The fog rolled in from Santa Monica Bay just after noon on Oct. 26, 1944, just three hours before Gertrude Tomkins Silver opened the hatch of her fighter plane, a P-51 Mustang.

The plane left from a little strip called Mines Field, today known as the Los Angeles International Airport, bound for a three-day journey to New Jersey, where it would be placed on a cargo vessel and shipped to Great Britain to fight World War II's final battles in Europe.

The pilot, Silver, a 34-year-old New Jersey native nicknamed Tommy, had spent more than 500 hours in the air and had a reputation for being able to handle fighters like the P-51s, some of the Army's fastest aircraft.

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