MCCLELLAN, CA (MPG) - Culminating a legendary aviation career, WW II pilot Bud Anderson last week achieved the honorary rank of Brigadier General. America’s only surviving Triple Ace will be 101 years old next month.

No less than Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr. pinned Anderson’s new insignia. The four-star General stopped at Aerospace Museum of California (McClellan) en route to unveiling the new B-21 nuclear stealth bomber in Southern California. Both events, said General Brown, were equally historic.

“Shoulders the Air Force stands on are those of gentlemen like Bud Anderson,” he said. “I certainly consider him General officer material.”

More than 200 invited guests applauded the centenarian’s appointment. In addition to Anderson’s star insignia, he now has a gold trimmed standard. “I never expected my own flag,” he marveled. “This blows my mind.”

Auburn resident Anderson started his career at McClellan and became General there 80 years later. He acknowledged modern fighter pilots inhabit different cockpits and a different world. “We flew completely by hand,” he explained. “Today, it’s all automatic stuff. But I’m as proud to wear this uniform today as I ever was. My message for young people is if they have the ambition to be in the Air Force, they should have at it. If you work hard, you can be what you want to be.”

Anderson’s legend includes 116 wartime combat missions. The fighter pilot earned Triple Ace status by shooting down 16 ¼ enemy aircraft. At 22, he was made Major. Later a test pilot, he flew pioneer jet fighter missions and took the controls of more than 130 types of aircraft. Thirty years of Air Force service included duty in post-war Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pentagon.

Anderson’s decorations include two Legion of Merits, five Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star, 16 air medals, France’s Legion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre awards. Through sheer longevity, the highest-scoring US fighter ace alive is also among few remaining Fighter Aces in the world.

A staunch supporter of the Aerospace Museum, his hangar appearances are supported by hundreds of fans. For his promotion ceremony, Travis Air Force Base supplied a color guard, a brass band and a raft of uniformed personnel. Staffers and civilians joined the veteran in singing the Air Force Song, shared birthday cake and drank his health in bourbon.

Because Anderson famously named all his P-51s after the whiskey preferred by fighter buddies, the Aerospace Museum boasts an Old Crow Café. For a promotion surprise, Old Crow manufacturers dispatched a ceremonial barrelhead (bearing the P-51 profile) from Kentucky. As Anderson and General Brown downed shots, the legend warned: “That’s dangerous stuff, sir.”

Top-brass military ceremonies normally involve months of preparation. To promote Bud Anderson before his 101th birthday – and to take advantage of the Chief of Staff’s California visit – Aerospace Museum administrators pushed the event from concept to conclusion in weeks.

“It took Bud three years to become major during the war,” said Museum CEO Tom Jones. “He was promoted to colonel 14 years later. After he retired in 1972, it took 50 more years for him to become a general.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime event for Bud – and for all of us who were here.”