Air Combat Premium

FLYING TIGERS BOYINGTON BATTLE OF BRITAIN

SAKAI MARSEILLE PACIFIC HELLDIVERS

AIR COMBAT FROM THE EDITORS OF

HISTORYNET.COM

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HOW LONG DID IT TAKE CHARLES LINDBERGH TO COMPLETE HIS HISTORIC 1927 TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT? 33.5 hours, 41 hours, 29 hours, or 36.25 hours?

For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ MAGAZINES/QUIZ

HISTORYNET.com ANSWER: ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1927, “LUCKY LINDY” TOOK OFF FROM ROOSEVELT FIELD ON LONG ISLAND, BEGINNING A TREK ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN TOWARD PARIS, FRANCE. HE ARRIVED IN PARIS 33.5 HOURS LATER, TO A CHEERING CROWD OF MORE THAN 150,000.

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INTRODUCTION

Time Marches On Of OF the THE more MORE than THAN 16 16 million MILLION Americans AMERICANS who WHO served SERVED in IN World WORLD War WAR II, fewer aboutthan 2 400,000 are alive alive today.

The inexorable WWII million are today. The inexorablemarch marchof oftime timecurrently currentlyclaims claimsabout about300 900 WWII veterans driving forces behind veterans per per day. day. This Thisimmutable immutabletruth truthhas hasbeen beenone oneofofthe the driving forces behind Weider HISTORYNET’s efforts to to capture capture veterans’ veterans’ recollections recollections for for posterity History Group’s efforts posterity while while it’s it’s still still possible. possible.

Historians can argue endlessly about strategy, tactics, weaponry and the individual merits Historians can argue endlessly about strategy, tactics, weaponry and the individual merits of for the observations of those who who of various variousarmies, armies,but butthere’s there’sno nosubstitute substitution for firsthand the firsthand observations of those lived through the greatest conflict the world has ever known. Some memories may fade over lived through the greatest conflict the world has ever known. Some memories may fade over the years, and details become hazy, but certain life-and-death situations remain firmly etched the years, and details become hazy, but certain life-and-death situations remain firmly into the minds of veterans even 75 years later. Combat has a way of doing that. etched into the minds of veterans even 70 years later. Combat has a way of doing that.

Whether they fought for the Allies or Axis, airmen of all nations shared similar Whether they fought for the Allies or Axis, airmen of all nations shared similar experiences during WWII. They all had similar concerns: Will my airplane get me to the experiences during WWII. They all had similar concerns: Will my airplane get me to the target and back? Will the flak or fighter cover be heavy? Will the weather cooperate? How will back? Will theatflak fighter bebail heavy?

Will enemy the weather cooperate?

How Itarget react and if someone shoots me?orWhat if Icover have to out over territory?

Yet despite will I questions react if someone shoots at me?

What if reservations I have to bailabout out over enemythey territory? these and sometimes even profound a mission, donnedYet despite these questions andcockpit sometimes even profound a mission, they flight suits, climbed into the of a fighter or the bellyreservations of a bomberabout and took to the air donned climbed cockpit of aGet fighter ordone the belly of home a bomber on a wingflight and asuits, prayer.

They allinto hadthe a unified goal: the job and get safelyand took tokamikazes, the air on who a wing and athat prayer.

They all had a unified goal: Get the job done (except skipped second part).

WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVES

andThe get men home safely (except kamikazes, who thatfrom second part). interviewed in this special issue runskipped the gamut iconic fighter aces to bomber to a dive-bomber “backseater.”

Their windowaces on to a The crewmen men interviewed in this special issue run therecollections gamut fromprovide iconicafighter different one into which aerial combat was more personal and the worldprovide seemedatowindow have bomber era, crewmen a dive-bomber “backseater.”

Their recollections fewer gray areas.

Butone memories canaerial be colored by was subsequent experience, is on a different era, in which combat more personal andand thehindsight world seemed 20-20. reading these accounts and assessing place inbya subsequent broader historical context, one to haveInfewer gray areas.

But memories can their be colored experience, would do well tois keep firmly in mindthese whataccounts legendaryand pilotassessing Chuck Yeager admitted Aviation and hindsight 20-20.

In reading their place in a to broader History during a 1997 interview: “You the way youin remember it, and that’s not historical context, one would do welltell toitkeep firmly mind what legendary pilot necessarily the way it happened.”

Chuck Yeager admitted to Aviation History during a 1997 interview: “You tell it the way you remember it, and that’s not necessarily the way it happened.”

Welcome to Air Combat, from the editors of Aviation History and World War II magazines.

Welcome to Air Combat, from the editors of Aviation History and World War II magazines.

Carl von Wodtke Editor, Aviation History Carl von Wodtke Editor, Aviation History

AIR COMBAT

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CONTENTS

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Black Sheep Leader Gregory “Pappy” Boyington led a legendary squadron of Flying Tigers in China Interview by Colin D. Heaton

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Hitler’s Star Over Africa Hans-Joachim Marseille was an extraordinary—and chivalrous—ace

By Geoffrey Morley-Mower

20 Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace Allan Wright scored 11 individual kills to join the ranks of Churchill’s fabled “few” Interview by Jon Guttman

28 Raid on Ploesti A B-24D pilot recounts the massive bombing of the vital Axis oil refineries

By John B. McCormick

34 Luftwaffe’s Youngest General Adolf Galland became a legend despite tough odds—in the air and on the ground Interview by Colin D. Heaton

42 Helldivers Hit Wotje A Helldiver radioman gives a backseater’s view of a mission in the Marshall Islands

By Charles “Chuck” Zatarain

48 Japan’s Legendary Zero Ace In some 200 missions, Saburo Sakai logged an amazing 64 aerial victories Allan Wright soars above the English countryside in his Spitfire Mk.Vb shortly after the Battle of Britain.

ON THE COVER A restored Curtiss P-40 of the American Volunteer Group, a ka the Flying Tigers.

WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVES; COVER: PAUL BOWEN PHOTOGRAPHY

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Interview by Colin D. Heaton & Jeffrey L. Ethell

56 B-24 Raid on Magdeburg Glen Hotz relates the white-knuckle details of one of his 30 B-24 Liberator missions

By Glen M. Hotz

62 A Flying Tiger Ace’s War Ed Rector offers a unique look inside the renowned American Volunteer Group Interview by Don Bergin

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U.S. Marine Corps fighter ace Gregory Boyington—who was affectionately known as “Pappy” or Gramps” because at 31 he was nearly a decade older than his men— leans against the tail of his trusty Vought F4U-1A Corsair.

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U.S. Marine ace Gregory ‘Pappy’

INTERVIEW

Boyington was as well known for his flamboyant personality as for his flying skills

BY COLIN D. HEATON

BlackSheepLeader

B

efore the United States officially entered World War II, many young Americans volunteered to serve in foreign air arms. Whether flying for Britain in the Eagle Squadrons or in the American Volunteer Group (AVG) supporting Chiang Kai-shek in China, those who served as fighter pilots were the spearhead of American intervention, and they quickly became folk heroes. Among the most colorful and controversial members of that unique fraternity was Gregory “Pappy” Boyington.

Boyington discovered a new world in combat aviation after years as an instructor pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps when he joined the AVG. Later returning to action with the Marines, he ended the war with 24 aerial victories and earned the Medal of Honor. During the 1970s, actor Robert Conrad portrayed him in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep (later renamed Black Sheep Squadron), making Boyington and his Marine squadron, VMF-214, household names once again.

Boyington lived life as hard as he fought the war. He died on January 11, 1988, shortly after granting this interview.

signed my commission and accepted the job with the AVG in September 1941, since rank was slow in coming and I needed the money. The AVG was paying $675 per month, with a bonus of $500 for every confirmed scalp you knocked down. In 1941 that was the same as $5,000 a month today. And with an ex-wife, three kids, debts and my lifestyle, I really needed the work. The government knew damned well what we were doing. They set it up.

That’s when I learned that Admiral Chester Nimitz kept files of all of the Navy and Marine pilots and ground crews going over.

The only catch was that we had to be secret about the affair. My personal cover was that I was going to Java to fly for KLM Airline.

Q: When did you first meet the AVG’s commander, Colonel Claire L. Chennault, and what did you think of him?

A: The first time was in a village called Toungoo, right outside Rangoon, Burma. He was very impressive in appearance and commanded respect, although some of his decisions later alienated him from many of us. He was less than pleased with some of our antics, such as shooting down the telephone lines with our .45s on the train to our billets, holding water buffalo races and

Q: When did you decide to become a pilot?

A: We were from Idaho, but we moved to Okanogan, Wash., where my parents had an apple farm, when I was in junior high school. I always loved the idea of flying. I used to read all of the books about the World War I fighter aces, and I built model planes, gliders and things. I went to the University of Washington and received a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering. I also flew during the Miami air races—anything to log more air time.

Q: How did you get involved with the AVG? A: Well, I had been in the Corps since 1934 and I became an instructor for both basic flight school and instrumentation. I reLEFT: USMC PHOTO; RIGHT: WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVES

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An AVG Curtiss P-40B prepares for take off.

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‘I can tell you from firsthand experience that the best men ever to fly a plane in combat were the Japanese, especially the Imperial Navy pilots. They were no joke’ rodeos in the street, or shooting up the chandeliers in a bar when they quit serving us. Some of the ground crew had been caught smuggling guns for profit, and that went over like a mortar round.

One of our last stunts was to fly the Chiangs on an escort mission. Before this we were told to give an airshow, a fly-by for the benefit of the Chiangs, Chennault and some other dignitaries. We passed by so low in a rolling turn that they all fell flat on the deck.

I received more than my share of threats of court-martial. My opinion of Chennault began to go downhill following his orders for a greater effort in ground attack missions—missions that were costing us in aircraft and pilots for no appreciable gain. The 3rd Squadron was unusually busy, attacking imaginary depots and “unknown numbers of troops in the field.” It was all bull. Chennault just wanted to keep the reports active once we ran out of Jap planes to tangle with. Many of the pilots refused to fly those missions, since there was no bonus in killing a tree. Chennault threatened us with courts-martial, and that really began the tide rolling against him. We were civilian specialists working for a foreign government, not his personal command. Finally, Chennault negotiated extra money for strafing, and I volunteered.

their toilet business right in the street. Sanitation was unheard of, and the diseases that we witnessed were enough to convert even the most adventurous of Romeos. There were these real nasty wild mongrel dogs that fed off of the dead and dying people.

Q: How was the AVG organized when you arrived?

A: There were three flights. The 1st Squadron was “Adam and Eve,” which I was assigned to. The 2nd Squadron was the “Panda Bears,” while the 3rd was the “Hell’s Angels.” My squadron saw the least combat and was the last to really get involved. Each squadron had 20 pilots and was completely staffed with ground crews, including mechanics, avionics and weapons specialists.

Q: What were the flying conditions like?

A: Well, first off we were lied to about everything. The aircraft were garbage, with spare parts a virtual unknown and tired engines barely able to get us off the ground. The maps we were supposed to use were the worst I had ever seen. Whoever made the maps had either never even been to those places or was more drunk than I was when they sat down to create those worthless objects. Some points of reference were more than 100 miles off, and the magnetic declination was worthless. The weather could also get you into trouble, and we had no meteorological reports, not like today, and not even as good as what we had during the Pacific campaign. At Kunming we had a 7,000-foot runway that seemed never to get completed, even after five years of constant work, not until our military came in well into the war. Now take into account the greatest lie of all, that the Japanese pilots were pathetic and lacked good vision. I can tell you from firsthand experience that the best men ever to fly a plane in combat were the Japanese, especially the Imperial Navy pilots. Those guys were no joke. If you screwed up, you were done for. We also never had radar or a modern air warning system. However, we did have a series of visual lookouts and a system of telephone relays, and— considering the hundreds of dialects and different languages on this massive line system—things still got done. Anyway, we were ordered down to Rangoon, and I managed to get there with the squadron on February 2, 1942.

Q: You came close to a court-martial for some antics?

A: The greatest thorn in my side personally was the executive officer, Harvey Greenlaw. This clown was not a friendly type, and he prepared the paperwork for a court-martial on me and a fellow named Frankie Croft for “conduct unbecoming officers,” all because we had been holding rickshaw races with the locals.

He saw us pulling these two rickshaws with the drivers sitting in luxury as our passengers. The bitch of it is we had to pay those drivers for the privilege of pulling their rickshaws. I told him that if he made any problems for me I’d introduce him to a few rounds of good old hooking and jabbing. I also said that accidents happened, and sometimes those Japanese bombs that lay around unexploded had the habit of going off unexpectedly— you never knew who might get hit. He got the message.

Q: What were the conditions where you were staying?

A: Absolutely the worst shitholes you could imagine. People did

Q: When did you start flying?

A: I began flying familiarization with the Curtiss P-40s that we had been issued, as well as the P-36 types that were around, in November 1941. The P-40s were aircraft that we had LendLeased to Britain, and which had been loaned from the RAF [Royal Air Force] to us again. We got the idea to paint shark mouths on them after someone found a picture in a magazine showing an RAF P-40 in North Africa painted that way. My first flight in a P-40 was something of a show, since I had always preferred to make three-point landings in the planes back in Florida.

I had the cockpit check and took off, and when I tried to land I bounced, so I slammed the throttle forward for another goaround. The result was a manifold gauge that ruptured, and when I landed I was given a stern reprimand about gunning the Allison engines. I started flying combat in December.

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Q: How did the P-40 compare to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero?

A: The Zero was legendary in its agility, due to its light weight and turning radius. No one could turn inside a Zero, but the Zero could not catch us in a dive, which proved to be a life insurance policy. However, most of our fights were against other aircraft, like the I-97 [Nakajima Ki.27]. We developed the tactics of hit and run—dive down from higher altitude and strike, continue the dive and convert air speed into altitude for another attack.

The other plus for us was the fact that we flew three-element flights, with the top cover waiting until the other two had attacked. Once the Japs scrambled to intercept us, the top cover would swoop down and pick them off. We also had the advantage of heavier armament—two .50-caliber and four .30-caliber machine guns, with later versions having all .50s against their two 7.7mm machine guns. We also had armor plate in the cockpit and self-sealing fuel tanks. The Japs had none of those, and it cost them dearly throughout the war.

Q: Your group suffered a series of accidents, didn’t it?

A: There was an incident where I was escorting a DC-2 carrying General and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the same day as the airshow. We were never told the destination, so we had to shadow the transport. All six of us ran out of fuel and landed belly-up in a Chinese cemetery.We drove out in an old American truck driven by a guy who knew nothing about driving—a real odyssey, in

which we were nearly shot by mountain bandits. These were feudal lords who would rather fight each other than fight the Japanese.

We later recovered the aircraft, and no pilots were lost. Another event occurred on February 7, 1942, when Robert“Sandy”Sandell, the group leader, was killed test-flying his P-40. RAF witnesses said he inverted and appeared to be stalling, but that he recovered. It would appear that he pulled back on the stick too hard and halfrolled into an inverted crash. That was a sad day—he was a great guy. Once, when we had an air raid over the strip, I jumped into my P-40. To make a long story short, the maintenance had not been carried out, and I crashed, really banging myself up. I was barely able to make it. To make matters worse, we had a wedding one evening shortly after that—one of our guys from 3rd Squadron, John Petach, got married. During the ceremony the air raid horn sounded, and I decided to hobble out and jump into a trench.

I actually jumped off a cliff in the dark, further injuring myself and undoing the repair work that had been performed on me previously. I was flown to Kunming and placed in the hospital. In a few weeks I had my knees taped up and began flying again.

Q: When did you score your first victory?

A: Right after we arrived in Rangoon. We took off on a “bogey” call on January 26, 1942, and ran into around 50 to 60 Japs. We were severely outnumbered by the enemy, who were flying I-97– type fighters. They were about 2,000 feet above us and diving

Boyington (front row, third from right) prepares to play some ball with VMF-214, the Black Sheep Squadron, wearing caps sent to them by the St. Louis Cardinals.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

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USMC PHOTO

Pilots of the Black Sheep Squadron race to their F4U-1 Corsair fighters on September 11, 1943, at Espiritu Santo airfield in the New Hebrides.

down. Pretty soon I was all alone, as everybody else had decided to run for the deck. I pulled over to the right to avoid the crowd, and I spotted two I-97s and closed with them. As I fired at one, the other pulled a loop over me, so I had to break off and compensate for the maneuver. I just gave up and followed suit, heading for the deck. Then I pulled up and climbed. I spotted another fighter and decided to drop the nose and close in, firing as I gained on him. Suddenly, as he was almost filling the windscreen, he performed a split-S that any instructor would have envied, and I then noticed that I was not alone—his friends had joined in. I got smart real fast and again took a dive and ran for home, no claims.

