He later transferred to the USAF and flew F-86 Sabre fighter jets with the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing in "MiG Alley", the nickname given to the area around the northern border of North Korea with China.

[5] James' interest in aviation began at a young age: when he was five, he had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane at a family friend's farm.

[2] On December 6, 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hagerstrom went to Iowa City and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) Aviation Cadet program.

Hagerstrom's previous flying experience allowed him to undertake an accelerated program before moving back to Minter Field for basic flight training in BT-13 Valiants.

Eventually Brigadier General Paul Wurtsmith of the 5th AF organized a refresher session for the new pilots, and they learned from experienced combat aviators at Charters Towers Airfield.

While at Dobodura, the 8th FS mainly escorted C-47 Skytrains airdropping supplies to ground troops below,[10] and Hagerstrom was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his work during this period.

[14] Later that month, heavy rainfall made the airstrip too muddy to allow the co-located P-38s to take off, and the 8th FS was relocated 50 miles (80 km) north to Gusap Airfield.

Shortly after, Virginia was transferred to Brownsville, Texas, to train in fighter aircraft, while he was assigned to Evansville, Indiana, to be a test pilot for the P-47s being produced at the Republic Aviation plant there.

The couple were reunited when Virginia finished her training and moved to Evansville to serve as a ferry pilot for the P-47s, delivering them to coastal air bases to be shipped overseas.

[23] He grew bored of the bonds industry and wanted to keep flying,[6] so he joined the 111th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (111th FBS) of the Texas Air National Guard,[25] which he and his fellow pilots viewed as the "bottom of the heap".

Hagerstrom was sent to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where he undertook gunnery training on the jet-powered F-80 Shooting Star and F-86 Sabre, taught by William T. Whisner Jr.[24] He became operations officer of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Group.

He studied gun sights[30] and intelligence reports on the MiG-15, and he made metric conversion tables to allow him to patrol altitudes where MiGs commonly flew.

[28] He got a pair of moccasin boots lined with felt and a silk-lined flight suit for winter insulation,[31] and he obtained special half-mirrored sunglasses that allowed him to see twice as clearly as normal, at the risk of permanently ruining his eyes.

[32] The Air Force issued its pilots a standard survival kit for their aircraft, to which he added 30 days' worth of food (including 10 pounds [4.5 kg] of rice), a camp stove, maps, a monocular, a radio, sulfa,[33] and a sleeping bag he had vacuum-packed into a tin can.

If he had to bail out over enemy territory, he planned to fight off any patrols searching for him, and then hike 10 miles (16 km) a day toward the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

[35] Hagerstrom was separated from his wingman and no one witnessed the action, so Kimpo Air Base group commander Royal N. Baker refused to confirm it unless he had good film from his gun camera.

"[40] He was able to talk his superiors into giving him a mission, and he ended up getting the only confirmed "kill" of the day[40] when the MiG he was chasing spun out of control at an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,000 m), so high that Hagerstrom did not fire for fear of stalling.

We are going to go up there and give it one good college try south of the Yalu, and if we don't scare anything up, I'm going after them today.I thought, 'I wonder what he's going to tell those guys at the officers club tonight because he's going to be landing very close to his own air base.'

Getting there used so much fuel that they were supposed to spend only twenty minutes flying around the Yalu in search of MiGs, but Hagerstrom did his own calculations and determined he could make it back to base with 600 pounds (270 kg) of fuel—half of the recommended minimum.

[60] Unlike all the other American aces, who were in fighter-interceptor units, Hagerstrom was in a fighter-bomber squadron but found aerial combat by dropping his bombs as quickly as possible and flying to where he was likely to encounter MiGs.

He had a similar response whenever a fellow American or allied pilot was killed: he thought about the technical aspects of the death and how it could be prevented in the future, rather than grieving the loss of a friend.

[67] He briefly returned to Texas as an advisor for the Air National Guard and in April 1957 was honored with the dedication of a new hangar at Ellington Field in Houston in his name.

Hagerstrom proposed that air assets be used against strategic targets in North Vietnam, while Westmoreland insisted that they be used solely in-country to support Army ground operations.

[6][74][77] Hagerstrom was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service in Vietnam, and the citation mentions his "significant contributions to the combat effectiveness of the tactical air forces".

The Royal Lao Armed Forces were suffering low morale and faced pressure from Viet Cong (VC) fighters, who had taken two nearby towns.

[78] Hagerstrom assisted in planning the use of an AC-47 Spooky gunship equipped with a night vision Starlight Scope (which had previously been typically used by ground forces) to attack VC positions around the town.

Hagerstrom enlisted the help of CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite and lawyer James B. Donovan (who had negotiated the release of Francis Gary Powers after the 1960 U-2 incident) to start a fundraiser for Risner's bail, but the U.S. State Department stepped in and halted the effort.

The others are George Andrew Davis Jr., Gabby Gabreski, Vermont Garrison, Harrison Thyng, and Whisner, all Air Force pilots, and John F. Bolt of the U.S. Marine Corps.

First Lieutenant Hagerstrom, leading a flight of four fighters on a bomber escort mission, encountered ten to fifteen enemy aircraft and promptly led in the attack.

By his daring skill and aggressive effort in this fierce encounter, First Lieutenant Hagerstrom destroyed four enemy aircraft, damaged others, and saved the lives of two pilots while our bombers successfully completed their mission.