World War II pilot Bob Hoover, who famously escaped a POW camp by stealing a German plane and flying it to safety, died Tuesday in California at age 94.
Hoover’s daughter-in-law Lynn said he died of congestive heart failure, The Washington Post reported.
Hoover flew more than 50 missions with the Army Air Forces in World War II before he was shot down Feb. 9, 1944, off the coast of France and captured by German soldiers in a patrol boat.
He spent more than a year in a German prison camp before fleeing into the woods with another escapee, where a German farm woman gave them a gun. Hoover recounted that the camps were not heavily guarded at the end of the war, and that German civilians were more helpful then.
When the two soldiers came upon a field of German warplanes, they were able to get one started and Hoover flew to Holland where he was taken to safety by the British. He later received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart.
Hoover learned to fly as a teen and joined the Tennessee National Guard when he turned 18. After the war, he worked as a test pilot and followed Chuck Yeager’s flight that broke the sound barrier in 1947. He flew more than 300 varieties of airplanes and knew many prominent aviators including Orville Wright, Charles Lindbergh, and Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon.
In his later years, Hoover flew in air shows all over the world before retiring in his late 70s. His last flight as a pilot was at age 85. His autobiography, “Forever Flying,” was published in 1996.