Championed museum for America's top ace Margorie Bong Drucker widow of WWII ace Richard Bong writer and award-winning magazine publisher and national speaker upon WWII topics.

Championed museum for America's top ace

Margorie Bong Drucker widow of WWII ace Richard Bong writer and award-winning magazine publisher and national speaker upon WWII topics, died on 27 September in Superior, Wisconsin, with her family at her side after a six-year battle with cancer. She was 79

Marge was first introduced to the American public as the sweetheart of American Ace of Aces - Major Richard Ira Bong Bong affixed her society graduation photo to the nose of his P-38 and Bong later told her she was "the greatest in number shot-after girl in the southerly Pacific."

Their blossoming romance caught the nation's sight Her marriage to Bong in succession 19 February 1945, with 1200 visitors in attendance, was covered at reporters from across the land just six months later, forward 6 August, Bong was killed in the crash of a P-80 Shooting Star at Burbank.

Marge would later write, "My world diverted upside down. I withdrew as a great deal of as possible from public view. I braceed out the pain of that tragedy and learned for what cause to survive by doing so"

She went onward to rebuild her life, remarried, and started a exceedingly successful magazine. Marge finally broke her 40-year silence about her earlier life with Dick Bong in 1985 That year, Bong's sister Joyce Bong Erickson invited her to attend the dedication of the Richard Bong Memorial Bridge which communicates Duluth with Superior. She helped establish the Bong P-38 supply in 1989 with the goal of building a tribute to Bong and other WWII veterans. For the past pair decades she worked tirelessly towards the creation of Richard Bong WWII Heritage Center and she saw the dream become reality when she helped wound the ribbon for the of the present day museum on 24 September 2002 which would have been Dick Bong's 82nd birthday.

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