“Kirby,” is based on the feats of M.F. Kirby, a World War II ace pilot and longtime Lampasas County resident. His thoughts aren’t as clear as they once were, and sometimes the dates elude him, but at 90 years old M.F. Kirby still has a remarkable recall of events that shaped his military career as a World War II ace pilot nearly 70 years ago.

To keep his story from being forgotten, a book, titled simply “Kirby,” has been released. It contains a collection of stories and narratives about and by Kirby that detail his time as a combat fighter pilot.

Edited by Larry Simpson, the book covers a several-year period when Kirby was posting to an online aviation group, as well as e-mails he exchanged with other squadron members and friends.

Simpson has been to Lampasas County several times to visit with Kirby prior to the book’s publication.

The 1938 Lometa High School graduate’s military stint began during the draft days when men had to “either sign up for the draft or volunteer. I volunteered,” Kirby said.

He said he always had an interest in flying, and it was piqued as a youngster when an old Ford tri-motor made a stopover near his home in southern Oklahoma.

“First thing I knew, I bedeviled a friend of the family into buying a ride, and I finagled to be his son so I could fly too, because you had to be with a parent,” he said. “That was my first exposure to aviation. And we were carried on a brief ride.”

Kirby said he then saved up $1.50 (“that was a huge amount in those days”) and got a ride from a local pilot who brought his plane to the county fair.

And Kirby was hooked.

“It just came naturally. I didn’t think it was any big deal. I was going to school at the time, and I was a member of the Civil PiloM.F. Kirby signs copies of his book, “Kirby,” to be presented to the Lampasas Library Foundation, represented by Tracy Guthrie, right, and to the Lampasas Museum Foundation, represented by Carol Wright. t Training, and the good thing is that flying didn’t scare me to death -- and it sure beat walking!”

Kirby said what he is most remembered for in Lometa was “buzzing the town.”

“After flying over Lometa, I flew down Main Street sideways in a small plane, and I landed behind the school. That was in 1941 when I was in flight school,” he said. “I found out the field wasn’t near as large after you were on the ground. I don’t know how I ever got that plane out of there.”

He joined the Army Air Corps in 1941 and entered training at Hemet Field in California, followed by basic training at Moffett Field, also in California, and then in October 1941, it was off to Sacramento for advanced training.

In November, Kirby was sent to Mitchell Field in Long Island, N.Y., where he graduated from training five days after Pearl Harbor.

Just prior to the war breaking out in December 1941, Kirby was asked to resign his commission and become a commercial pilot for Pan Am.

He didn’t resign and instead went to work for the civilians in Gold Coast, Africa [present-day Ghana], where he would ferry planes from Accra to Khartoum [in Central Africa on the Nile River] and turn them over to the British. “At that time, we were not at war, so we couldn’t go into the combat zone.”

Kirby sailed to Panama, where he stayed through the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of the Midway.

“We flew from Panama to the South Pacific in a converted B24. We just flew at night because we didn’t have any idea where the Japanese were. I was about 21 at the time,” he said.

The former fighter pilot arrived in Australia in July 1942, where he was assigned for two weeks and began flying planes in combat. “We had P40s in Panama, and they gave us P39s in combat. They weren’t much of a plane. We couldn’t get high enough, fast enough or maneuver enough with them. The Russians used them for close support for ground troops, but we never did.”

Later, Kirby flew a P38, a twin-engine and twin-turbo plane, after his arrival in New Guinea. “The P38 was a whale of a good airplane,” he said. “It could go higher and faster. There wasn’t any comparison between the P38s and the P39s.”

Kirby, who flew numerous missions while in the Army Air Corps, is credited with shooting down five enemy aircraft.

After he left the service, Kirby continued his connection to the military by organizing reunions held every 18 months in various locations throughout the U.S.

Kirby, who moved to Lampasas in 1975 after retiring from Gulf Oil, worked for years to keep the alumni association for his former squadron in full swing. He kept addresses current, answered mail and attended reunions regularly until his health prevented him from doing so.

But the baton has passed to the next generation of pilots, and they now keep history alive as they have continued to stage reunions for members of the association.

“The camaraderie at those reunions was wonderful,” Kirby said. “Sharing stories with those who had experiences like I did was great. There were more planes shot down at these reunions than there ever was during the war,” he added.

Though his flying career ceased after his military stint, Kirby’s name is synonymous with the heroic aviators who flew many combat missions during World War II. And the tales of his adventures will live on in the words of the memoirs that detail his career in “Kirby.”

Editor’s note: Copies of the book were donated to the Lampasas Public Library, the Lampasas County Historical Commission, Lampasas Museum Foundation and other venues in the area.