In 1996, more than 20 years after retiring from the Air Force and with three wars behind him, retired Col. Van Chandler discovered something about himself while thumbing through a newsletter of the American Fighter Aces Association.

The quarterly American Fighter Aces Bulletin said Chandler was the youngest American ace of World War II.

Chandler, who died March 11 at 73, had a typically understated response.

"I didn't know that," his wife, Betty, recalled him saying. "He never got excited about anything," she said in a telephone interview March 31 from her Greeley, Colo. home.

But there was an exception. The man who became an ace at 19 by downing five German aircraft, and who shot down three enemy planes during a 90-day temporary duty assignment during the Korean War, was excited about flying.

"He just loved flying. It's all he wanted to do." Betty Chandler said.

And in combat he was particularly aggressive, according to retired Lt. Col. Doug Stewart of Honolulu, who served with Chandler from 1949 to 1951 at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich. It was from Selfridge that Chandler, and a short time later Stewart, went on a temporary-duty assignment to the 51st Fighter Group at Suwon, South Korea.

In addition to the three MiG kills credited to him in Korea, Chandler also was credited with helping in the downing of a fourth.

"It would have been difficult for most people to get three and a half (kills) in 90 days." Stewart said.

Had Chandler been Korea longer, Stewart said, "he undoubtedly would have" scored at least the five kills necessary to become a Korean War ace as well. Chandler joined the Army Air Forces in February 1943 and trained as a pilot at Aloe Field, Texas, for the next 10 months.

From there he went to P-51 Mustang training in Florida and then to the 4th Fighter Group, 336th Fighter Squadron, at Debden, England.

He flew in the D-Day invasion of France in June 1944.

Three months later he was credited with his first aerial victory when he downed an Me-109.

The next two kills occurred on Christmas Day 1944, when he shot down an Me-109 and an FW-190. Two more victories over the next week earned him the ace designation on Jan. 1, 1945. He was a 19 year old Lieutenant.

In South Korea from December 1951 to March 1952, he flew with the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing in Suwon, according to J. Ward Boyce, executive director of the American Fighter Aces Association in San Antonio. By then Chandler was flying the F-86 Saber and he downed three Russian-built MiG jets.

His last combat tour was in Vietnam, where he was assigned to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa from 1969 to 1970. He was the wing's deputy commander for operations and flew F-100 Super Sabres in air-to-ground missions.

Other assignments included F-104 Starfighter project officer at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., from 1956 to 1957; Operations Officer and Squadron Commander of the 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, from 1959 to 1961; and F-104 adviser assigned to Turkey from 1965 to 1967.

After retiring from the Air Force in 1974, he earned a degree in business management from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. Chandler was diagnosed with stomach cancer in early September and underwent surgery later month, but there was little doctors could do.

"The day they told him he had cancer, he said, 'I've fought in three wars. Why couldn't I have gone out in one of those?' That's what he told the surgeon," Betty Chandler said.

"He was a pretty neat guy - that's the wife talking," she remarked. "He was very well liked by the other officers, and so many I've heard from in the last few weeks said he was a good pilot and a good friend."

In addition to his wife, Chandler is survived by a daughter, Linda Nash and three grandchildren, all of Greeley.