page_title: Alexander Vraciu
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Vraciu / Later years
caption_attribution_description: Alex Vraciu being interviewed, Hayward, CA, 1989
context_page_description: Alexander Vraciu was a United States Navy fighter ace, a Navy Cross recipient, and a Medal of Honor nominee during World War II. At the end of the war, Vraciu ranked fourth among the U.S. Navy's flying aces, with 19 enemy planes downed during flight and 21 destroyed on the ground. After the war, he served as a test pilot and was instrumental in forming the post-war Naval and Marine Air Reserve program. From 1956 to 1958 Vraciu led his own fighter squadron, VF-51, for twenty-two months. He retired from the U.S. Navy with the rank of commander on December 31, 1963. Vraciu later moved to Danville, California, and worked for Wells Fargo.
  Vraciu was born in East Chicago, Indiana, of Romanian immigrant parents. He graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and began his military career in 1941, when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. During his military service in World War II, Vraciu flew Grumman F6F Hellcats in the Pacific, spending five months as a wingman to his mentor, Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the navy's first ace of the war.
context_section_description: After retiring from the U.S. Navy, Vraciu moved to Danville, California, where he worked for Wells Fargo bank. In retirement he continued to give public lectures to schools, businesses, and civic groups.
  Vraciu appeared in "The Zero Killer" (2006), during season one, episode six, of the History Channel's Dogfights series.
  In his later years, Vraciu declined invitations to write an autobiography; however, he agreed to be interviewed and participated in oral history projects at the Indiana Historical Society and the University of North Texas, which eventually resulted in the publication of his biography, Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2010).
caption: Alexander Vraciu being interviewed, Hayward, California, 1989
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