When I landed I found a Jap 7.7mm bullet in my arm, an incendiary that gave me a nice scar. I also found that I had been reported shot down. That first crack at the Japs was a disaster, and all of us were seriously upset with our dismal performance, especially since Cokey Hoffman had been killed. The first kill came three days after this. I got two, and the flight scored a total of 16 with no losses to us. The next kills came soon after. We had already taken off on two false alarms. Finally, on the third hop, I saw a lone I-97 and took him out over the bay at the Settang River.

I got three more on one mission, two close together. The third was an open-cockpit fighter, and took a long time to go down, even after I popped a lot of shells into it. I pulled up next door and saw the pilot was dead. I fired one well-placed burst to collect the money. At that point I had six confirmed with the AVG. [In actuality, the AVG credited Boyington with 2.5 victories].

Q: There was an ironic twist to this mission, right?

A: Yes. Two RAF Hawker Hurricane pilots had been flying above 50 Japs of the main force. They saw a P-40 and thought he would join them, but instead the AVG pilot threw himself into the whole group, with Japs all around him, guns blazing and confusion all over the place. The two Brits dropped to assist, cursing the crazy man who had started the melee. They all managed to get out of it. When I talked to one of the Brits later, he dropped a 7.7mm slug on the bar. He had found it in his parachute after he landed. The American turned out to be Jim Howard, and it figured that he would get the Medal of Honor for doing the same thing against the Germans later.

Q: What did you think of Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell?

A: They didn’t come any better. He was a real fighter. The British harangued Stilwell because Burma fell. They always failed to mention that he had only Burmese, Indian and Chinese troops under his command—no American or British forces—and they were not adequately supplied. Stilwell was a real soldier, and he thought no more of sharing a can of grub with an enlisted man than pulling his boots on. Few people have earned my respect— he’s one of them. This was when we were evacuating Burma, and we learned that one of our mechanics had purchased a mascot, a tame leopard. We used to play with her, although I was never completely convinced that it would not hurt one of us. We played with it anyway to keep it user-friendly, and it was always well fed.

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Q: When did you return to the Marines?

A: The AVG was being disbanded by July 4, 1942, and Chennault informed us that we all were to be inducted as lieutenants in the Army Air Corps, regardless of past affiliation. I did not agree with that arrangement, especially since I was the only regular pilot and the rest were reservists. I had a major’s commission waiting in Washington with the Marine Corps, and I was not about to sacrifice my gold wings for dead lead. I mentioned the written agreement, but Chennault was having none of it. Besides, majors make more than lieutenants, and when I heard about this from Chennault, my Sioux-Irish blood began to boil. I was not alone, either. Besides, Chennault had pissed me off when he placed a two-drink maximum on my nights out. He even had spies watching me. He was also less than pleased by the fact that we all enjoyed the company of the local girls, and I was no angel.

Another thing that irritated many of us was when the incompetent administration staff told us that we could not get paid for our kills, or even for our monthly back pay, because they had lost some of the after-action reports. I knew damned well that they were not lost. I said to hell with them and caught a plane to Calcutta along with three other AVG men, all of them bound for the Gold Coast of Africa to ferry new P-40s. I made it to Bombay, then found that Chennault had issued an order banning me from U.S. military transports and directing that I be drafted into the Tenth Air Force. Well, I boarded a ship, headed for New York. I wish I could have seen the look on Chennault’s face when he learned I was Stateside.

Q: What happened following your arrival in New York?

A: I caught a train straight for Washington, and placed a letter of reinstatement, citing my agreement with Nimitz. I was told to go home and await orders. After a few months I went back to my job parking cars, the job I had in college. I later learned that my orders were delayed, due to a personal grudge held by someone.

All 10 of us former Marines who fought with the AVG were in the same boat. In November I sent an express letter demanding a resolution, and three days letter I was ordered to San Diego.

Q: How did you get back into flying combat?

A: A twist of fate. When I hit Espiritu Santo, I became assistant operations officer. It was in May 1943 when I was chosen by Elmer Brackett to be his executive officer for VMF-222 and I checked out in the Vought F4U-1 Corsair. But as fate would have it, he was promoted and left, leaving me with the command.

Q: You were involved with the Lockheed P-38 mission that killed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. How did that come about?

A: The P-38s were on Guadalcanal with us, and they had been ordered to make the intercept, due to their range and speed. We helped plan the trip for them, and I told the men not to say anything. We did not want the Japs to know we had broken their

new code. However, soon Naval Intelligence was interrogating everyone on the island, since word of the mission had leaked out.

At this point my combat career was almost ruined when my ankle was broken in a football game and I was sent to Auckland, New Zealand, to recuperate. Shortly after this, VMF-222 scored 30 kills against the Japs. I guess they were waiting for me to leave.

After I healed up I was bounced from one squadron to another, although always in a nonflying status. One of my jobs was to process the disciplinary paperwork of certain officers and enlisted men. This was where I got the idea to try and form a squadron. I spoke to the MAG-11 commander, Colonel Lawson Sanderson, who gave his off-the-record approval, and I went to work, collecting pilots wherever I could find them. Not all of these men were fighter pilots, but anyone could be converted— or so I thought. Unfortunately, Sanderson rotated out and “Lard” [Lt. Col. Joseph Smoak] entered the scene. Well the only thing left to do was choose a squadron name. One of the men suggested “Boyington’s Bastards,” and I liked it but knew that would not fly. I suggested “Black Sheep,” since we were not the typical, picture-perfect material glossing the magazines. The name stuck, as did my two nicknames,“Gramps” and “Pappy,” due to my age.

Q: When was your first mission as a squadron?

A: September 16, 1943. We had just arrived in the Russell Islands. We had 20 Corsairs broken up into five flights to escort 150 [Douglas SBD] Dauntless and [Grumman TBF] Avenger bombers on a mission to Ballale, near Bougainville. We ran into a heavy cloud base, lost sight of the bombers and dropped below the clouds to try and pick them up. Sure enough, I saw the bombers doing their stuff on time and on target. However, just then we were jumped by 40 Zeros with full fuel tanks. And these guys were no fools, or so I thought. One of them pulled up next to me, waggled his wings as if telling me to form up, then pulled ahead. I had forgotten to turn on the gunsight or arm the guns, but when I did I knocked him down. My wingman, Moe Fisher, blasted one off my tail, and we headed for the deck to protect the bombers. I nailed another one real quick, but I flew through the explosion. I saw another skimming the water trying to get away, so I chased him. I was closing on him when a little voice warned me and I pulled away. There was his wingman. The lead Jap had been the bait, and I had almost fallen for it. I turned into the second Zero head-on. We closed, firing on each other, and I won.

The first Zero had disappeared, but I saw another coming headon at a lower altitude, and I got him, too. As I tried to milk my remaining fuel, I saw a Corsair—just over the water and vulnerable—being attacked by two Zeros. The Marine aircraft was damaged, with oil all over the windscreen, and was losing speed.

I attacked the nearest Zero, and as I fired he pulled up. I tried to follow, still firing, and he broke apart, but I stalled out. I recovered enough to hit the second Zero, and then I calmed down.

The adrenaline rush of air combat is something that you can’t AIR COMBAT

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‘We screamed into the enemy formation head-on, and I think everyone got a hit or kill on the first pass. My first hit blew up, a second plane I hit began to smoke’ explain. I did not see the Corsair again or even know who was in it, but Bobby Ewing was the only loss we had, so it must have been him. There was no way I could make it back to base, so I headed for Munda, where I made a perfect dead-stick landing— no gas at all.

Q: That was not a typical mission, right?

A: Far from it. I scored five kills in one mission, and I would never do that again. Most of a combat pilot’s missions are mundane and almost boring, especially when you are beginning to win a war and you outnumber the enemy.

Q: Did the unit’s success help you out with your superiors?

A: It helped with everyone except Lard. He had heard about the drinking problem in China and Burma, so he placed me on parole of sorts. I was not to drink, and if I did it was to be reported. I still had a few, and Lard found out about it and placed me in hack.

Shortly after our first great success, I was invited along with my executive officer to the new commander’s office and offered a drink. He assured me that he was not part of Lard’s program, that I was safe. Well, we soon got stuck with escort missions galore. We did not engage a single enemy plane in weeks, although the guys at Munda were having a hell of a time. They were the first line of defense. We finally got creative, especially when the Japs began to identify me over the radio. They would ask my position in plain English, although they were fooling no one. One day I gave them a lower altitude as a response, and sure enough there came 30 Zeros. We caught sight of the Japs heading to 20,000 feet to intercept us, but we were at 25,000, and we peeled over into them. We screamed into the enemy formation head-on, and I think everyone got a hit or kill on the first pass. My first hit blew up, and a second plane I hit began to smoke and the pilot bailed out. I continued to pull around and caught a third Jap, who also went down.

We had done good work, and I was proud of my boys. We had scored 12 kills without a loss.

Q: You had a few close calls yourself, didn’t you?

A: Sure, but most of my problems were caused less by the Japanese than by our own ground crews. I scrambled with the squadron to intercept some inbound enemy bombers, and in the middle of a dogfight with escorting Zeros my engine died. I took a dive for the deck with a dozen meatballs on my ass. If it were not for the Navy pilots in a Hellcat unit, I would not be here now.

I headed back to base without fuel. My plane had not been refueled after the previous mission. I had had a perfect chance to score some bomber kills, and it was gone.

Q: What did you think of William Halsey and Chesty Puller?

A: Halsey and some other brass came to see me once at Munda, and I liked him. Chesty, on the other hand, was sort of like me 10 times over and on steroids. He was one hell of a Marine, the best who ever served, probably. He’s one of those few even I would do anything for, because he cared about his men and loved the Corps.

Q: What happened the day you were shot down?

A: Well, first of all, contrary to what I have heard over the years, I was stone-cold sober the day of the flight, which was January 3, 1944. Everything started out wrong that day. My plane was down, so I had to take another. I led the squadron on a fighter sweep to Rabaul. Everyone knew that I was expected to beat Joe Foss’ record of 26 kills, since he had just tied Eddie Rickenbacker’s score not long before. Even Marion Carl allowed me the opportunity to lead several of his flights, giving me the chance to increase my score. This was because I was due to be rotated out due to age and longevity. At this time I had 25 [officially 21], and Rabaul was just about the best hunting ground you could imagine. Well, to make a long story short, my wingman George Ashmun and I were looking for trouble, and George told me just to focus on getting the kills—he would take care of my six. Soon we were surrounded, and I scored three, but George was overwhelmed and I was trying to help him when I was also hit. I could hear and feel the shells striking the armor plate and fuselage. I remember my body being banged around, and then suddenly I had a fire in the cockpit. The engine and fuel line had been shot up. I was about 100 feet above the water, so I did not have much choice. George had already been flamed and hit the ocean. I was apparently going to share the same fate, so I managed to kick out of the Corsair and pull the ripcord. After I hit the water I managed to inflate my rubber raft, but my Mae West was shot full of holes and was no good. I assessed my injuries, saw that I was beyond screwed up and hoped that I would be rescued. That wish to be rescued really became urgent once four Zero pilots began taking turns strafing me in the water.

Q: You were rescued, but not by friendly forces, right?

A: Yes, a few hours later a Jap submarine on the way to Rabaul surfaced and collected me. I dumped everything I had that was of any military value over the side.

Q: How bad were your wounds?

A: Well, I nearly lost my left ear, which was hanging in a bloody mess. My scalp had a massive laceration, my arms, groin and shoulders were peppered with shrapnel, and a bullet had gone

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through my left calf. Luckily, the sub crew tried to take care of me. They were very humane, and I wondered if this was the type of treatment I could expect in the future. One of the crew spoke English and assured me that I was going to be all right.

Q: What was your imprisonment like?

A: It was hard. We were beaten on occasion, and questioned even about the most ridiculous BS. Most of the guards were pretty brutal, but once you learned how to outthink them you could get by. There was this old lady in Japan whom I worked for in the kitchen at the camp. By the time I got there I was down 60 or 70 pounds and not looking so good. She took care of me, and I owe her as much as anyone. However, despite the beatings and starvation diet, I probably lived as long as I have due to the fact that 20 months in prison prevented me from drinking. The one exception was New Year’s Eve 1944, when a guard gave me some sake. Another important person was a Mr. Kono, a mysterious man who spoke English and wore a uniform without rank.

He perhaps did more to save American lives than anyone else.

As far as holding a grudge, no. The Japanese civilians who had been bombed out and were always around us showed us respect.

Many of them went out of their way to help us at great risk to themselves, slipping us food. When I think about how the Japanese civilians treated us as POWs in their country, I can only feel very ashamed at how we treated our own Japanese Americans, taking their homes and businesses and placing them in camps.

Q: Did you get any news about the war while in captivity?

A: Well, we managed to stay updated on the war news, usually thanks to friendly guards who would tell us what was going on.

Other news we learned by listening to the guards. I picked up the Japanese language pretty quickly, and I could understand many phrases and key words. New prisoners were also a great source of information. But I was informed by a Japanese man that Roosevelt had died and that Germany had surrendered. Later we were moved from Ofuna to a real POW camp. This was a great thing, because we were up to that point below prisoner status.

At least when we were POWs our families could hear we were alive and reasonably well. That also meant it would be more difficult for the Japs to just execute us with no one asking questions, which was always on our minds. As soon as we were moved to a more solid structure I felt a little better, especially once the Boeing B-29 raids picked up the pace. We would watch them at high altitude, sometimes engaged by a Jap, but they just gave us so much hope. However, once the bombing picked up, we were placed on rubble-clearing details and digging tunnels in the hills.

This was near Yokohama. One bit of irony was when a guard told me about a single bomb that had been dropped on his home in Nagasaki. It was not until after I was released that I found out it was true. I also found out from a guard that the war was over.

The guards almost to a man got drunk at the news, and some USMC PHOTO

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were openly discussing killing us. Six days later I was standing in front of the Swiss Red Cross in new quarters and very clean. A few days later B-29s were dropping clothes and food to us, and a few guys were killed by being hit. Soon the Navy landed with the Marines, and we were able to leave. We went to the hospital ship Benevolence, where the medical staff checked us all out.

Q: How soon did you get swamped by the media?

A: Almost immediately as soon as I was on the ship. I really didn’t have much to say, except hello to my family. After I was cleared, Major General Moore met me at Pearl Harbor and gave me the use of his quarters, car and driver, which was great. I had decided to change my ways, accept my fate and clean myself up.

But, as I’ve often said, show me a hero and I will show you a bum.

Q: How did things turn out for you after the war?

A: I did these war bond drives all over the country, but I still had not received my back pay. I was living off the generosity of others, broker than hell. When we went to Washington, I received the Navy Cross from General Alexander Vandegrift. Then I went to see President Harry Truman, who gave me the big one. After that it was a New York ticker-tape parade, then more traveling.

Later I was retired due to wounds, but that only made things worse. I could not find a job until I began working as a wrestling referee part time. My second wife, Franny, kept me out of too much trouble. Later I was a beer salesman for a few years; it seemed like poetic justice in a way.

Q: How do you feel about the wars that followed WWII? A: First of all, I don’t think a man—let alone an officer—could get away with the things we used to pull back then. And that is probably not a bad thing. The wars that followed were pretty much like any other. I think that our government should be more particular as to which wars we get involved in. ★

While suffering from a hangover, Boyington downed a Zero on December 27, 1943, a week before he was shot down.

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Hans-Joachim Marseille braved

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT

heavy flak twice to express sympathy for a fallen British pilot

BY GEOFFREY MORLEY-MOWER

T

he war was just about at its nadir when I joined No. 451 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, in July 1941. The Allied attempt to save Norway from German invasion had failed. The British Expeditionary Force had been pushed out of France in 1940. Gallant attempts to slow the German advance in the Mediterranean had been made, but Greece fell in April 1941 and Crete a month later. Five thousand Australians, New Zealanders and British soldiers had been captured. Meanwhile, General Archibald Wavell achieved some success against the Italians in Libya, but it did not last long. When Brigadier General Erwin Rommel landed with

Hans Joachim Marseille prepares for a sortie in the desert (above) and beams in September 1942 (right), after being awarded the Knight’s Cross with Swords and Oak Leaves.

his Afrika Korps in North Africa in February 1941, the British forces were soon rolled back to the Egyptian frontier. It was during this period—called “the lull”—that we began our routine penetrations into enemy territory to check on Rommel’s movements in the desert.

