Many of y’all are probably headed out this weekend to check out the new Top Gun movie. For those of you in Facebook land who hoped to enjoy “Top Gun: Maverick” without having to endure yet another annoying Roo Tale, well, my apologies.
Sure, you betcha. I enjoyed “Top Gun: Maverick” like much of America when I saw it last weekend. After all, I was a red blooded 16-year-old when the original was released in 1986. The movie was a fun ride of nostalgia for us Generation Xers. Still, I couldn’t help but notice just how many Top Gun ties to Austin College Kangaroo David Lee “Tex” Hill kept showing up unexpectedly.
I’ve written a lot about “Tex” Hill (AC ’38) over the years. His story is a part of my book, “Roo Tales: Stories of Austin College History.” Hill achieved fame and accolades in China as a member of the American Voluntary Group (AVG), a group of talented pilots who fought against the Empire of Japan before America’s entry in World War II. Hill and the AVG are revered by the Chinese people. But there’s a lot more to Hill’s story than his time with the AVG.
As a Roo at Austin College, “Tex” Hill loved his motorcycle. He rode it all around Sherman. The bike even makes an appearance in the 1938 AC Chromascope on a parody graveyard page about the senior class: “David Hill lies cold and pale; his motorcycle is for sale.” On the day of his AC graduation, Hill hopped on his bike like Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and drove to Dallas to enlist in the U.S. Navy.
That was not the last trip for Hill on his bike. In the fall of 1938, Hill was accepted to the Navy flight training school at Pensacola Naval Air Station (NAS). Hill drove the motorcycle all the way from Texas to Florida; it’s easy to imagine him arriving at Pensacola like Maverick on a Kawasaki Ninja at Miramar. From the book “Tex Hill: Flying Tiger:”
“As a rule of thumb, they say, a happy motorcyclist can be identified by the many bugs on his teeth. Tex’s spirits and his ‘bug count’ were both high as he sped eastward on his beloved Harley, toward Florida and Naval Flight Elimination Training.”
At the end of the 2022 Top Gun sequel, Maverick is seen preparing for his days after the Navy by restoring an old plane. He takes the plane out for a ride in the movie’s final sequences. That old plane? It’s Tex Hill’s plane: the P-51.
The AVG had disbanded in the summer of 1942, and Tex Hill was assigned to the USAAF 23rd fighter group to carry on the fight against the Empire of Japan. His assignment coincided with the arrival of the P-51, a new American fighter aircraft. From the book “Tex Hill: Flying Tiger:”
“Tex was especially impressed with the P-51, which represented a revolution in fighter aircraft design. This fact was even more amazing since North American, a company that had never tried its hand at building fighters, had designed it.”
The P-51 was practically a family member of Hill’s squadron within the 23rd fighter group. Missions by Hill were almost exclusively flown with the P-51 seen in the Top Gun sequel. Perhaps the most daring mission was the nighttime raid on an airbase in Formosa (Taiwan). Flying a fleet of P-51s for hours with no instrumentation under cover of darkness, Hill’s team caught the Japanese completely by surprise and returned to mainland China without suffering a single loss.
The P-51 makes an appearance in a promotion for the new Top Gun movie. Tom Cruise, a good pilot in his own right, takes James Corden out for a “Top Gun Day” by flying the late-night host over the California skies and engaging in a mock “dogfight” in a P-51. Cruise, an aviation enthusiast and collector of vintage planes, is almost surely aware of the legend of “Tex” Hill. The photo I’ve shared of “Tex” Hill in this Top Gun story? That’s Hill during his time with the AVG in a P-51.
Claire Chennault, Hill’s Commanding Officer in the AVG, recruited the best pilots in the Navy because he knew how to defeat the military advance of the Empire of Japan. Superior aviation tactics at the hands of the bravest and most accomplished American pilots would be the difference in a battle where Japanese technological innovation had a slight upper hand. Hill and the AVG proved Chennault right with victory after victory in the air. As “Top Gun: Maverick” repeats again and again, “it’s not the plane; it’s the pilot.”
“Top Gun: Maverick” begins with Maverick as a test pilot attempting to break the speed of sound X 10 (Mach 10). The sound barrier itself (Mach 1) was first broken in 1947 by test pilot Chuck Yeager, who like Hill flew P-51 combat operations in World War II. The Top Gun: Maverick café scene is a salute to the Yeager crash scene in the movie “The Right Stuff.” Yeager and Tex Hill became close friends after the war; the two pilots reunited for an air show in Wisconsin during the summer of 1986, when the original Top Gun was the #1 movie in America.
“Top Gun: Maverick” concludes with the younger pilots having a short conversation about downed enemy aircraft. One of the younger pilots points out that Maverick now has 5, which qualifies him as an “ace.” That’s true. 5 dogfight victories will indeed bestow the title of “ace” on a Navy pilot. Chuck Yeager earned “ace” status during World War II with 11.5 downed aircraft. “Tex” Hill topped both Yeager and Maverick with 18.25.
World War II eventually came to an end for Yeager & Hill, but Hill’s career in the armed forces continued. After service in Korea, he reached the rank of Brigadier General within the Texas Air National Guard. Just before his retirement in 1968, Hill’s Navy colleagues from his Pensacola Naval Air Station (NAS) training days came calling again. Hill was asked for his input on a Navy initiative to establish an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. On March 3, 1969, the Navy established the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School.
