Aviation art original drawing (not a print) of 56th Fighter Group (8th Air Force) commander Col. Hub Zemke, by Wade Meyers.

The drawing has been lightly sprayed with an archival fixative. Still, I recommend not touching the artwork image area and framing the piece as soon as possible.

“Col. Hub Zemke, 1944” 7.5 x 9 in. (art image size). Graphite, charcoal, & colored pencil on toned paper.

Hubert (Hub) Zemke was born in 1914 in Missoula, Montana. An athlete, Zemke was a standout college and semi-pro boxer before joining the Army Reserves in his early 20s. During World War II he commanded the 56th and 479th Fighter Groups, flying P-47s, P-38s, and P-51s in combat. He was known to occasionally travel to boxing matches incognito just to keep his hand in.

Widely respected, several of his tactical innovations such as the ‘Zemke Fan’ were adopted by other 8th Air Force fighter groups. Zemke scored 17.75 confirmed aerial victories plus 2 probables and 9 damaged over 154 missions and more than 450 combat hours. In addition he is credited with 6.5 enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground.

In late October 1944 Zemke was ordered to 65th Fighter Wing headquarters to serve as chief of staff. Before leaving he decided to fly “just one more” combat mission. Over Germany the 479th encountered severe clear air turbulence and Zemke’s Mustang lost a wing. Forced to bail out, he became a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft I at Barth, Germany.

As the senior ranking officer of nearly 9,000 allied airmen by war’s end Zemke, fluent in German, established better conditions for the prisoners and maintained discipline and morale through programs such as boxing matches among the prisoners. His leadership at the end of the war was credited with saving the lives of many sick and injured POWs as things got chaotic with the Germans as Soviet forces neared the camp. Zemke had spent some time in Russia in 1941 instructing their pilots in how to fly lend-lease P-40s and so established a rapport with the Soviets using his working knowledge of their language. He arranged for his men to be flown to allied territory.

Zemke stayed in the postwar Air Force, retiring in 1966. He passed away in 1994 at age 80. His combat awards include the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and 8 Distinguished Flying Crosses, including 1 British DFC.

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