In 1942, Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s most successful ace during World War I, offered a case of liquor to anybody who broke his record: twenty-six aerial kills—destruction of individual enemy aircraft. General George Kenney, the commander of the Fifth Air Force based in the Southwest Pacific, used this wager to boost the morale of the exhausted fighter pilots fighting the Japanese among the jungle islands of the Philippines and New Guinea. He publicized pilots’ kill tallies among other commands and in the American media, ultimately transforming dangerous aerial combat into an overly competitive race that overtook much of the air force and captivated the public. As John Bruning explores in his book Race of Aces, a more than three-year rivalry developed among five master pilots in particular: Richard Bong, Thomas McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald, and Gerald Johnson. The lesson this story teaches us about mindset applies far beyond the Pacific theater of World War II.

Kenney’s logic was simple. Competition for glory would motivate pilots to be much more aggressive, which would help turn the tide of the war against the Japanese. This worked perhaps too well. Pilots pushed themselves and their aircraft beyond the limits of what they were taught or the engineers recommended. This produced the desired results: experienced enemy pilots were slowly killed off and American pilots gained air superiority, all while the public praised their new flying heroes. Names such as Bong and McGuire appeared on the front pages of newspapers, along with data about their latest kills. This recognition mattered a lot to these men who were flying in the brutal Pacific theater, which received only a fraction of the attention given to Europe. Being honored nationwide eased their exhaustion and fears, especially as more of their comrades died.

However, once pilots’ identities were reduced to a single number, the system really became a trap. Even after their mandatory combat duty ended, many felt they could not retire. Stopping felt like failure, admitting you weren’t the best, that the war had beaten you before you beat the enemy. For this reason, many of them, especially the most skilled, died before retiring. Their deaths were not the result of incompetence but of a system that rewarded pushing past one’s absolute limits.

Bruning presents several examples. In March 1944, thirty-two-year-old Neel Kearby had twenty-two confirmed kills and a Medal of Honor. Although he had been reassigned to administrative duties, he continued flying combat missions, determined to challenge Bong’s lead. On March 5, while attacking Japanese aircraft near Wewak, New Guinea, he was shot down and killed.

Thomas McGuire’s death follows the same pattern. At age twenty-four in January 1945, with thirty-eight kills, he was leading a voluntary sweep over the Philippines. During a dogfight, while protecting a wingman, he attempted a dangerous maneuver that proved fatal.

Richard Bong’s story complicates this lesson. The eventual “winner” of the ace race, with forty confirmed kills, he was actually pulled out of combat. Wary of losing their most successful and popular pilot, his superiors sent him home to be an instructor and war-bond ambassador. This decision was made for him, although he reportedly attempted to reverse it. While he survived the war, the same urgent drive within him remained. In August 1945, Bong died while testing a new P-80 jet fighter in California. His death was caused by a mechanical failure during takeoff, rather than reckless combat flying. Nevertheless, his continued involvement in the dangerous world of experimental aviation raises the question of whether a life shaped by extraordinary risks could easily return to ordinary limits.

Gerald Johnson offers an exception to this trend. Flying alongside Bong, McGuire, and Kearby in the Fifth Air Force, he was another prominent ace with twenty-two kills, and, unlike the others, he lived to see the end of the war. He did not become trapped the same way Kearby and McGuire did, and his ambition did not seem to revolve around the scores. However, he died in October 1945 when his aircraft encountered severe weather. After discovering that there were too few parachutes for everyone aboard, he surrendered his own so that another person could survive. Johnson's final act exemplified self-sacrifice rather than the pursuit of glory.

It is clear that being celebrated as some of the best pilots did not correlate with staying alive. The lesson about mindset here is not that strong ambition or a competitive impulse is bad. Kenney’s strategy worked tactically, encouraging aggressive flying which helped turn the tide in the Pacific air war. However, we can see that the traits that help someone succeed in a dangerous pursuit are often the opposite of the ones that tell them when to stop. External validation, through nationwide attention and circulated tallies, is especially dangerous because it replaces pilots’ risk considerations with the frenzied public’s call for more. Neither civilians nor commanding generals will ever say, with rare exception, “that’s enough.” Only the individual pilot can say that for themself, but this psychological trap makes them the least equipped to do so. Bong’s case further demonstrates that even institutional intervention is not a perfect fix. Pulled from one fight, the mindset ingrained in him pushed him to take greater risks, find more thrill and glory. Johnson’s example, however, reminds us that not every act of courage, dangerous decision, or aviation fatality stems from this same psychological cause.

Many in the modern world encounter similar pressures to push beyond their limits in order to outperform others, from elite athletes to experienced surgeons. The only safeguard is internal: the discipline and ability to recognize your own limits and weigh your own survival against that of others.