For 50 years, a small group of admirers of a World War II ace from Greensboro have been trying to persuade the Pentagon to rename Pope Air Force Base for him and his brother, who also was a fighter pilot.

They've been rebuffed for various reasons, including the cost of changing base stationery and signs, but now they have another and perhaps final chance to make the name change fly. The base is about to be transferred to the Army, which will require at least a modest name change. Why not use the occasion to honor Maj. George E. Preddy and 1st Lt. William R. Preddy?

It would only be right, said Eddie Smith of York, S.C. Not only were the brothers North Carolinians, George Preddy is the state's top ace, with nearly 27 kills (credit was shared when more than one fighter contributed to a downing) in less than a year and a half of combat.

"He was the leading P-51 ace of all time, and Pope was not a hero, while Preddy was," said Smith, a director of a foundation formed to keep the memory of the Preddys alive.

Pope, like many other early air bases, was named for a flier from the base who was killed in a crash. 1st Lt. Harley H. Pope was killed in 1917 when his JN-4 "Jenny" smacked into the Cape Fear River near Fayetteville after running out of fuel in bad weather.

It's not clear precisely how long the Preddys' backers have to make their case, but the clock is ticking while the Army and Air Force negotiate the hand-over date. In 2005, the federal government decided to turn the base over to Fort Bragg, and by law the transfer must happen by 2011. The Air Force wants to hand it over sooner, but the Army won't agree unless it gets help covering the field's expenses, said Ed Drohan, a Pope spokesman.

What the base would be called hasn't been decided either, Drohan said, though there seems to be support for simply calling it Pope Field.

Preddy's backers aren't even asking for the whole name. A hyphenated second billing would be enough, Smith said -- Pope-Preddy Airfield.

The Army could do worse. No one came close to Preddy's skills, according to a general who commanded his squadron.

He was "the greatest fighter pilot who ever squinted through a gun sight; he was the complete fighter pilot," Gen. John C. Meyer was once quoted as saying. Meyer was himself the fourth-ranking U.S. ace in Europe at the end of the war.

Hung over but adept

On Aug. 5, 1944, Preddy's unit, which was then based in Bodney, England, was told there would be no mission the next day, and several members engaged in more than a little revelry.

Then they were told they would have to fly after all, to protect a group of bombers. A commander looked at Preddy and decided the young pilot was too hung over to fly. Meyer intervened and said Preddy would be ready when the planes were ready.

Preddy inhaled oxygen to revive himself, said Ray Mitchell, a pilot who flew with Preddy later on, and was able to climb into his plane, a powerful P-51 Mustang that had been dubbed "Cripes A' Mighty," a phrase that Preddy sometimes spouted while shooting craps.

He wasn't fated, though, to suffer with his headache through a dull and droning mission.

The Mustang escorts were cruising above the bombers when they spotted more than 30 German fighters closing in on the lumbering B-17s.

Preddy pounced, and shot down six in less than five minutes.

It would have been one of the most startling feats in the history of aerial warfare even if it hadn't been performed by a pilot so hung over he threw up in his cockpit.

After landing, the still-queasy superace shrugged off the feat. "I just kept shooting, and they just kept falling," he said.

He did vow, though, never again to fly with a hangover.

In the air, a predator

Preddy didn't look the part of an aerial gladiator. He wore a movie star's pencil-thin mustache, but was slightly built and had curvature of the spine, so he walked a bit stooped over.

If you saw him walking around the base and didn't know him, Mitchell said in a telephone interview, you might ask what that small fellow was doing there. In fact, one officer asked another flier pretty much just that, but rapidly revised his opinion after he saw what Preddy could do in the air.

Behind the stick of the shark-like P-51, he was a predator.

"He was very aggressive," Mitchell said. "If you were flying with him, any time he said 'Let's go,' you better be ready because it was just all out with him, pedal to the metal. When he was fighting, before he fired he was right up their tail."

Back on the ground, Preddy was soft-spoken and quiet. When he did talk, it was often to say something nice about another pilot's flying or to give some of the credit for his kills to the others in the air with him.

He saw himself as part of a team, not a lone wolf, and was happy to fade into the group, Mitchell said.

Preddy refused several times to go home when his tour of duty was up. He asked for, and got, several extensions. He was sent home for a while after winning a Distinguished Service Cross to go with a Silver Star he had won earlier; but after a brief stint promoting war bonds, he was able to get back to the war.

By then, Mitchell was in his unit, which was moved to Belgium in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge.

On Christmas Day, Mitchell was part of a four-plane patrol that included Preddy. As he was about to climb aboard Cripes A' Mighty, Preddy tugged up a pants leg to flash bright red Christmas socks a relative had sent.

"Preddy's going hot today," he said.

Perhaps his high spirits were due to the $1,200 he had won at craps the day before. Throwing dice was such a popular diversion, Mitchell said, that even the chaplain indulged, and he always claimed 10 percent of the pot to be sent to widows of downed pilots.

After the Mustangs took off, it wasn't long before the patrol got a radio call reporting enemy fighters nearby. Preddy responded with one of those phrases that the other pilots knew meant they better reach for the throttle.

"Let's go see them," he said, gunning it.

Mitchell and the pilot he was paired with quickly got separated from Preddy and the other Mustang. Mitchell got caught up in a dogfight and shot down a German fighter. A second fighter started tracking him, and Mitchell put the powerful Mustang into a spin.

When he came out, he saw a torrent of anti-aircraft fire in an open area in the distance. He thinks that's when Preddy, who was pursuing yet an other German fighter, was shot down.

American troops on the ground confirmed that the men were mistaken for Germans and killed by U.S. ground fire. Preddy was 25 years old.

The other brother

Renaming Pope Air Force Base would also spread some of the honor to George Preddy's brother, Bill, who left his studies at N.C. State University and also became a fighter pilot. He wasn't in combat long enough to earn nearly as distinguished a record as his brother, but he was building a reputation of his own.

When George Preddy was killed, Bill Preddy had been told he was entitled to go home, said Joe Noah of Clarksville, Va., a cousin of the Preddy brothers. But Bill Preddy declined, saying he needed to stay until the war was done.

He almost made it: A few days before the war in Europe ended, he was shot down by enemy ground fire and died a few days later.

Drive began in 1958

Noah, himself a World War II vet, started the foundation to honor the men.

He first tried to get the base renamed in 1958, writing U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin. Ervin liked the idea, he said, and broached it with the secretary of the Air Force, but was told no.

Later Noah enlisted Sen. Jesse Helms in the effort. Helms was told no by a different secretary of the Air Force.

It has become clear, Smith said, that the only way to make it happen is to force the military by an act of Congress.

Several lawmakers support the idea, he said, but they defer to the delegation representing the base area. Smith said the main holdout is U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge.

A spokeswoman in Etheridge's office said the congressman would have no problem with attaching the Preddys' name to the base if he were persuaded that his constituents in the Fayetteville area supported the idea.

Noah said it's hard to figure out how to do that, because people just don't seem to get fired up enough about the issue to pick up the phone. The foundation has put out fliers and done educational programs in the area. Most people they talk with, he said, agree that the change would make sense.

Over the years, about 5,000 people have signed petitions in favor of the name change, he said. Some of them live in the Fayetteville area, but many are scattered across the country.

"I don't know quite how we'll go about it," he said. "But we probably won't get a better chance for years and years, and I won't be around then."