Air activity was at a minimum in August 1941, and we were able to take line-overlap photographs of the heavily defended Bardia and Sollum area at 6,000 feet, flying through a sea of black explosions from German 88mm anti-aircraft barrages. Then Rommel started to stir things up again, and the dreaded Messerschmitt fighters appeared high above us in the cloudless skies, deadly and professional. That was the end of the lull for us.

Our Hawker Hurricane fighters were no match for the German Messerschmitt Me-109s. We hugged the ground to perform our observations, and the Me-109s had altitude and speed advantages.

We flew in pairs, because counting tanks and marking positions on a map strapped to one knee took a pilot’s attention away from the skies. The “second dickie,” as he was called, did nothing but follow the lead aircraft and keep watch for enemy fighters.

On September 14, 1941, Rommel dispatched an entire armored division, the 21st Panzer, across the Egyptian frontier. Historians call this Rommel’s probe. The Western Desert is for the most part flat, with few escarpments, and it is negotiable by motor transport without benefit of roads. In a sense the battles in North Africa were similar to those at sea, where mobility and surprise are the chief elements. On this occasion Rommel was out to destroy British fuel and ammunition dumps close to the border, but another important motive may have been to exercise his tank arm for the more serious conflicts ahead. He gave the operation the code name “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which implies that he had been plotting such a move a few months earlier.

LEFT: BPK/ART RESOURCE; RIGHT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Hitler’s StarOver Africa

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On the morning of the 14th, I was asleep in my one-man bivouac tent when someone banged on the canvas above my head. “Get up, sir. The commanding officer wants to see all the pilots.” It was a British voice from the Midlands, and I recognized it as belonging to one of the army liaison clerks. I stuck my head through the flap and asked, “What’s going on?”

“The Jerries have started an advance, sir,” replied the clerk.

“It’s an emergency.”

Dressing did not take long. Socks. Pull on my khaki shorts and desert boots. I slept in a shirt. Grabbing my dusty blue service hat,

haired, freckled, broad as a door and had a reputation as a top amateur rugby player. I had known him in India and liked him.

Today he was looking unusually worried.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Has Rommel turned in our direction?”

“No,” Byers replied. “A couple of my young Australians— Paddy Hutley and Harry Rowlands—they were on the second sortie—haven’t come back. They were totally inexperienced. I shouldn’t have sent them out on their own, but they were so damned keen. Rowlands had only five hours solo on a Hurricane.”

I ran across to the officers’ mess tents. Half the pilots had already arrived and were standing around smoking. Cigarettes were free to combat pilots. I lit a “C to C”—a South African cigarette called Cape to Cairo, which we had dubbed “Cough to Consumption.”

I took my first drag of the day. Tasted good. Looking over the airfield—a single strip extending into the prevailing wind and cleared of stone and scrub by the military engineers—the dispersed Hurricanes seemed frail and alert, sitting up on their oleo legs like sea gulls on a beach. The single Westland Lysander—once a front-line aircraft and now the squadron runabout—stood tall and bulky, with its high wings and heavy supporting struts.

R.D. “Wizard” Williams, our Welsh commanding officer, sat on a wooden table and addressed us in his usual laconic fashion.

“Rommel has played another of his sneaky tricks,” he said, grinning. “He advanced all last night while we weren’t watching him.

Very un-British. But you can’t trust the Hun, can you? They say a hundred tanks are already over the border. You can see where they are now on the map.” A large map had been set up near the entrance to the mess tent. A broad red arrow led from the port of Sollum southeast to a position 15 miles south of our airstrip.

“They’re not heading our way at present,”Wizard continued, “but watch out for a quick move. They could turn north, and we don’t want to be caught napping. Jock Campbell has been ordered to step aside and avoid battle until we know what Rommel’s intentions are.”

Brigadier John Charles “Jock” Campbell was the commander of the 7th Support Group. He had been the hero of the Wavell campaign and the inspirer of the “Jock columns”—fast-moving groups of tanks and mobile infantry.

Pilots for the first sorties had already been briefed, and engines were running up, creating their usual tornadoes of dust. I sat around waiting my turn. At lunchtime I sat next to Pat Byers, our flight commander, one of the senior Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots with reconnaissance experience who had been attached, like me, to this nearly all-Australian squadron. He was red-

“Same as I had on my first sortie,” I responded.

“I know,” he told me. “But there were Me-109s all over the place this morning.”

“Bad luck,” I said, for want of anything more cogent to say, thinking of my own chances out there with the Messerschmitts.

I was airborne by 1 p.m. It was a perfect summer day, and visibility must have been 50 miles. The German column was now 30 miles to the west, and I could see its dust cloud as soon as I took off, like a caterpillar crawling over the brown surface of the desert. I stayed at 100 feet, popping up every now and again to observe, keeping a good lookout for fighters.

The tanks led the column, with a long trail of artillery and support vehicles. Ten minutes after my arrival on the scene, Martin A-22 Maryland bombers flew in to attack, escorted by Hurricanes. I could see the carpet of bomb explosions straddling the German column. Then I saw the Messerschmitts very high up, looking like a swarm of gnats. An air battle commenced, which I watched rather smugly from far below. The role of aerial spy, to which I had been unwillingly assigned, was not a glamorous one, and I was not the one to break the mold.

There was tension in the squadron all day. The pilots who were not flying sat around drinking mugs of tea supplied by “Corporal Coffee,” the Australian mess steward. They smoked and discussed Hutley and Rowlands’ failure to return (they both survived being shot down—Hutley had landed uninjured, and Rowlands had received a cannon shell in his neck and was hospitalized). I was not inclined to join the gossip and volunteered to fly a Hurricane for a routine inspection at our base landing ground at Qasaba. It must have been almost 6 o’clock when I walked to the mess tent for a drink. All the senior pilots were there, Williams presiding. I asked him what was up.

“The army is asking for a last-light report,” Wizard replied, more serious than usual. “Rommel was turned back to his own lines and seems to be crossing the border again, but nobody trusts the bugger not to try something fancy. I don’t want to send a late

BPK/ART RESOURCE

‘I could see the carpet of bomb explosions straddling the German column.

Then I saw the Messerschmitts very high up, looking like a swarm of gnats’

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sortie with the Luftwaffe out in full force. Anyway, Rommel’s had a pounding from the Marylands all day and is going back with his tail between his legs. That’s what I think. Carmichael just came in and said he’s lost half his tanks. But Pat Byers wants to do the sortie and I’ve said he can.” Pat, sitting close by, nodded gravely.

Ray Hudson, a fair-haired young Australian with a fiery disposition, had been detailed to cover Byers. He came up a moment later, his handsome face set in frustration.

“My kite’s unserviceable,” he said. “Another one is being checked and refueled. It’ll take 20 minutes.”

“I’ve got to go,” said Pat. “I can’t wait. It’ll soon be dark.”

“You can’t go without me, for Christ’s sake,” pleaded Ray. “I’m going now,” said Byers.“A cover won’t be much help this late in the day.”

Pat Byers took off at 6:20 p.m. for a sortie that should have taken half an hour at the most. The column was less than 40 miles from our landing ground. Hudson took off in pursuit a quarter of an hour later. By 7:30, neither had returned, and Wizard asked me to fly a backup sortie. The army commander was adamant that he must know the direction of the column at nightfall.

“Don’t kill yourself to bring back a full report,” said Wizard.

“We don’t need detailed info. Just steer clear of trouble and get back safely. There may be something weird going on out there.”

I flew off with Ken Whalley (an RAF pilot who was shot down and killed a month later) as cover. He was as inexperienced as Rowlands and Hutley, and I had little confidence in his ability to pick out Messerschmitts in a setting sun. I was not at all happy. I felt like an understudy for the part of Hamlet who had been told

at short notice that he was to take over for Laurence Olivier.

The sun sinks in the west, a fact I had not often thought significant. But in this case it was the whole problem. As I flew west to track Rommel’s tanks, the German fighters could hang up in the sun, enjoying a perfect view of us but being totally invisible in the glare of the setting sun. It was decidedly ominous that Byers and Hudson had not returned. I pierced the frontier well south of the reconnaissance area, got myself up-sun in the empty desert, and then inched back toward the column down the well-worn track called the Trigh Capuzzo. I stared anxiously into the blankness for fighters but could see nothing. Perhaps, I thought, they had been satisfied with shooting down Pat Byers and maybe young Hudson. Underneath me the desert was dark purple, and Rommel’s raid was a long, pink-tinged dust cloud to the north.

It was still heading west toward the frontier.

“See any fighters, Ken?” I asked.

“Everyone’s gone home,” he replied.

I could not resist making a count of tanks, a weakness of the reconnaissance pilot. There were 64 tanks, lots of support vehicles, and I could see the long barrels of the 88mm anti-tank guns, drawn by stubby tractors. The leading tanks were just riding up to the faint line of barbed wire that marked the frontier. Rommel’s probe was over. I turned steeply and made for home.

When I swung down from the cockpit, Hugh Davies, the army liaison officer, was there with his staff car.

“Glad to see you made it,”he shouted.“Is it still heading west?”

“Yes. It’s crossing the wire south of Capuzzo,” I replied. “Did Pat get back?”

BPK/ART RESOURCE

Messerschmitt Me-109E4/Trop fighters of Marseille’s unit are checked out on a North African airfield in preparation for a mission in support of Rommel’s Afrika Korps in September 1941.

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“No,” said Davies. “Ray Hudson couldn’t find him. He got back an hour ago.”

Wizard and some other anxious souls were waiting in the mess tent, hoping to hear the engines of Pat Byers’ Hurricane overhead and chewing over the day’s excitement. We all knew Pat had been shot down, though. His volunteering had seemed strange and sacrificial, as if he had known his own fate and had seized the opportunity to prevent the involvement of another pilot.

T

wo days later, before the sun had risen, I was awakened by the sharp bark of a Bofors anti-aircraft gun situated 100 yards from my bivouac. It was soon joined by the rest of the airfield defenses. I could hear the rattle of machine guns from the Australian machine-gun outfit across the strip and the whine of shells streaking across the dark sky.

I scrambled out of my tent to see two Messerschmitts motoring into our field as if to make a landing. They were below 500 feet and flying slowly. Me-109s could not be mistaken for friendly aircraft. They were smaller than any plane we flew and typically screamed across the sky with a high-pitched engine noise that was quite distinctive. On this occasion their noise was muted, and they lost altitude steadily. Gunfire petered out when they were too low to be attacked without risking damage to our parked Hurricanes.

Halfway up the strip, a dark object fluttered to the ground.

Then the Me-109s opened up their engines and snarled off, weaving violently, followed by a pattern of Bofors shells whose white puffs curtained the dawn sky.

I saw Wizard’s staff car driving toward the dropped object, and I ran across to the mess tent, where people always gathered.

Seeing the dainty shapes of these gnat-like aircraft flying slowly through the Bofors fire to drop something that did not explode was beyond our comprehension. We hardly exchanged a word, staring at Wizard’s distant figure in the dim light. When he eventually drove over, he was all smiles, holding a handwritten sheet of paper above his head in imitation of our least popular politician, former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

“You won’t believe this, gents,”Wizard said.“I feel like Mister bloody Chamberlain bringing peace in our time! It’s signed by the German flight commander.”When Wizard began to read out the message, however, his face became grave and his voice, more Welsh than ever, took on the cadence of a chapel preacher.

“We are sorry to report that Lt. Byers was shot down Sept. 14 by aircraft of this squadron. He was badly burned while escaping the cockpit. He is now in Derna Hospital to recover. We wish to express the regrets of the Luftwaffe.”

A cheer went up. There were some expressions of amazement.

Then we dispersed in a subdued manner to our bivouacs. We all feared burning over every other disaster. The main fuel tanks of the Hurricane were in the wings, a foot or two on either side of the cockpit. We were reminded of their proximity every time the

aircraft was refueled. An airman would sit on the wing, unscrew the cap, and set the nozzle of the refueler in the tank. The worst situation was when a Messerschmitt raked through the wings, setting both tanks ablaze. Then the pilot had to extricate himself from the cockpit via a tunnel of fire, the speed of the aircraft acting as a bellows and forming blowtorches on either side of him.

Two weeks later, the Me-109s made a return visit at dawn.

The Bofors guns and the Australian machine-gunners made another serious attempt to shoot them down. Another message fluttered to the desert floor. This time it told us that Byers had died of his wounds and again offered the regrets of the Luftwaffe.

For the next 50 years I wondered from time to time about the identity of the anonymous madman or hero who had made his compassionate statement in the middle of a bitter war. Then, in 1992, I read Fighters Over the Desert, by Christopher Shores and Hans Ring. The book gave a day-by-day account of operations in the Western Desert and named casualties from the records of both sides. For September 14, 1941, I found: “Lt. Marseille intercepted a Tac/R Hurricane of 451 Squadron, the pilot, F/Lt. Byers, being taken prisoner.” So it was the famed German ace Hans-Joachim Marseille who had shot down Pat Byers! Was he also my heroic madman? Who else would have had the motive? Surely there is a moral certainty that Marseille was in the lead aircraft on both occasions, and that he was accompanied by his loyal wingman.

Marseille was arguably the most talented fighter pilot of World War II. In September 1941 he was only 20 years old but was well on his way to his total of 158 victories, 151 of them over the Western Desert. A year later he was dead.

On September 30, 1942, Marseille was flying to intercept a formation of Allied fighters when one of the glycol lines in his new Me-109G developed a leak. The cockpit filled with smoke, and he was unable to see ahead. With characteristic decisiveness, he told the ground controller that he was bailing out. He opened the cockpit hatch, released his straps and turned the aircraft on its back to fall clear.

At a Luftwaffe court of inquiry it was established that his forward visibility was so poor that he did not appreciate that he was in a slight dive. The consequence was that on leaving the cockpit he struck his head on the tail and was rendered unconscious.

He fell to earth without pulling the ripcord of the parachute.

The basis of the German pilot’s chivalry was the tradition of respect that existed in 1941 between those who fought in the air.

World War I was played out in the infancy of the flying era, when merely taking to the air was an adventure and every landing in those unstable early biplanes a threat to life and limb. Out of that conflict, an acknowledgment of the enemy’s skill and courage had developed between the German and British air forces. Only the most daring souls turned up for those first tourneys in the sky, and when a pilot fell to earth the victor did not triumph over him.

When Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron,” was shot down on April 21, 1918, his body was buried with full military honors,

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six RAF pilots bearing his coffin to the grave on their shoulders.

The following statement of Eduard Neumann, the commanding officer of Marseille’s unit, I Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 27 (I Group, Fighter Wing 27, or I/JG.27), makes it fairly clear that the chivalrous tradition was not dead in 1941: “It may be a little difficult for most people to understand today that the British flyers always enjoyed our respect and sympathy. This is more conceivable if one knows that in German pilot’s messes in peace time the

old veterans of World War One always spoke of the British pilots, of air combat with them, and of the British fairness in the most positive way. Many German pilots could speak English better than any other foreign language and were thus quickly on good terms with the captured pilots.We endeavored to be as hospitable as possible in order to make their passage into captivity a little less bitter.”

There is nothing here, of course, that reaches to the level of Marseille’s gesture. Questions remain. We cannot be sure whether he visited Byers in the hospital at Derna, but it would have been easy for him to do so. Derna was only 50 miles from the forward airfield on the coastal road at which his group, I/JG.27, was located. Their routine aircraft inspections were probably carried out at Derna, as ours were at Qasaba. I can imagine that the young Marseille may have been seeing for the first time in his short life the terrible consequences of his deadly marksmanship. Would he not have been shocked at the sight of Pat’s sturdy physique so destroyed by fire? Surely the persistence he showed in making clear his compassion argues that he may have felt some guilt.

My own view, as a pilot of Marseille’s age, is that his was a majestic act of gallantry. An enemy had flown through a murderous hail of groundfire to say that he was sorry about my friend Pat Byers. It was a hell of a thing to do—and Marseille did it twice. ★ Geoffrey Morley-Mower ended his career in the RAF with the rank of wing commander. Moving to the United States, he was a professor in the English department at Virginia’s James Madison University until his death at age 87 on December 16, 2005.

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Marseille proudly poses alongside a Hawker Hurricane of No. 213 Squadron, RAF, which he has brought down in North Africa in early 1942. The dashing pilot’s exploits over the desert were portrayed in the 1957 film, The Star of Africa.

