Seth McKee, highest-ranking D-Day survivor and P-38 Lightning pilot, dies at 100

The nation’s highest-ranking D-Day survivor died Monday at age 100 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Gen. Seth McKee piloted a P-38 Lightning — “My Gal Sal II” — on Dec. 6, 1944, during the Battle of Normandy commenced in France during World War II. Germans called the aircraft “fork-tailed devil,” but to Allied Forces he was a guardian angel. The four-star general was even honored with France’s highest honor, the Chevalier in the National Order of the Legion of Honor, in November.

“If you were afraid to die, you can’t be a fighter pilot in the war,” he once said, the Arizona Republic reported. “Chances were you were not going to make it.”

The veteran, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Corps during his D-Day flight, also said that flying a plane riddled with bullet holes did not rattle him.

“It didn’t get to me at the time. I knew I was the best fighter pilot in the war, and I was pretty lucky,” he said, the newspaper reported.

The Missouri native and former commander of NORAD is survived by his wife, Sally, and their two sons. The couple were married for 75 years.

“These guys [I killed in battle] have mothers and sisters and brothers and I felt for them,” he said in 2014. “But they were fighting for their country, I was fighting for my country and we were going to win.”