An F-16 assigned to the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Squadron returned to its home base in Atlantic City on Dec. 5 with a splash of color dedicated to a World War II fighter ace.
Thanks to the 576th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s paint shop at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, tail number 86-309 now has an orange vertical stabilizer with the words “Jersey Jerk” scrawled across the bottom.
The name honors Maj. Gen. Donald Strait, an East Orange, N.J., native who flew P-47 and P-51 fighters, which were frequently painted with nicknames such as “Big Ass Bird” or “The Hun Hunter.”
When Strait arrived at his base in the U.K. in 1943, he wanted to name his P-47 “Jersey Bounce,” in honor of his home state. But his crew chief, Doc Watson, who Strait described in a 2008 interview as “a real tough kid, a leather worker from Boston … he always had a beard,” pushed back on that idea.
“Jersey Bounce,” was already taken by an aircraft in another squadron, Watson said—it was the name of a hit swing song, and by the end of the war the nickname was bestowed to at least four B-17 bombers, a B-24, three P-51s, and a C-47 cargo plane. One pilot named a P-51 “Jersey Bounce III” after the first two were destroyed or retired.
“So I said, ‘well, let’s give it some thought,’” Strait recalled. After five missions with an unnamed plane, Watson and the rest of the maintainers came up with something unique: Jersey Jerk.
“I said, ‘For Christ’s sakes, Watson, I’m not a jerk,’” Strait recalled. “He said, ‘Sir, let me tell you why we want to name it that. Any guy that would take off in a single engine airplane, cross the North Sea in the wintertime, and take a chance of getting his ass shot off by the Luftwaffe or by anti-aircraft fire has got to be a jerk.’”
While today a “jerk” means a cruel or obnoxious person, back then a “jerk” was more of a fool or a pathetic person, as The Ringer noted in 2023.
Either way, Strait liked it, and “Jersey Jerk” carried him through 122 combat sorties, where he shot down 13.5 enemy aircraft (half-credits are awarded when more than one pilot shares a shoot-down), though some of those victories took place while he flew a P-51 of the same name.
Strait was the highest-scoring pilot in the 356th Fighter Group, rose from second lieutenant to major in a little over a year and a half, and commanded the 361st Fighter Squadron. But his career was just getting started. After the war, Strait joined the New Jersey Air National Guard, a homecoming since he had started his military service as an enlisted man in 1940, back when the unit flew O-46 and O-47 observation planes.
Strait commanded the 119th Fighter Squadron, then its parent unit at the time, the 108th Tactical Fighter Wing, and eventually the entire New Jersey Air National Guard, where he had tremendous influence. According to the 2008 interview, Strait led the construction of the current base at Atlantic City, kept the 119th flying fighters rather than switch to tankers as many other Air National Guard units did, and at one point held down a Pentagon job while also commanding the 108th.
“Now let me tell you that was a lot of responsibility,” he said. “Here I am serving in the Pentagon, Friday night I’m hopping in an [F]-86 and flying to McGuire and sleeping there over the weekend. My family didn’t have me. We had three children then. So that was a big chore.”
Strait’s long list of awards and decorations include the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters. The Air Force changed a great deal by the time he retired in 1978 as a major general, Chief Master Sgt. David Anderson wrote in the introduction of his 2008 interview of the fighter ace.
“His first unit flew an airplane with fixed landing gear, one whose enclosed cockpit was something of an innovation; his last command flew a supersonic fighter heavier than the bombers he had escorted as a fighter pilot twenty years before,” Anderson wrote. “His career would be impossible to replicate now, on educational, technological, operational, and even legal grounds.”
Lt. Col. Michael Long, who commands the 119th Fighter Squadron today, described Strait in a Dec. 8 press release as “a legend of the Jersey Guard. I would even say the Air Force as well.”
Strait passed away in 2015, but his legacy continues: commanders of the 119th fly with the callsign “Jerk 01.” A photo dated June 6, 2024, shows Long with the same F-16 and “Jersey Jerk” written in blue across the bottom of the tail. The new tail flash is a step up, and its orange color and radial pattern refer to the rising sun on the squadron’s emblem.
“I really believe that much of our unit’s greatness is built on Strait’s back and the work he did before us,” Long said in the release. “To have our new 119th Fighter Squadron flagship carry the name ‘Jersey Jerk’ is an absolute honor and will serve as a constant reminder of just how great this fighter squadron is.”
