Robert graduated from West Point on June 10, 1932. His wings were finally pinned on his uniform in 1933 at Randolph Field, Texas. Scott flew most all the early Army Air Corp fighters. and ended up becoming a flight instructor for many years. He was stationed at Cal Aero Academy at Ontario, California when the war in Europe was raging. The thoughts of being a fighter pilot and not being able to fly and fight stirred emotions in his heart.
 
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Scott volunteered for combat in March 1942. He was now tired of training pilots and was longing for the opportunity to fly and fight like the brave RAF pilots against the Luftwaffe. Now the Japanese were on the move to control the entire Pacific. Robert knew that his age would be held against him, but he hoped that his record and his persuasiveness would prevail. He was quite disappointed that at the age of 33 he was considered to old for combat duty and would remain a flight instructor.
 
There was a request for volunteers for flying the new B-17 in combat in China. Bob knew nothing about the new Fortress, but he was willing to learn. He was selected and sent to the Middle East in route to China.
 
Bob’s mission changed. The B-17’s went to American units in North Africa and Bob went to fly with the newly formed Assam-Burma-China Transport command. Instead of flying Boeing Bombers in combat Bob found himself flying cargo planes over the “Hump” taking supplies over the earth’s highest peaks. This was a dreary flight with many risks from climate and weather conditions to mechanical malfunctions and then enemy fighters.
 
At this time, Bob was itching for combat and not in a cargo plane. The Flying Tigers were famous for their exploits, outnumbered by enemy fighters and bombers and always being victorious. And here was Bob flying back and forth over these ridiculous high mountains risking his life to bring them, aviation gasoline, oil, food, medical supplies, and aircraft parts.
 
Here he met the famous Chennault. Chennault was taken by Scott’s positive attitude, and he gave him a P-40. From then on he was more or less a freewheeling self-imposed fighter pilot. The first thing he did was to personally draw the famous Flying Tiger shark teeth at the opening of his radiator. Bob said that he painted the design on himself.
 
Bob started flying solo missions into enemy territory. With no previous experience, this was indeed a bold move. Not foolish, brave. His first missions were against Japanese troop movements, convoys and barge traffic. He had his P-40 equipped to carry small bombs to give him more punch for a single aircraft. In May Bob logged 214 hours and 45 minutes of combat hours flying as many as four missions a day. Self-imposed leadership at its best.
 
Affectionately Bob named his fighter “Old Exterminator” because he found out, from British intelligence in the area, that on one raid on the mountain road, with the use of a bomb and his guns, he killed approximately four hundred Japanese troops. That is a lot of enemy casualties from one aircraft but quite possible because troop convoys on that mountain highway were completely vulnerable to any determined aerial attack. Bob told me that he watched Japanese troops jump to their deaths to avoid being hit by his machine guns, which just ripped through a truck disabling the vehicle and decimating anyone still inside. Bob flew up and down, back and forth firing until his ammo was spent. The enemy troops had much difficulty in defending their position in that the P-40 came in quick. Bob said that usually his third pass would be his last because he would want to save a few bullets for an enemy fighter if he encountered one on the way back to base. It was also not advisable to make multiple passes because if the enemy had proper opportunity, your chance of surviving each pass dropped drastically.
 
Reports of Bob were getting around with him being called a “One Man Air Force.” Bob was also flying up to four missions a day. He tried everything to confuse the enemy and one way that was really quite simple was that Bob came up with the idea of painting the nose cap of his propeller a different color to let the Japanese believe that each aircraft that attacked them was from a different squadron. It worked just as he had planned. On a few missions in one day on the same troop movement he would attack with his spinner painted white, then the next attack it would be blue and the next red. Bob said that the paint would not have time to dry before he was speeding down the runway to his next mission.
 
Bob’s goal was to join the Flying Tigers and finally he was offered the opportunity to fly as a “Guest.” He flew wing on several missions. On returning from a mission on June 26th, he was met with a telegram he said he would never forget. He was to report to Chennault as the commanding officer of the newly formed 23rd Fighter Group, which was to be activated from the remaining AVG on July 4, 1942.
 
Bob also wrote the book, “God is my Co-pilot.”