Bruce George Sundlun (January 19, 1920 – July 21, 2011) was an American businessman, politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as 71st governor of Rhode Island between 1991 and 1995.

In addition to politics, Sundlun had a varied career as a military pilot, federal attorney, practicing lawyer, corporate executive and university lecturer.

[1] While still in college, Sundlun volunteered for service in the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Program on December 8, 1941, at Westover Field.

Sundlun and his copilot Lt. Andrew J. Boles were able to bank the airplane hard to the left to avoid crashing into the town center and ditched it safely into a turnip field at Zomerweg 41 51°10′08″N 3°05′56″E / 51.16878°N 3.0989°E / 51.16878; 3.0989, south of Jabbeke.

[5] Sundlun made his way across Belgium and France by stealing bicycles in the morning near the market centers of small towns and seeking aid from local Catholic priests in the evening.

[10] After six months time cooperating with the French Resistance under the code name Salamander, he made several attempts to enter Spain near Biarritz, and later near Foix.

But after deciding that there was too much danger of capture or loss in the snowy Pyrenees, he made his way on stolen bicycles north-eastward across France and escaped into Switzerland on May 5, 1944, near Fêche-l'Église.

Before escaping into Switzerland, he was engaged with the Maquis in acts of sabotage near Belfort against German Army units under the command of Russian defector General Andrey Vlasov.

[1][11] Once Sundlun entered Switzerland he turned himself in to Swiss authorities and was interned along with other Allied military officers at a hotel in Davos.

Within a few months after it was learned about his ability to travel in France undetected, Sundlun was recruited by Allen Dulles to work out of the U.S. Embassy in Bern under the auspices of the Office of Strategic Services in the early preparations for Operation Sunrise.

After a brief service as a pilot of C-54 Skymaster cargo planes into Karachi, and over "The Hump" to Kunming after VE Day, he ferried bombers (B-24 Liberators and B-29 Superfortresses) from the U.S. mainland to Tinian in the Mariana Islands and into other bases in the Pacific Theater of Operations.

He was a pioneer in the jet charter industry in 1964 by being one of the founding members on the board of directors of Executive Jet Aviation (EJA), along with Air Force generals Curtis E. LeMay and Paul Tibbetts, and entertainers James Stewart and Arthur Godfrey, with retired Air Force Brigadier General Olbert F. "Dick" Lassiter as president and chairman of the board.

[17][18] Shortly after incorporation in Ohio, Sundlun arranged financing for EJA by engineering a stock purchase by American Contract Company of Wilmington, Delaware, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

When Paul Tibbetts became president of EJA in 1976, he said the company's turnaround, under Sundlun's guidance, was one of the nation's great business success stories of that decade.

[22] By the end of Sundlun's presidency, EJA was doing business with approximately 250 contract flying customers and logging more than three million miles per year.

[26] Remaining as president throughout the entire merger and leveraged buyout sequence, Sundlun led the doubling of Outlet Communications holdings of licensed television broadcast stations from 4 to 11 across the country.

Only one hour after Sundlun's inauguration as governor on January 1, 1991, he announced the closure of 45 banks and credit unions in the state due to the collapse of their private insurer, the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation (RISDIC).

[40] From the 1970s to the late 1980s, Sundlun maintained a residence at Salamander Farm, a 130-acre (0.53 km2) estate in The Plains, Virginia, which he named after his wartime identity with the French Underground.

[41][42] From 2004 until his death in 2011, he lived in Jamestown, Rhode Island, with his fifth wife, Susan, a professional photographer and owner of East Greenwich Photo.

[53] After the raccoon shooting incident, Sundlun agreed to pose for a calendar photo for local charity wearing only a raccoon hat while aiming a shotgun and displaying his 8th Air Force tattoo on his shoulder, and he occasionally showed up at downtown eateries in the middle of the night in pajamas and bathrobe to pick up coffee and a late-night snack.

[54] In December 1997, in East Greenwich, Sundlun attempted to purchase some plastic forks after hours from a nearby CVS Pharmacy for a Christmas party he was attending.

[57][58] On June 4, 2009, Sundlun was on a WPRO radio talk show in which he claimed that he flew a private plane owned by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Votolato, 79, from T.F.