American Hero

The True Story of Tommy Hitchcock--Sports Star, War Hero, and Champion of the War-Winning P-51 Mustang

Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. - Introduction by Richard L. Jackson - Foreword by W. Averell Harriman

This is the true story of Tommy Hitchcock, a war hero, the world’s greatest polo player, businessman, husband of a Mellon, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s idol after whom he fashioned two of his most famous fictional characters.

Born in 1900 to a wealthy Long Island family of fox hunters and polo players, he joined the French Lafayette Flying Corps at age 17 when the U.S. Air Force said he was too young for combat flying in World War I. He shot down two German planes before being shot down himself. At age 18, he was captured and was put on a German prisoner train from which he leapt to freedom and then snuck across enemy lines for 50 miles to safety in Switzerland. He returned home a hero, played polo at Harvard, and began his legendary career as a 10 goal player for almost 15 years, a feat never equaled in the U.S. He led American teams in international tournaments all over the world and played with some of the greatest players in the game, including his friends Winston Guest, Averill Harriman, and John Hay Whitney. He married Margaret Mellon, the beautiful daughter of William Larimer Mellon who was Chairman of Gulf Oil and a member of the Pittsburgh banking family, with whom he had four children.

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald knew the Hitchcocks from living across the water from one another at Great Neck and Sands Point. Fitzgerald biographers have noted that he was in awe of Hitchcock, the wealthy WASP sportsman with the charmed life, and he modeled Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby after Tommy as well as the Tommy Barban character in Tender is the Night.

Hitchcock became a partner in the Lehman Brothers brokerage firm on Wall Street and commuted to work from Sands Point in a seaplane. When World War II broke out, he lobbied to become a fighter pilot, but the Pentagon told him he was too old. He finagled his way into a role teaching pilots how to fly in England and he championed the B-51 Mustang airplane when the allies were losing the air war to Germany’s Luftwaffe. Tragically, he died in a test flight in 1944 aboard a newly revamped Mustang while flying a nose dive over a field in rural England. His death was front page news all over the world.

Globe Pequot / Lyons Press

Pages: 320 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4930-2287-8 • Hardback • September 2016 • $29.95 • (£22.95)

978-1-4930-2288-5 • eBook • September 2016 • $28.50 • (£21.95)

Subjects: History / Military / World War II, Biography & Autobiography / Military, History / Military / General

American Hero

The True Story of Tommy Hitchcock--Sports Star, War Hero, and Champion of the War-Winning P-51 Mustang

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This is the true story of Tommy Hitchcock, a war hero, the world’s greatest polo player, businessman, husband of a Mellon, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s idol after whom he fashioned two of his most famous fictional characters.

Born in 1900 to a wealthy Long Island family of fox hunters and polo players, he joined the French Lafayette Flying Corps at age 17 when the U.S. Air Force said he was too young for combat flying in World War I. He shot down two German planes before being shot down himself. At age 18, he was captured and was put on a German prisoner train from which he leapt to freedom and then snuck across enemy lines for 50 miles to safety in Switzerland. He returned home a hero, played polo at Harvard, and began his legendary career as a 10 goal player for almost 15 years, a feat never equaled in the U.S. He led American teams in international tournaments all over the world and played with some of the greatest players in the game, including his friends Winston Guest, Averill Harriman, and John Hay Whitney. He married Margaret Mellon, the beautiful daughter of William Larimer Mellon who was Chairman of Gulf Oil and a member of the Pittsburgh banking family, with whom he had four children.

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald knew the Hitchcocks from living across the water from one another at Great Neck and Sands Point. Fitzgerald biographers have noted that he was in awe of Hitchcock, the wealthy WASP sportsman with the charmed life, and he modeled Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby after Tommy as well as the Tommy Barban character in Tender is the Night.

Hitchcock became a partner in the Lehman Brothers brokerage firm on Wall Street and commuted to work from Sands Point in a seaplane. When World War II broke out, he lobbied to become a fighter pilot, but the Pentagon told him he was too old. He finagled his way into a role teaching pilots how to fly in England and he championed the B-51 Mustang airplane when the allies were losing the air war to Germany’s Luftwaffe. Tragically, he died in a test flight in 1944 aboard a newly revamped Mustang while flying a nose dive over a field in rural England. His death was front page news all over the world.

Details

Globe Pequot / Lyons Press

Pages: 320 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4930-2287-8 • Hardback • September 2016 • $29.95 • (£22.95)

978-1-4930-2288-5 • eBook • September 2016 • $28.50 • (£21.95)

Subjects: History / Military / World War II, Biography & Autobiography / Military, History / Military / General

Author

Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. is a writer and editor who currently lives in Boston. He was for a time the Paris editor of The Paris Review, and has published articles on a variety of subjects including art, politics, and education in magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s. He is the author of the modern classic, Old Money.

He is a great-grandson of Nelson W. Aldrich, who was instrumental in founding the Federal Reserve banking system in the United States. Coincidentally, Nelson, Jr. attended the same prep school and college as Tommy Hitchcock, although much later: St. Paul’s School and Harvard College.

Reviews

Nelson Aldrich has done a splendid job of bringing back to life a forgotten American hero, the extraordinary Tommy Hitchcock -- a man of such charisma and magnetism that F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled not one but two of his fictional characters on him. The real Tommy Hitchcock ranks as among the most dashing and vital figures this country has ever produced: World War I aviator, Jazz Age bon vivant, greatest polo player in history, and developer of the P-51 Mustang, the key fighter plane of World War II, at whose controls he perished in 1944. An altogether extraordinary man, to whom this country owes much.
— Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking and other bestselling novels

In American Hero, Nelson Aldrich Jr. does full justice to the storied life of one of the most fascinating characters in modern American history. At 17, Tommy Hitchcock left school to fly with the Lafayette Escadrille in World War I. In his 20s, he became the most celebrated polo player in the world. But his greatest achievement was helping to insure an Allied victory in World War II by insisting on the adoption of the best fighter plane of the war — the P-51 Mustang. Thanks to Aldrich’s excellent book, this extraordinary man and his action-packed life are finally getting the attention they so richly deserve.
— Lynne Olson, author of the national bestseller Citizens of London

Lieut. Col. Thomas Hitchcock [was] a flying hero of two World Wars and perhaps the greatest polo player ever developed in the United States.
— The New York Times

My father's name has been both a lifetime source of pride and a challenge to live up to. I hope that this Second Edition will re-introduce him to a new generation of Americans.
— Thomas Hitchcock

While this is primarily a book about Thomas Hitchcock's pivotal role in WW's I and II, let's not forget that Tommy was arguably the greatest polo player of the 20th century, dominating the sport from 1920-1940.
— Julian Hipwood, Captain of England Polo, 1971-1991