Lynn Jones
Born in mercedes, Texas on 16 August 1920, Lynn Frank (Hoss) Jones graduated from high school there. After two-and-one-half years at the university of Texas, he joined the Army Air Corps for pilot training in April 1941. Before formal completion of the program at Mather Field, California, However, he and ten other members of Class 41-1 were pulled out to serve as ferry pilots for P-40s, destined for Africa and sent to Mitchell Field, New York. While awaiting their aircraft, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Lieutenant Jones was sent to Dale Mabry Field, Florida to check out in P-39s.

As a newly trained fighter pilot, Jone ferried Airacobras to Panama and was subsequently assigned there to defend the Panama Canal. In August, however, the call came for volunteers to go to the China-Burma-India Theater, and he found himself on the way to China, assigned to the 74th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group.

For several Monthes, Jones engaged in uneventful escort and ground attack missions. On 9 June 1943, however, he scored his first aerial victory, an I-97 downed near Kienli and on 26 July was created with one Oscar confirmed destroyed and two others as "probables" over Hangkow.

After shooting down another Oscar, Jones had another "dry spell." Promoted to captian, he began scoring again in December, downing a Val over Nanchang on the 11th and became an ace the following day with the destruction of an Oscar.

Returning to the States, Captain Jones was sent to Abilene Army Field where he served the remainder of the war as a P-47 instructor and director of flying training there. He left the service in September 1945 and returned to the Rio Grande Valley, settling in Mission. In 1948 he went into Mexico.