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By the summer of 1940, 20-year-old Allan Wright was a seasoned fighter pilot and would soon be counted as one of the fabled “few.”

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On the afternoon of May 23, 1940,

INTERVIEW

Allan Wright lost a good friend and shot down his first enemy plane

BY JON GUTTMAN

SpitfireAce in the Battle of Britain

O

n August 20, 1940, after Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires of the Royal Air Force had managed to fend off an all-out offensive by the Luftwaffe, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said,“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” His statement was a bit overblown, but appropriate. About a month later, the first great campaign to be decided entirely in the air, the Battle of Britain, reached its climax. One participant in that pivotal struggle, Allan Richard Wright, enjoys a special place even within the ranks of that fabled “few.” Wright emerged from the deadly crucible of combat as an ace with 11 individual and three shared victories.

Q: How did you come to enter a career in aviation?

A: The principal influence was my father. He started out in the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and retired from the Royal Air Force [RAF] in 1943. I was born in Teignmouth, Devon, on February 12, 1920. I wanted to be a civil engineer, but I hadn’t yet entered university. My father couldn’t advise my brother and me on anything but the RAF, so we both joined. To get a permanent flying officer’s commission, one had to take a civil service entrance examination, which I passed with honors and entered the RAF College, Cranwell, in May 1938.

Q: What was training like at that time?

A: It was a two-year course, three terms each year. As well as English, history, physics, mathematics and technical instruction, offiPHOTOS: WEIDER HISTORY GORUP ARCHIVES

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Wright patrols in his upgraded Spitfire Mk.I R6923 in early 1941. The code QJ-S appeared on his previous aircraft.

cer training was included, along with flight training. The next three months were spent flying as well as taking ground courses. They broke us into it quite gently, about two days a week performing what the school called ad initio [from the beginning] flights in the Avro Tutor, then moving on to the Hawker Hart or Audax. Part of the last term was spent in southwest Scotland, practicing air gunnery and dropping 10-pound bombs. I flew a delightful little single-seat biplane, the Hawker Fury, which had fixed synchronized machine guns. In the event of a stoppage, we had to be able to take the breech apart, put it back together and fire again, though I’ll never know how they expected us to do that during a dogfight.

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Q: When did you complete the course?

A: I was still at it when war was declared on September 3, 1939.

They concentrated on our gunnery and bombing practice and hurried along our graduation. On October 29, three of us were posted to No. 92 Squadron at Tangmere. The unit had just been formed and was to be equipped with Bristol Blenheim Mk.IF twin-engine night fighters. The new planes trickled in a few at a time, but there were no radios or guns for them. Then, on March 8, 1940, out of the blue we were told that we were going to receive Spitfire Mk.Is, and the next day they began arriving.

Q: It looks like the pace of things was changing.

A: For most of the interwar years the British government was certain that there wouldn’t be another war, and we were hopelessly unprepared when it began. Only Churchill insisted that we would have to fight. The arrival of the Hurricane and the Spitfire in 1939 was most fortuitous. I was absolutely thrilled to death. I thought we’d been forgotten and suddenly we received the best fighters in the RAF. Q: What was the Spitfire like to fly?

A: It was an utter delight. The controls were well balanced and so light that if you pulled the stick back too suddenly you’d be crushed down into your seat. Landings can be tricky in any plane with a tail wheel, but the Spitfire had some special problems. It

had a very long nose, which didn’t curve down as the Hurricane’s did, so we couldn’t perform a normal landing—we had to come down in a turn until 50 feet or so from the ground before straightening up. We had to judge our height from the grass on either side of the cockpit—you couldn’t see in front. The undercarriage was the weak part of the Spitfire—it wasn’t supported by a rear strut, so you couldn’t just drop from a great height or the landing gear would collapse. It was near the center of gravity, so if you landed too fast and had to brake hard, it could easily go over onto its nose.

Q: How did it compare with the Messerschmitt Me-109E? A: The Spit had one big advantage—its wing loading was low, about 16 pounds per square foot, and consequently it could turn more tightly than an Me-109 and so lead it with its guns. If an Me-109 was on your tail, you could pull the stick back and turn until the Spitfire was nearly stalling but the German would spin out. The Me-109s did have the advantage of a fuel-injected engine, which could operate under all conditions, whereas the early Spitfire’s carburetor was like that of a car. If you pushed the stick forward to negative Gs the engine would sputter and stop.

Whenever the Spitfire had the advantage, an Me-109 would go into a steep dive. The Spitfire’s eight wing-mounted .303-inch machine guns were always adjusted to converge 250 yards ahead, but in combat, opening fire at a distance of 70 to 50 yards was best, though often not possible. The Spitfire also carried ciné [camera] guns, but they never seemed to work. Ciné guns worked for me on only three occasions in the course of my fighting career.

Q: How long did it take to convert to the Spitfire?

A: Not all of the squadron had had experience in single-seaters, although my Cranwell colleagues and I had—but we did not have much time to get used to the Spitfire or practice operational tactics. We were over Dunkirk in May.

Pilots and crewmen demonstrate a mass “scramble” in early Spitfire Mk.Is at Duxford Aerodrome on May 4, 1939.

Q: What was happening then?

A: My brother had trained a year ahead of me, and he had been posted to Digby in Hurricanes. He was badly wounded in France in 1940. He later flew Vickers Wellington bombers and was killed in one while laying mines at night late in 1942. By late May, the Germans had overrun most of France and cornered the British Expeditionary Force against the English Channel at Dunkirk.

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‘I saw nine silvery planes below and to the right of us and thought, how beautiful.

Then they started climbing toward us and somebody called out, “Me-109s!” ‘ Q: When did you fly your first combat mission?

A: On May 23, 1940, we flew two sorties from Hornchurch in support of the naval evacuation of Allied troops. My first combat was in the morning off the Dunkirk coast. It was a beautiful day, a blue sky and the sun on the sea and the long stretch of yellow sand.

I remember seeing nine silvery planes below and to the right of us and saying to myself,“How beautiful.” Then they started climbing toward us and somebody called out,“Me-109s!” I got a long burst into one, but I don’t know what became of him. My section leader, Robert Stanford Tuck, was credited with an Me-109 in the fight, and I was credited with a probable Me-109, but Pat Learmond was shot down. Pat and I had been at Cranwell together.

Q: What about the day’s second mission?

A: There were nine of us in three sections that evening, when we ran into 15 bombers, 20 Messerschmitt Me-110s and 10 Me-109s. Bob Tuck took us straight into that lot, and the next thing I knew we were buzzing around like a whole lot of bees. I was going around trying to find a target, but the Germans all seemed to be whizzing by in the opposite direction. The Me-110s were in a defensive circle, which was probably a wise thing for them to do, so that the pilots and their rear gunners could give each other mutual support. I zoomed up and around to get into the circle and had a bash at one, hitting him in the cockpit. He went down, and I think I got another, although only one was confirmed. This one had broken away, and I followed him as he tried to get home. We flew low over fields and hedges, and I saw parts fly off as I fired into him, but then my ammunition ran out and I had to break off. When I got back, I learned that Squadron Leader Roger Bushell had crash-landed in France and was taken prisoner. In addition, John Gilles, the son of a famous surgeon, had been brought down and captured, and Flight Lt. Paddy Green had been wounded and forced to land at Manston. Sergeant Paul Klipsch was also lost.

Q: You had a grim first day. In addition to your probable, were you credited with any other enemy planes?

A: I was credited with one of the Me-110s, as well as one damaged and the earlier Me-109 probable, while Tuck was credited with three Me-110s. Number 92 Squadron claimed a total of 30 destroyed, damaged or possibly shot down during the Dunkirk episode. That night though, while I was lying in a warm bath, Pat’s loss came over me. Pat was a great friend of mine and of the girl who would later be my wife—very charming, a good guy—and I would never see him again. This is the only time that I am aware of ever being in bitter tears, completely overcome.

Q: And after all that, you had to get right back into it?

A: Yes. To fly an airplane is a most wonderful sensation. I had also been a good shot on the rifle range at school, but I had never shot a living thing before, nor have I ever since. Being at war was not a natural thing for me at all. We didn’t start the war. The Germans did, and thanks to them I lost my brother and one of my best friends. I’ve never completely forgiven them, and I’ve never cared to take part in any postwar reunions with my Luftwaffe counterparts. On May 24 Tuck took over our flight and we met 17 Heinkel He-111s and 15 Me-110s. I attacked the Heinkels and possibly got one, but they maintained formation. I came back with three bullet holes in my aircraft. Peter Casenove, who must have been hit by an Me-110, had landed on the beach at Dunkirk. On May 25, Tuck took command of the squadron for two sorties. In the first, we thought we were about to attack some Me-110s, but they were our own Avro Ansons. Later in the day, we had only eight Spitfires flying in three sections rather than the normal four, but when we ran into two Dornier Do-17s, six of us ganged up on one of them—I was the last one to attack when it went down in flames.

Naive as it seems now, I thought it a bit unfair at the time.

Q: When was your next sortie?

A: We rested for a few days. I stayed with my girlfriend’s family before returning to Dunkirk on June 2. This time, the powers that be decided we should go in several squadrons together. They sent us to Martlesham Heath to join three other squadrons for the day’s patrol. We saw some Me-109Es coming down on our formation and we split up as we were attacked. An Me-109 went after me, but I quickly turned inside and got him. I kept on fighting until my ammunition was finished, but as I was coming home I was attacked again. As the bullets hit, I instinctively pulled the stick back, rolled off to the right and got out of the way, then made a steep turn to search for him, but he was gone. I came back with 18 bullet holes in my plane. The evacuation of Dunkirk was completed that day, and the stage was set for the Battle of Britain.

Q: What happened then?

A: The squadron was dispatched to Wales in June—essentially to recoup our losses and train the new boys, although we also had a few tussles with enemy bombers. We operated from Pembrey. On August 14, I was flying east of Bristol on a cloudy day, being given vectors from the ground controllers, when I saw two He-111s. I chased one and scored hits on it, although I didn’t see it fall—it was very cloudy. My wingman, Bill Williams, made a similar claim, so when they found the wreckage of one Heinkel at Hullavington, it was credited to both of us in half shares.

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Q: Wasn’t your next victory scored at night?

A: Yes, we were operating from two airfields knocked together near Bibury, Gloucestershire. Our mission was to get bombers that were attacking Bristol under cover of darkness. Patrolling in the Spitfire at night was extremely difficult. There were three exhaust stacks on each side of the engine in front, which sometimes shot out flames. This ruined your night vision. We also had no means of homing and had to depend on being picked up by ground radar to be guided back to the airfield. We lost two airplanes because they had been out of touch with ground radar and could not see a place to land—the pilots bailed out. On the night of August 29, I must have been at about 25,000 feet—in any case, I was above the clouds, because I could see the stars. I saw two pink glows close together, and I closed to investigate. Sure enough, they turned out to be the exhaust flames of an He-111, but I couldn’t see the plane itself until I got within 50 yards of it. I almost overshot. As I pulled the throttle back, white flames shot out of my exhausts, blinding me until I coarsened the pitch of my propeller and pushed the throttle forward a bit. It was very difficult to keep behind the slower Heinkel, firing whenever I could between and at the two glows—the Heinkel itself was only the dimmest of shadows. Eventually one engine flamed up. The other must have stopped, and the Heinkel was only gliding. I continued firing at the bomber until I feared that I was getting out of range from ground control. Sometime after landing I learned that the Heinkel had crashed near the Isle of Wight, on fire with both engines out. All of the crew were wounded and were taken prisoner; one later died.

Q: How did you lose your assigned Spitfire, R6596?

A: I had first flown R6596 on June 4, and I flew it through August, except on the 23rd. Then, at 4:15 p.m. on September 9, we took off from Biggin Hill and the squadron got split up in a cloud. We were trying to attack a large formation of bombers when I was bounced by Me-109s. My No. 2 and No. 3 dropped back. They were shot down—Sam Saunders and Bill Watling had to bail out. I wanted to get the buggers! I climbed steeply with the throttle through the gate, turning back to get at them, when my Spit was badly hit. One bullet went through the hood and destroyed my reflector sight, so I could not fire back. I managed to evade the Germans and return to base, where I found some bullets had also gone through the propeller. My plane was apparently damaged enough to warrant extensive repairs.

Q: You saw plenty of action in your new plane, right?

A: Spitfire X4069 was the next to carry my usual letters, QJ-S, but I was flying QJ-V as an interim plane when I joined 13 aircraft taking off from Biggin Hill at 3:20 p.m. on September 11.

We met 200 enemy aircraft—He-111s escorted by Me-109s. We split up over Maidstone to carry out individual attacks. I lost the squadron early on and was flying over Croydon for about 30 min-

utes when I spotted a formation of Heinkels coming from Ramsgate. Diving out of the sun, I made head-on and quarter attacks on the lead plane. After I had dived away from some attacking Me-109s, I saw one He-111 break away with smoke coming from an engine. I went back up to 20,000 feet and saw the Heinkels returning, so I joined other fighters in attacking a damaged plane that had broken away. It crashed in flames on the Dungeness Peninsula. We had lost one new pilot killed, but six Heinkels were shot down. One of the Heinkels was credited to me, plus the shared one. I landed, then took off again with eight aircraft to attack bombers returning to the Channel. We split up when we were attacked by Me-109s at 20,000 feet. I got on the tail of one, but I couldn’t catch up and fired at 500 yards. The German dived steeply, smoking, at 500 mph, and I lost him over Folkestone, for which I was credited with a probable. I flew X4069 thereafter, damaging an Me-109 over Tunbridge Wells on the 14th.

Q: September 15 saw a climactic confrontation over London, costing the Luftwaffe 59 planes, while the RAF lost 31. What were you doing that day?

A: At dawn, I had to go alone down to Hawkinge, on the south coast, to fly a scouting sortie. I was supposed to see the Germans early and report them while they were in mid-Channel, so our fighters could get at them before they got to London. I was not to get involved. The idea didn’t really work very well. At 2 p.m., I climbed up to 30,000 feet, but all I encountered were two Me-109s at 27,000 feet, climbing in a circle to attack me. I had to attack first and fired a long burst. One of them dived north. I followed him— unlike Me-109s, Spitfires had a tendency to climb when the speed increased unless you held the nose down—all the time trying to shoot. At 7,000 feet, the Me-109 was still diving at a steep angle and I had to pull up. It required great pressure on the stick to hold the nose down.As I released some of the pressure, the Gs suddenly became so great that I passed out altogether.When I came to some time later, I was upside down in an utterly confused state of mind.

I leveled out, and when I had regained my bearings I returned to Biggin. I was credited with a probable, but when I came back I was very annoyed that I had missed a tremendous fight.

Q: When did you score your next victory?

A: I probably got a Junkers Ju-88 flying over Dover on September 19. Then, on September 26, my section was off to intercept an attack on Tenderden. There was complete cloud cover of a thin layer at 6,000 feet, and we would fly occasionally above and below it to find a target. During the patrol, I thought I saw a Do-215 and managed to fire a three-second burst from abeam at long range before it went into a cloud. I then saw a Do-17 and fired a burst from the starboard beam until it disappeared. Then I fired a two-second burst at a Heinkel, which dived into the clouds.

Later, the Observer Corps reported an aircraft exploded on the ground, and I was credited with the Do-17. The next day, nine

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of our aircraft, followed by Spitfires of No. 72 Squadron, encountered more bombers. I attacked a Do-17 and got in a four-second burst from abeam, damaging it. There were many Me-109s about, but few came down. I attacked an He-111 north of Cockfield, and it went down with smoke coming from the engines. On our second sortie that afternoon, 11 of No. 92 Squadron’s planes joined Spitfires from No. 66 Squadron in an attack on 20 Ju-88s, escorted by many Me-109s flying 5,000 feet above them. We split up the formation, and I downed a Ju-88, damaging two others. One Spitfire had crashed in flames near Dartford, but overall the squadron had had a very good day. I had developed a dive and climb attack on the flank of a bomber formation which had worked out very well, and I came back alone, feeling very elated to have got so many of them. I was disappointed, though, when the confirmed victories turned out to be less than I had thought—half credit on the Heinkel and one Ju-88.

Q: On September 30, your second plane was written off.

