Kenneth Porter, World War I Flying Ace

Kenneth Porter, 91, a World War I fighter ace who shot down at least six enemy aircraft and survived three crash landings. Porter, a member of the Army Air Force’s 147th Aero Squadron, received the Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre for his exploits. In addition to his six confirmed victories, Porter was believed to have shot down three other German planes. He was shot down three times, once crash-landing in no-man’s land between German and Allied lines. Porter continued to attend reunions of the American Fighter Aces Assn. into his 80s. In an interview in 1979, Porter recalled his first dogfight, near Chateau Thierry in France in 1918. Flying a Newport 28 biplane, Porter maneuvered “to get the sun at my advantage” and shot down a German Fokker D-7. The Newports “were nothing but fabric and a bit of metal,” he recalled. In New York on Wednesday.