Kenneth Jernstedt

Kenneth Allen Jernstedt (July 20, 1917 – February 5, 2013) was an American Flying Tigers fighter pilot, a test pilot, a politician and a businessman.

Early life
Jernstedt was born in Yamhill County, Oregon, to Fred and Mae Jernstedt, and grew up on a farm in Carlton. He graduated first from Yamhill High School in 1935 and from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, in January 1939.

Flying career
After graduation, he enlisted in the United States Marine Air Corps. He earned his pilot wings in 1941 at Pensacola, Florida, and was assigned to Quantico.

In 1941, Jernstedt was recruited to join the Flying Tigers to fight the Japanese in China, resigning his Marine Corps commission (with the unofficial approval of the US government). He became a flight leader of the 3rd Squadron, flying the Curtiss P-40. On one mission, he and fellow flight leader Bill Read strafed two airfields and were credited with destroying 15 enemy aircraft on the ground; they split the bonus of $7500 ($500 per aircraft). In his Flying Tigers career, Jernstedt was credited with an additional three victories, for a total of 10.5. In a 1999 interview, he stated the figure should have been 12.5, but two couldn't be confirmed. Because he was ill, he received permission to leave the Flying Tigers several weeks before the unit was disbanded in early July 1942 (after the United States had entered the war).

Returning to the United States, he joined Republic Aviation as a civilian test pilot. Among the aircraft he flew was the P-47 Thunderbolt.

Post-war
After the war ended, he moved to Hood River, Oregon, in 1946. He bought the Hood River Bottling Works, a soft drink bottler, and ran it for 25 years.

He also entered politics, serving first as mayor of Hood River from 1959 to 1960. He was then elected to the Oregon State Legislature for one term in 1966 and the first of five terms in the Oregon State Senate in 1968. Following his last term as senator, he was again elected mayor of Hood River, from 1989 to 1990.

He married college sweetheart Laura Elliot in 1942; they had a son and three daughters. After her death in 1960, he married Genevieve Weder Carl in 1962; she was a politician as well, and supported her husband's work, serving as his legislative aide. They had three daughters.

Ken Jernstedt died on February 5, 2013, at the age of 95.

Honors
The main entrance gate to the Portland Air National Guard Base was named the Jernstedt Gate in 1981.

In 1996, Jernstedt and the other surviving Flying Tigers pilots were belatedly awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Hood River's public airfield was renamed Ken Jernstedt Airfield on September 6, 2001.

He was one of the nine inaugural inductees in the Oregon Aviation Hall of Fame in 2003.

Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs public affairs officer Mike Allegre, who grew up with Jernstedt's children, wrote of him in the state-published book 150 Years of Oregon Veterans.