A: Late that morning I had arrived at 92 Squadron’s dispersal area from being off duty. The squadron had already taken off to meet a German raid. A fierce battle was going on just south of the airfield. A Hurricane came screaming down from the sky and exploded in a plume of black smoke behind some trees. Looking around, I saw a single Spitfire standing nearby. I jumped in and roared off with two others to join the fray. Seeing a Spitfire with a 109 on its tail, I shouted,“Watch out, Spitfire!” on the radio and went after the 109, shooting it down. The Spitfire pilot, Deacon Elliott, thanked me after we landed. During a second sortie by all three squadrons, I attacked some bombers at 15,000 feet, then I climbed up-sun to 25,000 feet over Reigate, where I found a formation of seven 109s. Picking the outermost, I fired a short burst without being seen. The 109 broke away and I continued firing with the rest of my ammunition. It dived south toward the coast, trailing white smoke. I checked my watch and followed to see how far it could go before its engine seized up. It went on down, leveling out close to the sea, and when the smoke stopped, glided a short distance and then splashed into the water. After a quick look round for any of his friends, I turned for home. It had been seven minutes. Suddenly, there was a tremendous bang and smoke filled my cockpit—I’d been hit. I pulled hard round in what could only be a dummy attack on the Germans, but when I tried to straighten up, the Spitfire wouldn’t. It careened around in half loops and steep turns—even vertically for a few seconds when, with the sea rushing up to meet me, I was sure the end had come.

With one foot on the rudder and the stick hard pressed forward against the instrument panel, I coaxed my Spitfire along the coast to Shoreham, near Brighton, where I managed to put it on the ground. The Me-109’s cannon had put a large hole in my wing and another in the right side of the cockpit, where bits of the shell had struck my leg, arm and part of my bottom. My plane had lost practically all of its elevator and rudder, and there was a slit 8 to

Wright flying in Mk.I R6923, which had been modified to be a Mk.Vb, sporting a pair of 20mm cannons in addition to its existing complement of .303-inch machine guns.

9 feet along the belly of the fuselage. A bullet had hit the oil gauge and smashed it, but fortunately had not caused an oil leak. The Spitfire had armor plate behind the pilot’s seat. How much I had owed my life to it was attested by my instrument panel—all around the edge it was spattered with shell fragments. The damage meant my plane was a total write-off.

Q: After September, the crisis had passed—but I suppose only the Luftwaffe airmen suspected the battle was lost?

A: I now get the impression that after September 15 we were more aggressive—as soon as we engaged them, they would try to get away. By December 1940, they were attacking our cities only by night or making occasional Jabo [fighter-bomber] raids, while we were more often carrying the war to them, sometimes with lowlevel strikes on their bases in France. But we couldn’t afford to relax. We didn’t know whether Britain was out of danger or not; we only knew that we had to go on. On December 5, the three squadrons of the Biggin Hill Wing flew an offensive patrol over northern France at around 25,000 feet. Before we got there, we met several formations of Me-109s in threes and fours between AIR COMBAT

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‘I could see the dim line of the French coast below. I closed to between 50 and 100 yards, pressed the button and the German burst into flame and fell into the sea’

Q: What did you do for the rest of the winter?

A: Flew convoy patrols or Channel escort for daylight raids. On one of the patrols a frightened anti-aircraft gunner blew a hole bigger than a fist behind my head, destroying my radio. On March 1, 1941, I got a new Spitfire fitted with a Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 engine. In its first air test, the altimeter stuck at 36,000 feet and the engine got too hot. By March 19, No. 92 Squadron was completely equipped with the Spitfire Mk.Vb. I liked this type because of its faster rate of climb, but we still had a lot of trouble with the 20mm cannons—they either kept firing or they kept stopping.

Q: Describe some of your cross-Channel duels in 1941.

A: I used my Spitfire to damage two Me-109s on May 13, and on one of two sweeps on May 16, I teamed up with three others to send an Me-109 into the Channel off Dungeness. On June 14, my Spitfire was badly shot up and I only just managed to get it back across the Channel. I had Jamie Rankin to thank for shooting the Me-109 off my tail. I probably downed Me-109s on June 17 and 25. Then, on June 26, Wing Commander Adolf G.“Sailor” Malan was leading Nos. 74 and 92 squadrons from Biggin Hill. I was leading a flight and we were about 25 miles from Dunkirk at 28,000 feet, going south-southeast, when we saw 12 to 15 Me-109s passing 2,000 feet beneath us. I descended on them to the right, firing at an Me-109 at 200 to 100 yards. The German left the formation, diving and skidding until I hit him in front of the cockpit. A small stream of smoke began to come out, but as my plane was going past 400 mph I pulled out. The Me-109 straightened out and was diving even faster while I turned to engage a new Me-109 that I saw at 2,000 feet, but lost it in a cloud. I returned at water level, and the first Me-109 I attacked was credited to me.

Q: You were involved in the gunnery techniques of fighter training. Didn’t that involve a tour of the United States?

A: By 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces had begun flying missions over northern France and had suffered severe losses. So from October 13 to November 23, 1942, three other experienced RAF pilots and I visited fighter stations on the east and west coasts of the

United States to teach air tactics and fighter gunnery. I made four flights in the P-38 Lightning and in the P-47 Thunderbolt. Their pilots were very keen to see the results we would get from them.

I’d met American pilots before in other situations, but never experienced so many people just hanging on our words and actions.

Q: Returning to England, you attended a night fighting course at 54 Operational Training Unit. Why change to that?

A: I was well-suited for it—I’d already got one at night in the Spitfire. I’m a steady chap who works things out, which seemed right for working in a radar-equipped night fighter. I felt I could be excused for feeling my luck as a day fighter pilot had probably run out. I wanted to fight under conditions more under my control.

Q: Was there any difficulty in making the transition?

A: No bother really—I’d trained in the twin-engine Airspeed Oxford and had flown Blenheims at night. There were more exercises to do, and I went through a short training course with my radar operator until we were qualified on the Bristol Beaufighter Mk.I and were posted to No. 29 Squadron. I then took over “A” Flight in March 1943. I didn’t care for the Beaufighter very much.

It had great power, but was a very heavy machine and very cold— I would wear all my clothes but was still shivering when flying at high altitudes. Using the Mk.IV radar was very difficult, too, though the Mk.VIII radar on the later Beaufighter models and on the de Havilland Mosquito was a different kettle of fish.

Q: What was night fighting like in 1943?

A: By 1943, we faced more of a battle against the weather than anything else. The Germans were seldom bombing by night, and our night fighters were beginning to fly intruder missions until we learned that enemy bombers were flying at very low level to avoid radar detection, laying mines in great numbers in the Thames Estuary and off Dover. Even then, I was the only pilot in 29 Squadron who got one. On April 3, 1943, on a bleak night with solid clouds above 1,000 feet, ground radar brought me close enough for my radar operator, George Bliss, to obtain a contact on a possible target. He guided me until I caught a glimpse of a shadowy shape and a glow from each engine. But I had come in too fast. Throttling back produced flames from my own exhausts, and the other plane’s rear gunner started firing at me.After a while, George yelled at me, “Why don’t you shoot at the bugger?” I replied, “I can’t recognize him,” to which he reminded me, “He’s shooting at you!” Then I fired. Pulling the aircraft around at 500 feet altitude, trying to follow his twists and turns—very dangerous so near the water—I was soon overtaking him again. Not

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Dover and Calais, heading east, and chased them back toward France. I attacked one, but my new 20mm cannons were not firing properly. I tried a deflection shot with my machine guns, and it must have been a lucky one—the Me-109 dived steeply and I went after it. I gave him a long burst from behind with explosive machine gun ammunition and struck the fuselage and the port radiator, from which black smoke and glycol steam began to come out. I left him at mid-Channel. The Me-109 was credited to me.

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wanting to throttle back, I put my flaps down. I thought I’d been hit when my aircraft suddenly heeled over on its side. It turned out that the wind had blown one flap up, and with only one extended I’d lost control. I got straight and level, my artificial horizon started working again, and I pulled both flaps up. After regaining control I asked ground control, “Have your got anything more for me?”He found one—when my radar operator was coaxing me in, the German bomber had turned southeast and started climbing to 2,000 feet. I wasn’t about to let this one get away. The cloud had cleared, and I could see the dim line of the French coast below. I closed to between 50 and 100 yards, pressed the button and the German burst into flame and fell into the sea. I was credited with a Ju-88 destroyed and another damaged.

Q: How did you spend the rest of the war?

A: Mostly gunnery training and fighter tactics, such as chief instructor at the Pilot Gunnery Instructor Wing of the Central Gunnery School, and commander of the Air Fighting Developing Unit. I once flew a Focke Wulf Fw-190 we had on loan. I was

lucky in always managing to keep away from any purely administrative jobs. In February 1945, I did a lot of flying while I was commanding the fighter wing of the Middle East Advanced Bombing and Gunnery School at El Bellah, Egypt.

Q: What was your reaction to the Allied victory in Europe?

A: All we heard out in Egypt was a signal saying that the Germans had capitulated and that we were not to undertake any flying the next day, in case anyone was too lightheaded and crashed. It was a terrible anticlimax. We simply redirected our training efforts against Japan until they surrendered on September 2. But my feelings about the end of the war were overlaid with frustration because I remained assigned to the Middle East and my wife, whom I’d married in 1942, could not come out there, and I could not go home. That was more traumatic than anything else. In 1947, I returned home and got a desk job. My last job in the RAF was commanding the Ballistic Missile Early Warning Station in the northeast of England, in association with the U.S. Air Force, until finally retiring in February 1967. ★

A Messerschmitt Me-109E that was shot down by Spitfire pilots is paraded in front of London’s House of Parliament in 1940, during the height of the Battle of Britain.

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The crew of the B-24D Vagabond King poses with its pilot, 1st Lt. John B. McCormick (standing, fourth from left). The B-24 Liberator crews went through extensive low-level formation training before the Ploesti raid (below), dropping 100-pound delayed-action bombs on a target in the Libyan desert that had been modeled to simulate the massive Romanian oil refineries.

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A stirring account of the August 1943 mission to destroy Romania’s

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT

oil refineries

JOHN B. MCCORMICK,

EDITED BY LYNDON SHUBERT

RaidonPloesti

NATIONAL ARCHIVES; INSET: COURTESY OF LYNDON SCHUBERT

O

n August 1, 1943, a Consolidated B-24D Liberator named Vagabond King and its American crew took part in a massive bombing raid on the oil refinery complex at Ploesti, Romania. The B24s took off from Libya, without the benefit of any fighter escort. We know the last names and some of the first names and ranks of the 10 men who flew aboard Vagabond King that day—1st Lt. John B. McCormick, pilot; Brinton, co-pilot; 1st Lt. Marvin Mosco, bombardier; Marvin R. Mendelson, navigator; Miller, Alfred B. Rossi, Gerald E. Murphy and William J. Budai, all of whom were gunners; Shattles, crew chief; and Martin Van Buren, radioman—and we know they all survived that mission. But 54 B-24s did not return from Ploesti. Nearly 500 crewmen were either killed, captured or interned in Turkey.

Vagabond King’s crew cheated the odds in the August 1943 raid and made it to friendly territory before crash-landing. Many of those same men, however, lost their lives in subsequent sorties. Following is an excerpt from an account of the Ploesti raid written by Vagabond King pilot John McCormick. His report—a copy of which was apparently later sent to the family of each man who participated in that mission—paints a vivid portrait of one of the most costly bombing missions in history.

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hat I wanted to write to you about was the story of Vagabond King’s part in the Romanian oil field raid. The story is out now, so I can give you the particulars.

You’ve probably heard how we practiced again and again on a full-scale replica of the vital facilities of the refineries laid out on the desert in Libya. We attacked them repeatedly to work out our precise timetable for attack and approach through the Carpathian Mountains, and then one day we received our final briefing and got our ships ready for the long hop.

Inasmuch as it was to be the longest mass raid in history, we were prepared for plenty of trouble. We were carefully briefed on how to escape if forced down and how to act as POWs or internees and where to escape to, in an emergency. The target was so important that headquarters deemed it necessary to destroy it, even if we stood to lose 100 percent of the striking force. The losses would still be acceptable. So, without detracting from our chances of totally destroying the target, we worked out defense measures that we hoped would enable the greater part of us to

“Cluster on the Purple Heart Squadron.” James’ plane was even the “Right Leaf of the Cluster.”

Then, out of a blue sky, without warning, the lead plane of another group up front spun sickeningly out of formation and exploded against the sea, burning so as to leave a black tomb marker. The second ship had gone down before we had even touched enemy land.

Immediately, all gunners got itchy, looking for a possible fighter, and the pilots stood by silent radios waiting for a change order or explanation. Nothing except the continuous drone of our four giant engines on the wings.We passed through the sickening black smoke, into the blue skies beyond. There were no survivors.

Then another B-24 peeled off, heading home, one engine feathered. That was the hot desert putting in its two cents’ worth.

We looked to our engines, but they gave no indication of weakening under the heavy load we carried.

Finally, land! Greece, our maps said. Enemy territory. Tension was relieved, a new excitement gripped us now. The enemy was man, and his threat was tangible…and at hand.

‘The target was so key that headquarters deemed it necessary to destroy it, even if we stood to lose 100 percent of the striking force. The losses would be acceptable’ return. We felt that a low-level attack by high-altitude bombers would constitute a combination of surprise and accuracy, sufficient to accomplish both aims. This would be the first time bombers would be used for strafing ground targets.

The well-known importance of the refineries to the Germans was the key to our great efforts to get our new technique and timing down pat....And the excitement never lagged from repeated practices.

We got up early the morning of our takeoff, ate and got out to the ships for a final check-up on our gas, oil, oxygen, bombs, rations and ammunition. We were well prepared. We signaled thumbs up to Sergeant Frank Chowanski and Pfc Eddings and got off, the last plane in our group.

Nerves were a little on edge because one plane just ahead exploded on takeoff and worried some boys who knew about it.

A small last-minute repair had delayed our takeoff so that my wingman had taken off shortly before I did. That was James, our bad-luck kid since he joined the group back in Texas.

My left wingman lost a carburetor on the runway and had to abort. That was Lighter. He certainly looked sad to be left out of it, and I didn’t particularly like losing a damn good wingman for a blank space of enemy sky.

We got into formation and headed across the bluest Mediterranean you can imagine. The air was full, from starboard to port, from top to bottom with the Libs [Liberators].

Things never look dangerous when you have so much company. We even felt secure in the rear guard. We called ourselves

We were at 10,000 feet and working up toward our objective, against a little more head wind than anticipated. Clouds were becoming heavier but still no opposition. Then, through gaps in the clouds, we could make out mountains, marking the time for us to turn south for our let-down to the target.

Then an intercom call: “Fighter at 5 o’clock!” It was an antiquated biplane. He couldn’t even catch us as we began dropping down the mountainside. Slowly changing our formation from the protective one we traveled in to one designed to allow us good individual runs on the target, we could see the lead plane down the valley in which lay our target. The dialogue on the Vagabond King went something like this: “Good Lord! Mooney, we are too high!”

“Lord Almighty! I can’t recognize the refinery stacks!”

“What kind of camoufleurs are these boys?”

“Mosco, open the bomb bay doors!”

And down we dropped, to silhouette our target against the sky, just like Mosco and I had practiced on the model area, simulating Ploesti, that they had built for us on the desert in Libya.

Then the lead plane, realizing he had turned too soon, worked back in a big “S” to the next valley. “By Jehosephat!…if fighters were to hit us now,” I told myself. But I stuck to Mooney. James came in close as we turned to the north again, ready to make the final approach and bomb run. I warmed up my fixed nose guns with a loud burst that startled Mosco so much he almost jumped out of the nose.

We were ready for strafing now. For the first time in history

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The Sandman of Colonel John R. “Killer” Kane’s 98th Bomb Group, flying low over Ploesti’s Astra Romana refinery, made it back to Benghazi.

B-24s were going to be used on a strafing run. We turned south down the valley. The lead plane was starting his bomb run.

Christ! His plane was already burning, and he was carrying 1,000-pound bombs with delayed fuses!

Then it was: “Gunners, keep your eyes open for fighters and ack-ack batteries.”

“Don’t shoot civilians unless they are throwing bottles at us!”

“OK, Mosco, bomb bay doors open.”

“Start the camera, Van.” Bang! What the hell was that? Here we go anyway, down on the carpet. We get right behind and under Stan Podalak’s plane, Mooney’s left wing. We line up our two chimneys, which will put our bombs right through the windows of the boiler house. We can’t drop far behind Mooney’s plane because he’s carrying 45second delay fuses, same as we are.

Above us, we could look into Stan’s open bomb bay doors. We could see the bombs hanging ready, willing and able. Tracers, red and white, were streaming up at the boys ahead, hitting them too!

