PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — A Pearl Harbor veteran racked up his 198th kill when he shot down a friendly F/A-18 Hornet today. Chief Petty Officer John Wilson, who was just a Gunner’s Mate in 1941, downed the jet during a commemorative parade. The F/A-18 was conducting a flyover in support of the parade and flew too low, which spooked Wilson.
“I thought it was them again,” Wilson told investigators. “Those intel 'girls' didn’t warn us back then, and they didn’t warn us now.”
Wilson had manned a machine gun on a patrol craft in Pearl Harbor after the surprise Japanese attack on the Navy's pacific fleet in 1941.
