make such a claim. Finally Barber had enough. He asked Lanphier: "How in the hell do you know you got Yamamoto?" Lanphier shot back, "You're a damned liar. You're a damned liar."

Barber was shocked at this reaction, and said: "I haven't made a statement. I just asked a question, but here he was calling me a liar for asking a question."

Lanphier kept insisting that he had shot down Yamamoto, and because there was no official report to counter his claim, everyone seemed to believe him ... only Major Mitchell and Lt. Barber questioned his claim, but neither wanted to argue with him.

An undated report to the Commanding General, USAFISPA was prepared and signed by two Army Intelligence Officers, Capt. William Morrison and Lt. Joseph E. McGuigan ... a copy of which Roger Ames had in his files. Neither Mitchell nor Barber were consulted at any time during the preparation of the report. This report and the follow up messages were thus accepted by the Army and Navy Commanders as the official version of the epic mission. And Lanphier constantly referred back to those initial reports whenever he was questioned.

A short time later, during an informal discussion on a golf course, between Capt. Lanphier, Lt. Barber and General Strother, Barber said, "I've been wondering how they ever got a Mission Report together to send to higher headquarters?"

Barber said Lanphier replied "Don't worry about it, Rex. I went over to the Ops tent that evening and wrote the report. I also helped write our citations for the Medal of Honor."

Barber was stunned. He'd never received a copy of that vital mission report until the late 1950's when many of the classified wartime documents were declassified. He said that if he had known about the report, he said that he would have strenuously objected to its content, especially after Lanphier told him he had helped to write the report.

Who shot down Admiral Yamamoto has been in dispute for several decades. In 1997 the American Fighter Aces Association gave Barber 100 percent credit for the shoot down of the bomber carrying Yamamoto. In 1998 the Confederate Air Force recognized that Barber alone and unassisted brought down Yamamoto's aircraft and inducted him into the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame.

The Air Force, after much high level discussion, ultimately made an arbitrary decision to split the victory over Yamamoto's Betty bomber between Lanphier and Barber and, despite the numerous independent studies, seminars and ongoing expert research to the contrary ... which has concluded that only Rex Barber, alone, could have downed the Betty carrying Admiral Yamamoto on 18 April, 1943, the hierarchy still refuse to correct their obviously erroneous records, nor to award the nation's highest honor to both John Mitchell and Rex Barber for their epic wartime performance.

A detailed, comprehensive summary of the Yamamoto Mission, including comparison of conflicting arguments and copies of reports and findings, can be found on the Second Yamamoto Mission Assoc. (SYMA) website at: www.syma.org

In all, Rex Barber flew 110 combat missions from Guadalcanal, then transferred in early 1944 to the 449th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group in China, where he flew another 28 combat missions in P-38s, shot down several more enemy aircraft - which were not logged, and was himself injured when he was shot down, but evaded capture. He returned to the 'States in January 1945 and was assigned to the 412th Fighter Squadron, 29th Fighter Group, at Oxnard, CA, where he flew and test flew the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, the United States' first operational jet fighter. When World War-II ended, Rex Barber had survived 138 combat missions, was credited with five confirmed kills and three 'probables', including probably the most notable aerial victory of the war - the downing of Admiral Isoroku

Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and mastermind behind their attack on Pearl Harbor. Barber had been awarded the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, a Purple Heart, numerous Air Medals and a wide array of theater ribbons and campaign medals.

In 1946 then-Major Barber was awarded a Regular Air Force Commission, and on October 3, 1947 he married Margaret, his partner-for-life, in Panama City, Florida. He remained active in the Air Force, with a tour in Tactical Air Command at Langley AFB, VA, from 1946 to 1950; Air Defense Command at Colorado Springs, CO from 1950 to 1952, a stint as Air Attache to Colombia and Ecuador, while based in Bogota, Columbia until 1956, when he transferred to Myrtle Beach, SC, where he ultimately retired from active Air Force duty as a Colonel in 1961.

Colonel Barber, his wife Margaret and their family returned to Culver, Oregon, where he became a successful Insurance man, was Justice of the Peace, and Mayor of Culver, but he was noted for never having missed a Little League ballgame... and as a person who would repeatedly "...take in stray kids."

Rex Barber was hospitalized for pneumonia in May, 2001, but seemed recovered after returning home. He died quietly at home on July 26, 2001. His son, Rex Barber Jr. pausing on the phone to hold back tears, said that his dad had enjoyed a good 84 years, then his 'afterburner just flamed out on him' .