Then our cockpit exploded with sparks, noise and concussion. Tracers spit out over my head. Luckily, George and I crouched down, making ourselves as small as possible.

The tracers melted away into the smoke and fire of the refinery. Murphy cut loose in the top gun turret with the twin .50s. I wanted to shoot him—he was ruining our bomb run!

Wham! More bullets through the cockpit! The emergency windows blew open, giving us a 225-mile-per-hour blast of air in the cockpit.

But now we were down to almost ground level, lined up and anxious to go. We came up to the target chimney height and through the smoke, over the other bomb explosions. Then, bombs away! Our plane was suddenly 4,000 pounds lighter.

In front of us, Mooney’s bombs had released beautifully, but he was veering off to the right, and we were supposed to hit the same building! [Captain R.C. Mooney’s plane, Hitler’s Hearse, had taken several direct hits. Mooney was killed instantly.]

Through the smoke, down on the deck we scooted. Mooney AIR COMBAT

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and Stan and Sparrier were above us, too high.“Come on down, boys,” I prayed. “Fighters can’t dive on you when you’re on the deck.” We hang right below them, with ol’ Heimie’s plane so close, he was sticking his right wing through my waist window.

Then we noticed Bob’s engine was feathered, but then he started it windmilling to fool any fighters looking for cripples.

Sure enough, there was a Messerschmitt Me-110 circling over us.

He had already shot down two 24s, but for some reason he didn’t close with our tight-flying “Purple Heart Squadron.” Neither did any of the other fighters. We knew we’d never be able to re-form with the main group, and we were afraid to break radio silence for fear of drawing fighters, so we followed Bob as he headed home, sticking close together, to protect us against fighters.

Three minutes after “bombs away,” the boys told me we had been hit pretty hard and that Van was bleeding badly. An anti-

itself. After about 45 minutes we were back in formation heading for Turkey in a strange procession. Fighters were our huge worry. We expected them every mile of the way, and we had climbed high enough, to about 8,000 feet, to be duck soup. But no fighters came. Finally we hit the Sea of Marmara, and since the country was neutral from then on, we decided it was best to let the others do as they pleased.

We were going to friendly territory and get Van to a hospital.

We turned for Cyprus and the navigator began working in earnest.

We were right in the Turkish mountains, busy transferring fuel, when all four engines cut out at the same time. I damn near died! We had only about 1,000 feet of clearance, and there wasn’t a flat spot within 50 miles big enough to park a Stinson L-5 in.

Van couldn’t jump, and we weren’t about to jump without him. I figured I’d have to put it down somewhere, the best I could,

‘Mooney’s bomb bay doors wouldn’t close, so the boys began tossing out everything that wasn’t nailed down in order to keep the big bird flying’ aircraft cannon shell had hit his knee as he was turning the automatic camera. Miller, in the tin-can, tail-turret, called to say that the bombs we dropped had exploded and our target was flattened and burning fiercely.

Finally, Mooney’s No. 2 engine was feathered, but his bomb bay doors wouldn’t close, so the boys began tossing out everything that wasn’t nailed down. They had to get rid of all excess weight in order to keep the big bird flying. They even tossed out most of their .50-caliber machine guns and ammo. It was the only way they could keep flying and save gas. It would be a long haul to any safe haven and they knew it, but at least we were sticking together and that must have cheered them some.

James broke radio silence after about 10 minutes and told me he wouldn’t have enough gas to get home so I told him to head for the nearest neutral landing spot.

He was afraid to mention places over the radio, so I asked him if he wanted to go to “gobble gobble land.” I dropped back and flew on his wing so he could save gas. He was so slowed down that the other three crates were almost out of sight.

While this was going on, navigators on both planes were busy making our courses for Turkey. We realized that Mooney was making for Turkey, too. So I told James to pour on the coal and catch up with them.

This was when James’ plane started doing acrobatics. I didn’t know what was up, but I followed him and all of a sudden I saw a lot of flak puffs. We were passing over Bucharest inadvertently, and they [enemy anti-aircraft artillerymen] had blood in their eyes.

We didn’t get hit as we continued our chase after the other three. Van was being cared for with morphine and tourniquets.

All he said was,“Here’s where I get one medal you guys won’t get.”

He was right. No one else did get hit except old Vagabond

and take our chances. But with a lurch, those good old Pratt and Whitneys took hold again. Just as we shared a big smile, all four engines died again.

Dave Shattles moved faster than any man I’d ever seen. He jumped down into the bomb bay and switched gas valves to break the air lock in the lines. And this time those wonderful engines roared back to life, as we scooted between peaks and resumed our course to Nicosia Airport on the island of Cyprus, which was still 300 or 400 miles somewhere to the south of us.

Our nerves were taking a helluva beating. We’d been in the air for 10 hours already. Now we were all alone, over rough, unfriendly terrain, even if it wasn’t the enemy. And now we had to sweat out our gas supply. Mendy called to tell me we had just run off the edge of his last, good Air Corps map. From now on, we would have to figure by time, distance, compass, and dead reckoning.

Nobody bothered us as we flew over Turkey.At least they didn’t hit us! So we made it to the seacoast and wondered if we would be able to find Cyprus. It was getting late in the afternoon, haze was forming, and our only map was an old, schoolbook Mercator map.

We finally reached the blue water of the Mediterranean Sea. I looked longingly at the flat sand beaches of the Turkish coast.

I considered plunking her down there, but I wanted to get medical help for Van…and I knew none of us wanted to be interred in Turkey for the length of the war. Anyway, I thought if we failed to find Cyprus, and if we had enough gas, we could come back and find a nice soft beach to set her down on. A big if…as I looked at the needles of the gas gauges hovering near zero.

I headed for Cyprus. Mosco was taking good care of Van. We swung out over the water, squeezing every mile out of every drop of gas. We were flying slowly to save what little gas we had left.

But still, it shouldn’t have been this long until we saw some solid

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land out there. Cyprus was a big island, but we couldn’t find it!

“Mendy, let’s turn in on our E.T.A. Maybe it’s just off to our right, in that haze,” I said. So we turned and, holy smokes! There it was. Just off our left wing. We made a direct course for Nicosia.

Our gas gauges showed we were on our last 100 gallons. Ten precious, gas-eating minutes went by and still no Cyprus! It had suddenly disappeared—10 minutes wasted chasing a mirage.

Our “Cyprus” had been nothing but cloud shadows, and now we were really lost to boot.

We listened to our radio, hoping to get in touch with the air base at Nicosia, the only airport on the island. We could hear other planes in distress. One was going down near us, into the sea, but we couldn’t help.We continued on, looking for land— any beach or piece of good solid dirt. A B-24 doesn’t “ditch well” if you have to put her down on water. It breaks up, and you don’t have much chance of getting out.

I wanted to land at Nicosia air base. It was growing dark when I finally saw the airport beacon. There were three other planes milling around the area, trying to find the field and get up enough nerve to go in and land, in their damaged condition.

I gave the tower my call letters with “wounded aboard” and was immediately cleared to land. The gear came down OK. Then the flaps came down without faltering. Props OK. Turbos OK, all controls working fine. It was getting dark, but I could still make out the runway, so I lined up and sailed in.

The damn runway was uphill and almost fooled me, but the tires screeched, and I “stuck” the landing…we were down in one piece! I coasted to the end…and turned down a little road off the runway, to keep it clear for the other planes trying to land.

No one came out to meet us so we taxied up the road.“Cripes,” I thought. “This is sure good camouflage, but that ditch was real enough,” so I pulled up onto an embankment and cut the engines. The silence was deafening. We were back on the ground!

We were alive! We were safe!

I unfastened my safety belt. It had been 14 hours and 30 minutes since I’d sat down in the pilot seat and started out in that cold, damp morning, which now seemed so long ago.

As soon as we had cleared the runway, the commanding officer of the 98th Bomb Group, Colonel “Killer” Kane, came in for a landing in his shot-up crate with one engine feathered. He misjudged the uphill runway and didn’t have enough power left to pull it up. Killer Kane washed out his landing gear, nosed up, and smashed up his plane. No one was hurt, however, and Colonel Kane beat us to Tel Aviv, leaving his wrecked plane to be salvaged by us!

Now, finally, safe on the ground, we were the happiest, tiredest, hungriest boys you’ve ever seen! We all kissed the ground.

There was a doctor working on Van when I got aft, and before too long he was taken to a hospital. Van is quite OK now and back in the States. However, I haven’t seen or heard from him since that time.

We worked on old Vagabond using any scavenged parts we could find and soon had it flyable—barely—but flyable. We lumbered down the bumpy runway, pulled her into the air, and headed back to Libya.

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ell, that is the story of my part in the big Ploesti air raid. What others did must remain secret for a while longer. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back home.

I know I may have distorted the story to appear like I was the only person on the raid, but I feel the emotions and experiences I went through were so vivid, that I want to pass them along.

I can tell you, there wasn’t a man among us who will ever be the same after that 14-hour jaunt to Ploesti. I am happy to be able to tell this story. But, I am sad for the many who were there, on that mission to Ploesti, who’ll never be able to say they were even there.

Vagabond King and her crew were later reassigned to England.

Although it is unclear what happened to some of the men later in the war, we do know that three months after the Ploesti bombing raid, some of the men met disaster. A notification received by Lieutenant Mosco’s family reads in part: “Under date of November 29, 1943, The Adjutant General notified you that your son, First Lieutenant Marvin Mosco, had been reported missing in action…since November 18, 1943. Further information has been received indicating that Lt. Mosco was a member of a B-24 Liberator bomber which departed from England on November 18, 1943, on a bombardment mission to Norway. Full details are not available, but the report indicates…our planes encountered enemy aircraft and in an ensuing engagement, your son’s Liberator was seen to sustain damage and to fall into the sea....”

That Liberator was, in fact, Vagabond King, and the pilot was John B. McCormick. Along with Mosco, the crew included, among others, Mendelson, Murphy, Budai and Rossi. ★

Among the B-24D Liberators that survived the Ploesti mission was Jerk’s Natural of the 93rd Bomb Group.

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Adolf Galland—wearing an RAF Irvin flying jacket that has been “borrowed” from a captured Allied pilot—is all smiles in November 1942, after being awarded the Knight’s Cross with Swords and Oak Leaves, and being promoted to general.

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Battling overwhelming odds in the air and his superiors on the ground,

INTERVIEW

Germany’s Adolf Galland became a legend

BY COLIN D. HEATON

Luftwaffe’s Youngest General

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hen historians speak of pilots and the history of air combat, certain names invariably come up sooner or later—Manfred von Richthofen, Edward Mannock, René Fonck, Erich Hartmann, Alexander Pokryshkin, Johnny Johnson, Dick Bong…and Adolf Galland. Galland was the youngest general grade officer of either side in World War II, and at age 29 he was more competent in aerial combat, strategy and tactics than many of the experts nearly twice his age.

Galland fought a hard battle against his superiors on the ground, which made the danger in the air inviting, almost welcome. Adolf Hitler and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring, who were always trying to find fault and place the blame on others for their own failures, began pointing fingers at the fighter pilots. Was it not they who failed to stop the death and destruction delivered

by Allied bombers? Was it not the fighter pilots who demanded more of the resources and new technology, yet produced the least results? Göring betrayed his pilots and publicly denounced them as cowards, provoking the Fighters’ Revolt in January 1945.

Galland, well known and admired by his enemies as an honorable and chivalrous foe, found an enemy he could not vanquish. The consummate warrior was engaged in heated battle with absolutist politicians and demagogues who considered honor and chivalry a weakness. He eventually returned to where he had risen, the cockpit of a fighter plane, but as a lieutenant general leading a squadron. As a fighter pilot he was credited with 104 aerial victories.

LEFT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; RIGHT: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM/MH 24073

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Galland was powerless as Hitler badly misused the Me-262, the world’s first jet fighter, as a “blitz bomber.”

Galland survived the political intrigues and combat of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, only to find himself working for Argentinian dictator Juan Perón, who at least appreciated his expert knowledge and relied on his honesty.

A holder of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Galland was interviewed in 1994. He died on February 9, 1996 at the age of 83.

Q: What was your childhood and family life like?

A: I was born in Westerholt, a small village in Westphalia on March 19, 1912. I was the second son, Fritz being the oldest, then myself, Wilhelm and Paul. My father was an administrator of AIR COMBAT

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‘I flew over 300 missions as a leader in the Condor Legion. Because of the great heat of the Spanish summer, we often flew with hardly any clothes on’ private lands and properties. He was very fair, but harsh. We had the best mother in the world, and during the war she used to pray for fog to cover our bases so we could not fly.

Q: Two of your three brothers would also became fighter pilots in World War II. A: Yes, that would be Wilhelm and Paul, the youngest. Paul was the first to die in combat, shot down and killed in 1942, and Wilhelm was killed a year later. Paul had 17 victories, and Wilhelm had 54 and the Knight’s Cross. Fritz was an attorney.

Q: What developed your interest in flying?

A: Right from the beginning, as a boy, my greatest interest had always been flying. I started building models of aircraft when I was 12, and when I was 16 I flew in gliders. Over the course of the next three years I became a successful glider pilot, my entire purpose being to become a commercial airline pilot. However, my father was not enthusiastic about this idea at all. This was my dream since 1925, and he had no understanding of my dream.

Q: How did you become a founding member of the Condor Legion, the German pilots who flew for General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War? A: After one year of training as a commercial pilot I was strongly “invited” to join the “Black Air Force” [the clandestine air force Germany was training prior to Hitler’s rise to power]. This was in the remarkable year of 1933, and I already had my first pilot’s license. My coinciding training as a fighter pilot helped immensely with the commercial pilot’s courses, but by 1937 I had already become a “volunteer” in the Condor Legion. This activity was liked very much by all of the young fighter pilots. I did have a small problem after a crash in a Focke Wulf Fw-44 biplane in 1935 while in training, and a colleague, future Luftwaffe ace Dieter Hrabak, had one the following week due to bad weather. I had modified the plane beyond normal limits and slammed into the ground. Everyone thought I was dead. I was in a coma for three days. My parents came and stayed with me until I came out of it. I had serious skull fractures, a broken nose, which never looked the same again, and I was partially blinded in my left eye from glass fragments, so I still had to pass the physical. My commanding officer, Major Rheitel, a flier from the First World War, assisted me in my return to flying. A year later I crashed an Arado Ar-68 and again went into the hospital, where they pulled my old file stating that I was grounded. With many days in the hospital again I memorized every letter and number in every possible sequence on the eye

chart for my next examination. You know, to this day I still have some of the glass from the first crash in my eye.

Q: When did you get to Spain?

A: We left for Spain with the Union Travel Society, ostensibly bound for Genoa on a tramp steamer. After 12 days we arrived in El Ferrol on May 7, 1937. I had been to Spain before with Lufthansa and looked forward to returning. In our group there were many future aces and leaders fighting for Franco’s Nationalists, such as Hannes Trautloft, Wilhelm Balthasar, Günther Lützow, Eduard Neumann and Hajo Herrmann, who flew Junkers Ju52/3ms. I became a squadron leader in the Legion Fighter Group, and we were equipped with Heinkel He-51 biplanes. Lützow commanded a squadron of the new Messerschmitt Bf-109Bs. Q: What was the Condor Legion’s strength in Spain?

A: Four squadrons each of fighters and bombers and a reconnaissance squadron. We had four heavy and two light AA batteries and signals units, but we never exceeded around 5,600 men. Generalleutnant Hugo Sperrle was the first commanding officer of the Legion in Spain, and he personally led a flight of bombers against ships at Cartagena.

Q: What was your first engagement in Spain?

A: Brunete, where we sent every plane we had against the Republican forces in July 1937. The Madrid front was controlled by the Communists, equipped with modern fighters—Russian Polikarpov I-16 Ratas. We bombed and strafed and engaged Loyalist fighters while our artillery pounded their ground positions.

Finally we won, and Franco’s forces were safe from a disastrous defeat. We also performed dive-bombing missions and created new tactics in ground support.

Q: Is it true you often flew shirtless and in swiming trunks?

A: Yes, I flew over 300 missions as a leader, and due to the great heat of the Spanish summer we often flew with hardly any clothes on. That was another innovation we created.

Q: You were also part of some other innovations?

A: Yes, we filled drop tanks and drums with petrol and oil, using them to great effect. I also thought about having the squadron quartered on a train. Since we always had to move from one base to another, that way we would be always mobile. The Spanish Civil War was much like the First World War, not static as far as the air war went, but very fast-moving. We used the trains effectively, the aircraft being flown to their new bases as needed.

