Manuel John "Pete" Fernandez, Jr. (19 April 1925 – 18 October 1980) was the third-leading American and United States Air Force ace in the Korean War.

Pete grew up immersed in aviation and learned to fly before he could drive, earning his private pilot's license at age fifteen.

On November 20, 1944, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and received his pilot wings through talent, determination and the enormous manpower needs of total war.

In the first of many aerial teaching jobs, Fernandez served as a pilot instructor in Midland, Texas, then in San José, Guatemala and Panama, seeing no combat action during the war.

Prior to going to the Korean War, he was an advanced instructor at Nellis Air Force Base Gunnery School in Las Vegas, NV.

Like all top aces in Korea, Fernandez routinely violated Chinese air space by crossing the Yalu River into northeast China to hunt his elusive MiG quarry.

The newly elected president, Dwight Eisenhower, wanted to bask in their reflected glory and invited them for a private "debriefing" in the White House.

Movie production was gearing up for shooting when suddenly, the top air ace was killed in a test accident in the Mojave Desert on August 25, 1954.

It starred actor Alan Ladd and actress June Allyson as Joe and "Butch" McConnell, with a cinematic result more love story than war saga.

The film's tale is made more poignant knowing the movie stars fell into their own star-crossed romance—both were married to other people—even as they portrayed forlorn lovers.

Fernandez befriended Allyson on the set and after production ended, she and her husband, actor/director Dick Powell invited the ace and his family to their California ranch.

In 1956, Fernandez had won aviation's prestigious Bendix Trophy Race by maximizing his speed and fuel consumption with old tricks learned while at war over Korea and China.

Pete stayed up late the evening before the event, meticulously plotting his flight profile to wring everything he could manage from each ounce of fuel[citation needed].

When Pete's F-100 rolled past the finish line in Oklahoma City less than two hours later, there was just twenty gallons of fuel remaining in its tanks, enough to stay airborne about a minute.

Further complicating matters, Fernandez was hindered by a USAF campaign then underway to "professionalize" the Air Force by weeding out officers who had no higher education.

Finding himself scholastically unprepared for the academic challenge (the TPS curriculum had just begun to emphasize aerospace engineering), Fernandez decided to cheat on one of the entrance requirements, a calculus research project, and got caught.

[3] He received obituaries in the Miami Herald and The New York Times, both of which mentioned widespread rumors that held he had been flying classified missions in central and south America for the CIA after his retirement from the U.S. Air Force.

During a fighter swoop over North Korea, Captain Fernandez sighted a flight of thirty MIGs, and attempted to release his external fuel tanks in preparation for battle.

As he was closing again, the other MIG attached him; however, by a skillfully executed maneuver, he gained tactical advantage over the attacker, and his bursts scored hits which caused the enemy pilot to eject himself from the uncontrollable aircraft.