmond, Virginia on 10 February 1943. The 361st’s nickname was the “Yellow jackets”. He took the unit to RAF BOTTISHAM (later Army Air Forces [AAF] Station F-374), England, for assignment to the 8th Air Force in November, 1943. He flew more than seventy combat missions in the European war and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters and the Purple Heart. In Mar-44, he had been promoted to colonel at the age of 28. While overseas, Christian became a father. His daughter, Lou Ellen was born in Dallas in January 1944. In a lasting tribute to his actions, in Jul-44, a photographic section of the USAAF immortalized his personal aircraft, named “LOU IV / ATHELENE” in a famous set of photos called “Bottisham Four”. The photo seems to be the most moving tribute to all he accomplished at just twenty-eight years of age, but it is a tribute he never saw as he was killed just three weeks later. He was killed in Action on 12-Aug-44 while bombing the station of Boisleux-au-Mont (near Arras, France). He is believed to be buried in Arras Faubourg d’Amiens British Cemetery, but his grave could not be located.
Source: American Air Museum Britain