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Q: When did you meet Werner Mölders?

A: I was recalled to Germany in 1938, and he was my replacement. We became good friends and remained so until his death in 1941. He was a good man, very strict with his own conduct and expected the same of his men. He was a wonderful man. He was the best man the Luftwaffe had, and he also did well in Spain, shooting down 14 Loyalist aircraft. He went on to have 115 victories and won the Diamonds [to the Knight’s Cross].

Q: You were decorated by the Franco government before you left. What awards did they give you?

A: I was awarded the Spanish Cross in Gold with Diamonds, awarded only 12 times in Spanish history.

Q: After Spain, you and Mölders began creating the fighter arm in Germany. How did that go?

A: Mölders and I were the first fighter leaders of the new age, appointed as wing Kommodores. Mölders very much liked having that distinction from the beginning. As for myself, I was unhappy because I wanted to be a fighter pilot. However, that was the order and we had to follow it.

Q: What was the story behind the Mickey Mouse painted on the fuselage of your fighter plane?

A: We started this in Spain, and when I painted it on my Me109E in JG.26 it was holding a hatchet and smoking a cigar, which I loved. But after the war I had to give cigars up.

Q: Is it true that you had the only cigar lighter–equipped Messerschmitt in the entire Luftwaffe?

A: I think so, plus a holder for it if I was on oxygen. It created quite a controversy, I can tell you.

Q: Describe the first time you were shot down.

A: This was on June 21, 1941, when JG.26 was stationed at Pas de Calais. We had attacked some Bristol Blenheim bombers and I shot down two, but some Supermarine Spitfires were on me and they shot my plane up. I had to belly-land in a field until picked up later, and I went on another mission after lunch. On this mission I shot down number 70, but I did something stupid. I was following the burning Spitfire down when I was bounced and

ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY

Q: What was your first combat assignment at the start of World War II? A: I flew in Poland in the Henschel Hs-123, performing ground-attack missions and proving the divebombing concept, until October 1, 1939. That was when I won the Iron Cross. Then I was assigned to Jagdgeschwader [Fighter Wing] 27 [JG.27] under Oberst [Colonel] Max Ibel, which I did not like, as it did not allow for much combat flying. I did get away every now and then, however, and this was during the French invasion. I finally got my first kill on May 12, 1940, when Gustav Rödel and I went on a mission.

I shot down two Hawker Hurricanes on two missions. I had about a dozen victories by the end of the French campaign.

Q: What was your next arena?

A: Oh, the Battle of Britain, of course! That was a tough fight, where I was assigned to JG.26 Schlageter.

I became Gruppenkommandeur of III/JG.26 and shot down two fighters in my first mission with them. I was promoted to major on July 18 and received the Ritterkreuz [Knight’s Cross] on August 22, 1940, for my 17th victory. I then succeeded Gotthard Handrick as Kommodore of JG.26 and received the Oak Leaves from Hitler on September 25 for my 40th victory. On November 1, I scored my 50th kill and was promoted to Oberstleutnant [lieutenant colonel]. In December, I became a full colonel.

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With his trademark cigar clenched in his teeth and Mickey Mouse insignia on his Me-109E, Galland climbs out of the cockpit during the Battle of Britain.

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‘My plane was on fire, and I was wounded. I tried to bail out, but the canopy was jammed shut from enemy bullets, so I tried to stand in the cockpit to force the canopy open’ shot up badly. My plane was on fire, and I was wounded. I tried to bail out, but the canopy was jammed shut from enemy bullets.

So I tried to stand in the cockpit, forcing the canopy open with my back as the plane screamed toward earth. I had opened it and almost cleared the 109 when my parachute harness became entangled on the radio aerial. I fought it with everything I had until I finally broke free, my parachute opening just as I hit the ground.

I was bleeding from my head and arm, plus I had injured my ankle on landing. I was taken to safety by some Frenchmen.

Q: You survived being shot down twice in one day. How did it affect you?

A: I was worried that my wounds might ground me for a long time—that was my greatest concern, not to mention I had lost two airplanes.

Q: Tell us the story of your friendship with the legless British ace, Wing Commander Douglas Bader.

A: He was shot down during a dogfight on August 9, 1941. One of his artificial legs was left in the Spitfire when he bailed out, and the other was smashed after he landed. I made a request through the International Red Cross, and the British were offered safe passage for the plane to drop replacement artificial legs. Well, they dropped them after they bombed my air base.

Bader was fitted and sent to a prison camp. We remained friends until his death a few years ago.

Q: How did you become General der Jagdflieger (general of fighters) in 1941?

A: Ernst Udet had committed suicide on November 17 of that year, and Werner Mölders was coming back from Russia for the funeral. Mölders’ Heinkel He-111 struck some telephone wires, and he was killed in the crash. At the time of his death he was acting as general of fighters, holding the rank of Oberst. After the funeral of both of the men, Göring called me aside and made me Mölders’ successor, still as a colonel. This was possible in the German military, but not so in your country’s armed forces.

Gerhard Schöpfel became Kommodore of my JG.26, and I went to Berlin. I had already been awarded the Swords to the Knight’s Cross, and upon my arrival in January 28, 1942, I saw Hitler for the third time when he awarded me the Brillanten [Diamonds].

Q: You commanded the fighter cover for the famous Channel dash by the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in February 1942.

How did that work?

A: I organized a rotation of various fighter wings to fly top cover for the ships, an air umbrella to protect them from British air attacks. There was some damage from mines, but the Luftwaffe fighters shot down many British planes, and not a single major hit was made on the warships. That was a great success story that made me proud.

Q: So you were still placed in a desk job?

A: Yes, and later in 1942 I was promoted to Major General, then Generalleutnant when I was 301∕2 years old. But I was still unhappy about it. I would have rather continued flying.

Q: Well, most of the pilots believed that your appointment as general of fighters was the best thing that could have happened to the Luftwaffe, except perhaps if Göring could have been dismissed.

A: Well, it was a big responsibility, and you could never get what you needed. Our fighter force was small, and we received no understanding from Göring.

Q: Speaking of Göring, you had the most contact with him of all the pilots, and you understood his problems. What did you think of him personally?

A: Yes, he had many problems, but he was basically an intelligent man and well educated, from the aristocracy. He had many weak points in his life, and he was always under pressure from Hitler, yet he never contradicted him or corrected him on any point. That was where he made his greatest mistakes. This weakness increased as the war dragged on, along with his drug addiction, until he was nothing. As far as our Luftwaffe was concerned, he was even less and should have been replaced.

Q: Isn’t it true that regardless of Göring’s position the fighter pilots looked to you for leadership most of the time?

A: Yes, that was true.

Q: What were your impressions of Hitler, since you spent months in his company and knew him very well.

A: Yes, I did spend months around him, speaking and having meetings, but I don’t think anyone ever really knew Adolf Hitler.

I was not very impressed with him. The first time I met him was after Spain when we were summoned to the Reichs Chancellery.

There was Hitler, short, gray-faced and not very strong, and he spoke with a crisp language. He did not allow us to smoke, nor did he offer us anything to drink, nothing like that. This impression was strengthened every year I knew him as his mistakes

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mounted and cost German lives, the mistakes that Göring should have brought to his attention. Other officers did, and they were relieved, but at least they did the right thing and voiced their objections. For Göring to willingly follow along was a terrible situation for me personally.

Q: So you feel Hitler should have replaced Göring as head of the Luftwaffe long before things became terminal?

A: Sure, if Hitler cared, but who would take Göring’s place and stand up to Hitler, to do what was right? People were not lining up for the job, I can tell you. Hitler was unable to think in three dimensions, and he had a poor understanding of the Luftwaffe, as with the U-boat service. He was strictly a landsman.

Q: What instigated the famous “Fighters’ Revolt” in January 1945?

A: Basically, it was the problems we were having with Göring, and the fact that he was blaming us, the fighter pilots, for the bombings and the losing of the war.All of the senior Kommodores brought their grievances to me, and we chose a spokesman to represent them. I sat on the panel and arranged for the meeting with Göring.

Q: Your spokesman was Günther Lützow?

A: Yes, Lützow was a great leader and a true knight, a gentleman. When they all sat down with Göring, he told Göring that if he interrupted, which he always did so that he could show his importance, nothing would get accomplished. Lützow, Johannes

An Me-262A caught in a P-51D Mustang’s gun camera in November 1944 (above). During the Battle of Britain, Galland (far left) meets with Günther Lützow, Günther Freiherr von Maltzahn, Theodore Osterkamp and Werner Mölders.

Q: Of all the aces you led were there any who simply stood out as great leaders?

A: Oh, my, that would be a long list. I think perhaps the greatest leader was still Mölders. All the rest are still very good friends of mine, but we are old men now, and life is not as fast as it was in the cockpit. However, as their leader I also made many mistakes. I could have done better. I was young and inexperienced with life, I guess. It is very easy to look back retrospectively and criticize yourself; however, at that time it was very difficult. My situation was that I had to fight with Göring and Hitler in order to accomplish what they wished, but without their support, if that makes any sense. Göring was a thorn in my side, and Hitler simply destroyed our country and others without any regard for the welfare of others.

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Steinhoff and myself had voiced our grievances many times, but since I was not invited to this meeting, Hannes Trautloft along with Lützow kept me informed as to their recommending that Göring step down for the good of the service. Well, I was fired as general of fighters, Steinhoff was banished from Germany and sent to Italy, and Göring told Lützow that he was going to be shot for high treason.

Q: What was the atmosphere like, and what were the Kommodores’ opinions of the meeting?

A: Well, Göring knew that he did not have their loyalty, and we knew that we could not count on Berlin doing anything to help us, so we were alone, as we always were. At least now it was in the open, no pretenses.

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Q: What do you recall about the death of ace Walter Nowotny, and do you feel that his death had any impact on Germany’s Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter program?

A: I had been telling Hitler for over a year, since my first flight in an Me-262, that only Focke Wulf Fw-190 fighter production should continue in conventional aircraft, to discontinue the Me109, which was outdated, and to focus on building a massive jetfighter force. I was in East Prussia for a preview of the jet, which was fantastic, a totally new development. This was 1943, and I was there with Professor Willy Messerschmitt and other engineers responsible for the development. The fighter was almost ready for mass production at that time, and Hitler wanted to see a demonstration. When the 262 was brought out for his viewing at Insterburg, and I was standing there next to him. Hitler was very impressed. He asked the professor, “Is this aircraft able to carry bombs?” Well, Messerschmitt said, “Yes, my Führer, it can carry for sure a 250-kilogram bomb, perhaps two of them.” In typical Hitler fashion, he said: “Well, nobody thought of this! This is the blitz [lightning] bomber I have been requesting for years. No one thought of this. I order that this 262 be used exclusively as a blitz bomber, and you, Messerschmitt, have to make all the necessary preparations to make this feasible.” This was really the beginning of the misuse of the 262, as five bomber wings were supposed to be equipped with the jet. These bomber pilots had no fighter experience, such as combat flying or shooting, which is why so many were shot down. They could only escape by outrunning the fighters in pursuit. This was the greatest mistake surrounding the 262, and I believe the 262 could have been made operational as

a fighter at least a year and a half earlier and built in large enough numbers so that it could have changed the air war. It would most certainly not have changed the final outcome of the war, for we had already lost completely, but it would have probably delayed the end, since the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, would probably not have taken place, at least not successfully, if the 262 had been operational. I certainly think that just 300 jets flown daily by the best fighter pilots would have had a major impact on the course of the air war. This would have, of course, prolonged the war, so perhaps Hitler’s misuse of this aircraft was not such a bad thing after all. But about Nowotny…

Q: Yes, how did you come to choose him as commander of the first jet-fighter wing in history?

A: I was looking for the right type of pilot, someone daring and successful who could lead by example of his courage and determination, and Walter Nowotny had all of these qualities. The jet was being tested by some pilots at Achmer and other places, so after Walter finished as an instructor at the fighter pilots school in France, he was detailed to take over the jets and train pilots. We wanted to prove to Hitler that the jet was indeed a fighter, and to show the best results possible. This unit became known as Kommando Nowotny in July of 1944.

Q: What were the initial results?

A: Fairly good. They had shot down a few bombers, and losses had been minimal, as long as top cover was flown by conventional aircraft to protect the jets on takeoffs and land-

Galland was among the Third Reich’s most powerful men during World War II, meeting with Ernst Udet and Werner Mölders in August 1940 (left) and with Adolf Hitler (above) when der Führer awarded him the Diamonds to his Knight’s Cross.

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‘When I was released as general of fighters, Göring was preparing a coup against me, and when Hitler learned of this he ordered Göring to stop’ ings. American fighters would hang around to try and catch them at those weak moments.

Q: What brought you to Achmer on November 8?

A: I arrived on that day to inspect the unit and write a report, plus I spoke with Nowotny that evening, and he was going to give me his pilots’ reports concerning their actions. The next day, a flight of [Boeing] B-17 bombers was reported heading our way, so the unit took off, about six jets, if I remember correctly, in the first wave, then another. The Fw-190Ds were waiting on the runway to take off and cover their return, engaging the Allied fighters that were sure to follow. I was in the operations shack, where we monitored the radio transmissions and could get an idea of what was happening. Several bombers were called out as shot down, and Nowotny radioed that he was approaching. The flight leader on the ground, Hans Dortenmann, requested permission to take off to assist, but Nowotny said no, to wait. The defensive anti-aircraft battery opened fire on a few P-51 Mustangs that approached the field, but they were chased away, from what I could understand, and the jets were coming in. One Me262 had been shot down, and Nowotny reported one of his engines was damaged. He was flying on the right engine alone, which made him vulnerable. I stepped outside to watch his approach to the field, when an enemy fighter pulled away not far from us. I heard the sound of a jet engine, and we saw this 262 coming down through the light clouds at low altitude, rolling slightly and then hitting the ground. The explosions rocked the air, and only a column of black smoke rose from behind the trees.

We took off in a car and reached the wreckage, and it was Nowotny’s plane. After sifting through the wreckage, the only salvageable things found were his left hand and pieces of his Diamonds decoration.

sidered, and he would have been a better selection. When I was released as general of fighters, Göring was preparing a coup against me, and when Hitler learned of this he ordered Göring to stop the actions against me. Hitler ordered my replacement but allowed me to form my own 262 unit, basically allowing me to keep my rank but reducing my responsibilities.

Q: How did you feel about once again becoming a squadron leader, where you started?

A: I was happy. I then chose all the pilots I could find who would join me, and all had the Knight’s Cross or higher decorations.

This was the beginning of March 1945, when I created Jagdverband 44. I made Steinhoff my recruiting officer, and he traveled to all of the major bases, picking up pilots who wanted to once again feel a sense of adventure. We had most of the greats, like Gerd Barkhorn, Walter Krupinski, Heinz Bär, Erich Hohagen, Günther Lützow, Wilhelm Herget and others. I tried to get Erich Hartmann. We flew several missions and were very successful using the R4M rockets, which we fired at bomber formations.

During my first attack with rockets, Krupinski was on my wing, and shortly after our base had been attacked, and Steinhoff’s 262 hit a crater made from a bomb. His jet lifted into the air but without sufficient takeoff speed, then he nosed in and exploded. We returned to base to find him carried to the hospital more dead than alive. The fact he survived is the most incredible thing, and I am glad he did, for he is one of my closest friends today.

Q: What impact did that have on the progress report to Hitler concerning the jet fighters?

A: Hitler, from what I understand, was upset about his loss, but I don’t think he really said anything about it to me. Well, the remains of that unit went to form JG.7, commanded by Johannes Steinhoff. Steinhoff recruited other great aces to command the various groups.

Q: After you were captured and released from prison, you went to Argentina with other aviation experts. How did that happen?

A: Juan Perón was wanting German experts to build his air force, and I was asked to come along with others. I went and established a training and operations school, developed their tactical training program, and was able to fly again in some of the new designs purchased by Argentina. I really loved that period.

It was one of the happiest of my life. Kurt Tank [designer of the Focke Wulf Fw-190 fighter series] came, and he was the one who convinced President Perón to bring me over. I did that until 1955, when I returned to Germany and entered the business world, consulting and getting my life together.

Q: After you were fired as general of fighters, you were replaced by a man whom the fighter pilots did not respect.

A: Yes, Gordon Gollob, and he was not well liked. Although he was a good pilot, with the Diamonds, he had no character. He was not Göring’s first choice. Hajo Herrmann was being con-

Q: The Argentine air forces were still using your strategy and doctrine as late as the Falklands War, with great effect.

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A former Helldiver radioman and

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT

gunner provides a backseater’s view of a mission in the Marshall Islands

BY CHARLES “CHUCK” ZATARAIN

Helldiver StrikeonWotje

T

he flight schedule had just been posted on Monday night, July 30, 1945—Earl and I were up for another strike against Wotje Atoll. Lieutenant Earl Jenevein was the pilot of our U.S. Marine Corps Curtiss Helldiver. I was radioman and gunner, the guy who rode in back. Earl and I had met at Camp Miramar, San Diego, shortly before we boarded the troopship Geneva in mid-May. He had picked me as his gunner because, like him, I was from south Louisiana. This would be our 10th mission over the Pacific. According to the schedule, we were supposed to take off at 1245 the next day, 14 hours later. My stomach started churning.

Wotje was 159 miles northwest of our base at Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, farther from our airstrip than any other Japanese-held atoll in the area. On our way there we would pass within spitting distance of Maloelap, another island held by the Japs. We usually were told to hit both islands on the same strike, but not this time. It seemed to me that something must be up.

From reconnaissance we knew that Wotje was defended by about 3,000 Japanese marines, soldiers and laborers. It was unsuitable for an amphibious attack, which is why we kept blasting away at it from the sky. Like all the other Japanese-held atolls, Wotje had abundant supplies to allow its defenders to hold out until the bitter end. Even though I had arrived late for this war, I wished the end were in sight.

Like all the other Marines in the 4th Air Wing, Earl and I were disappointed at being relegated to suppressing these “bypassed” islands. The real action had moved farther up the line by then, closer to Japan, pushing toward the landing on the Japanese Home Islands. Down here, in the Marshalls, we were just keeping the left42 AIR COMBAT

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over Japs under control. That meant we were out of the limelight.

Alone, I made my usual eve-of-battle meditation and paced the beach in darkness. I tried to think of home, but lost buddies crowded my mind. Most of them had still been teenagers, like me. A lot of them died in training before we even got out there.

But to me they were heroes just the same. Sometimes we tried to minimize those losses by referring to them as “buying the farm,” or “getting creamed.” But it was false bravado. The macho charade helped me climb into those Helldivers every few days. Based on statistics, the odds were against surviving until the end of the war. So that was my long-range outlook—I knew that I probably would not make it home. But walking on that beautiful LEFT: COURTESY OF RUTH ZATARAIN; RIGHT: ©HORACE BRISTOL/CORBIS

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As radioman Chuck Zatarain (opposite) did on July 31, 1945, Curtiss Helldivers—which played a key role across the Pacific by striking Japanese outposts located on far-flung atolls—head out on a mission.

beach, I damn sure knew that I wasn’t going to get it tomorrow.

Chow the next morning was at 1000 hours, followed by a briefing in the Group Intelligence Quonset hut. The Recon people amazed me. They stood before us in clean khakis and indicated points of interest on a large map of Wotje as if they had been there themselves. In fact, none of those men had even been in a dive bomber. They said things like “There’s a 90mm gun here and another over here,”and so on, as if their red Xs would somehow keep those guns from firing at us. By then my stomach was in knots.

They eventually briefed us on our targets for the day. The primary target was always called “Able Target,” and that morning it happened to be the Japanese commander’s quarters. I filled my

notebook with the target information and the radio frequencies for the strike, making a special note of the channel for “Dumbo,” the big Navy Martin PBM that would be serving as our rescue plane. Its code name that day was “Daisy Mae.” There would also be a rescue destroyer standing by, code-named “Jim Cracky.” All those details provided welcome distraction for anxious crewmen.

Note-taking kept us too busy to worry—at least for a few minutes.

With the paperwork done, Earl and I crowded into jeeps with the other crews and headed on out to the airstrip. It was a hot day, but in spite of the heat, Earl and I sat close, side by side. My .38-caliber Smith & Wesson was already strapped under my left shoulder. The jeep seemed to find every hole in the road, and my AIR COMBAT

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‘With just seconds to go, I prepared for the plunge. I prayed silently. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins…’ helmet and goggles danced in my lap. On the way we stopped at the ready room for our parachutes. Mine was in the usual spot, with my name stenciled on it in black. We also picked up our yellow inflatable vests. After checking them ourselves, we showed some spirit and jogged back out to the jeeps. No one said a word.

The airstrip on Majuro was a very noisy place at that point.

Propellers whirled as mechanics tested engines. I felt like we were driving through a meat grinder. But at least the prop wash cooled us down some. I had trained at Cecil Field in the trusty Douglas SBD Dauntless, and I was still skeptical of the larger Curtiss SB2C Helldivers. Earl had crashed one in training, due to a mechanical problem. At Majuro we were assigned planes at random, so we didn’t get a chance to learn the quirks of each one. Every flight was potluck. That morning we were assigned No. 46. Big white numbers on the plane’s engine cowling served as an address.

Earl and I eagerly hopped out of the jeep. Together, we walked around the plane, making our visual inspection. There wasn’t much for me to see. After the once-around, I climbed onto the wing and dropped my parachute over the cockpit edge, into the square hole in the simple seat. It fit perfectly.

The ordnance man was standing by with my twin .30-caliber machine guns, so I climbed inside and helped set them in place.

The guns snapped into a sliding car on the Scarff ring that encircled the rear of the cockpit. I made certain to attach the lock that prevented the guns from falling off when we pulled negative Gs in a dive. Satisfied, I tucked the guns beneath the turtleback doors behind the cockpit. The ordnance man moved to the next plane.

Time to strap in. I secured myself into the parachute harness and plugged my helmet wire into the starboard side. I felt encumbered by an awful lot of miscellaneous gear. I had the shoulder holster on my left, my parachute below me and the yellow life jacket out in front. Clamped on my right thigh was an aluminum clipboard for messages and other notations. I was also wearing a heavy web duty belt that held sidearm ammo and other supplies, including my big Ka-Bar knife, a first-aid pouch and a big canteen of water. The belt was about 20 pounds. Zipped into a pocket of my flight suit, over my left shin, was a flat, amber plastic flask with first-aid medicines, salves, bandages, sunburn ointment, tablets to purify water, hooks and fishing line. In another pocket was a knife, some string and a mirror for signaling.

Maps, a compass and translation books were tucked here and there. All that gear was supposed to make me ready for any emergency. I hoped I never had to use it.

Up forward, next to Earl’s parachute, was a small, one-man life raft in a backpack of survival gear. We also carried a two-man raft in the fuselage. So if we had to ditch, which is akin to driving a

car into water at 80 mph, all I had to do was gingerly hop out on the starboard wing, remove the big raft, hop in and drift away in leisurely fashion with Earl. We once saw this done in a training film, but I had never heard of anyone actually doing it in real life.

After checking the radio and intercom, we took a breather before taxiing. We had 14 crews that day, Helldivers and Corsairs.

I was eager to get going, and Earl felt the same way. But this was a group effort. None of our personal needs mattered.What mattered was hitting those Wotje targets and getting back safely to Majuro.

I stowed my emotions and tried to concentrate on preparing for the flight. There was nothing more to do but wait. It was very hot, and time crept by. Minutes later I heard the flight leader call, “Dahlia Tower, Dahlia Tower, this is Nine Victor Six-Zero-Four.

Request permission to taxi out with flight of nine Helldivers, over.”

The tower responded,“Nine Victor Six-Zero-Four, cleared to taxi.”

My adrenaline started pumping. Earl revved up the engine as we lumbered out toward the takeoff point. My canopy was still open, which is the way I always kept it in case I ever needed to get out quick. Bits of coral from the runway flew up in the prop wash and stung me on the face. I adjusted my goggles and hung on.

We swung into position at the end of the runway, near the middle of the pack. And then we waited some more. I started feeling sick from the heat, and maybe from fear. Finally, the flight leader called, “Dahlia Tower, Dahlia Tower, this is Nine Victor Six-Zero-Four. Request permission for immediate takeoff with flight, over.” The man in the tower responded succinctly, “Nine Victor, cleared for takeoff. Good luck, sir.”

I heard an engine scream up ahead as the lead plane started down the runway. Seconds later, another plane followed him down the coral strip. Soon it was our turn. Earl leaned on the brakes and took the Helldiver’s engine to a crescendo for our standard carrier-type takeoff. When he finally let go of the brakes, I felt a tremendous thrill and pride—the U.S. Marines were on the way!

Facing aft, I looked to my left and saw the crowd of wellwishers standing in Vulture’s Row. They flashed either the V for victory or thumbs up as we raced along at 80 knots. I let go long enough to return the gesture, hoping those guys would be there to watch us land. That proud moment was marred when some noncombatant gave me the finger. Curiously, I felt no animosity toward such malcontents. I actually pitied them.

I checked my watch the instant we left the runway—exactly 1252—and I dutifully marked that down on my clipboard pad.

As we cleared the ground, our starboard wing dipped from the tremendous torque of the engine. I was afraid it would hit the ground, even though I knew it was unlikely, just an illusion. Earl corrected for the torque while sharply pulling up, and I just knew

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we were going to stall. But he knew his trade, and our Helldiver silently. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended was where it belonged. Our mission was underway.

Thee, and I detest all my sins....

We quickly got into formation, joining eight other Helldivers Earl called over the intercom, “All set, Zat?” I keyed my mike from VMSB-231. Overhead was a flight of Vought F4U Corsairs and shouted, “Take her down!” from VMF-155. That unit had originally been assigned to proThe Helldiver wobbled side to side as Earl wiggled the wings vide fighter protection for us, but since we were no longer en- in a warning to the planes around us. My stomach tensed as I countering any air opposition in the area, the fighter pilots were felt the sudden lift of the dive flaps. Their loud hiss was familiar now carrying 500-pound bombs and joining us in the attacks. and reassuring. I checked to make sure they had opened propThey would “glide bomb” at about 70 degrees from just a few erly. The time was 1415. I made a final note on my pad and hung thousand feet. The Corsairs usually attacked first and then cir- on. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.... cled to cover us during our dive. It was nice to have them along.

I felt the dive bomber begin to fall, and soon we were heading Once we were steady, I pulled the twin machine guns out from straight down. I became weightless, and my body tried to fly out under the turtleback. The turtleback section behind the cockpit the open cockpit. In spite of the heavy web belt, I actually left the was designed to be folded down during combat, affording a wider seat. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and.... field of fire, but I found that feature useless. The flattened doors Pressed against the seatbelt, I glanced over my left shoulder made it easy to shoot off the tail of your own aircraft, a most em- and saw the altimeter needle spinning wildly backward, seembarrassing maneuver. So with Earl’s consent I left the turtleback ingly out of control. We were on our way! Looking back over the folded up. Better safe than sorry, even in a war. tail, I saw a huge figure of Christ, in a ghostly image, arms outMy main job along the way was to keep a sharp lookout. At 1315 I saw a ship at 3 o’clock, heading southeast, and noted it on my pad. At 1321 we passed a small island. I wrote that down as well.

Sometimes I wondered why the Recon people needed all these notes, but mine was not to question why. Apparently they somehow added them all together and figured out what was happening out there. I was glad it was their job and not mine.

At 1330 we flew past the western side of Maloelap, and I imagined the commotion we were causing down below. The Japs were probably jumping into slit trenches or hiding behind trees. I found the thought of that so funny that I laughed out loud, but Douglas SBD-5s of VMSB-331 “Doodlebugs” and VMSB-231 “Ace of the engine noise and the wind consumed all sound.

Spades” prepare to depart on a mission from Majuro in August 1944.

My head constantly swiveled from side to side, scanning the sky for danger. It wasn’t just the Japs that scared me. stretched to protect me. His eyes were looking straight into mine.

Midair collisions were frequent. Even though we hadn’t seen any My emotions were mixed. I was mad at the Japs for making that yet, you never knew when a Zero might appear. Pearl Harbor trip necessary, sorry I hadn’t paid more attention during trainproved the Japanese were masters of the unexpected. ing and scared as hell. But I was also excited and proud.

As we closed on Wotje, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

The open cockpit of a dive bomber is a lonely place to fight a Little Chuck Zatarain, was about to hit a Jap island! I said to myself, war. It is also a private one. Some gunners scream on the way down “What the average American boy wouldn’t give to be in my shoes!” to clear their ears. I figured instead of screaming, why not sing the We reached Wotje at 1400, and Earl exclaimed over the inter- Marine Hymn? Nobody could hear me, and if I dived into the com, “There it is, Zat!” I charged my guns and swung them port target, at least I would be one Marine who died singing the hymn. and starboard, checking my clearance over the tail. We circled Suddenly, my microphone snapped loose from its bracket at around the atoll, headed toward the main island, while the Cor- my left side. Because we were exceeding the natural rate of fall sairs hit first, dropping their bombs at 1414. We climbed to our at that point, the mike danced before me like an angry cobra. I 10,000-foot dive-bombing altitude. My hands never left my guns. found that funny and laughed out loud.

Ready to dive on the commander’s quarters, Earl said over As I glanced back, I was surprised to see another Helldiver the intercom, “Zat! Make sure you see where we hit.” I could tell coming down right behind us. We were diving close together that he was as excited as I, and I cheerfully answered, “Wilco, sir!” day, with several planes in the vertical dive pattern. I didn’t reWith just seconds to go, I prepared for the plunge. I prayed member that maneuver from my training at Cecil Field. I wonNATIONAL ARCHIVES

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dered whether maybe the Dauntless couldn’t have pulled it off.

And I wondered how far we still had to go.

To keep myself seated, I braced my arms against my machine guns and pushed back toward the ground. But still I hung in midair, straining against the belt, as Earl continued to outrun gravity. This sensation always frightened me. I felt as if we were in the throat of a huge, choking monster that was trying, in vain, to regurgitate me. I hoped my seatbelt was well made.

Finally, Earl released the bomb. Our 1,000-pounder was attached to a wishbone cradle that swung from the bottom of the plane. It pushed the bomb away from the fuselage, giving me a clear view. The bomb quickly lost its momentum and slowed to the natural rate of fall. It was fascinating to see the bomb floating in a leisurely way upward, behind me, on its way to the target.

I wondered why Earl hadn’t pulled out of the dive yet. Had he been hit? A piece of shrapnel or a bullet between his eyes would have meant the end of me, too. Together we would plunge into the target and get creamed like those guys we tried to laugh about between missions. I felt sure the Japs must have been shooting at us by that time. I wanted to call Earl on the intercom, to see if he was OK, but that was not allowed unless it was an emergency. I told myself to calm down.

As we continued our plunge toward earth, I silently pleaded for a pullout. Then I was thrust down into my seat. The G forces built rapidly in the welcome discomfort of pullout. Near the bottom, I almost blacked out, and my ears popped violently.

With 11 Gs against me, I saw only a flickering red curtain. It changed to a steady red and then faded into blackness. I was unable to move a muscle. Then the imaginary curtain reappeared, flickering red and white. I became irritated, saying to myself, “OK, that’s enough of this blackout crap. Let’s get this dive over with.” Riding in the back, I didn’t even consider the possibility that Earl might have also blacked out. I assumed he was calmly and confidently in control. Only later did I learn about his trick of pretrimming the plane so that it would fly on its own while he blacked out, too.

Still recovering from the blackout, I felt a hard jolt as our plane took a big leap upward. I attributed the bump to the concussion of our own bomb. I assumed it was part of the usual drill, but that day it felt much stronger than normal. I squinted at my altimeter and discovered we were below 700 feet—pretty low, so the heavy jolt made sense. My vision was now nearly clear.

As my fears subsided, Earl asked, “What did we hit, Zat?” Hiding my embarrassment, I answered respectfully,“I wasn’t able to see.” But to myself I thought, “Man, I don’t know—we dropped the bomb, now let’s get the hell out of here!”

Now refocused on the chaos around me. I studied the target area just in time to see two Helldivers pull out of their dives— toward each other! It seemed to me they missed each other by only a few feet, but decided that must have been an illusion.

Next I looked over the starboard side and saw an Army Con-

solidated B-24 Liberator passing just below us. I didn’t know the Army had also planned a strike for that same day and location, and I wondered where that plane was based. It was mass confusion, and I burst out laughing. The movies made it look so simple.

We circled low, more or less out of harm’s way, and prepared for our rocket runs. These were done at a 30- or 60-degree angle, from a low altitude without dive flaps. The rockets were very simple weapons that had to be released at just the right time to converge on a target. They were just 18 inches long and about as thick as a hoe handle. They had fins on one end and a 41∕2-inch warhead on the other. We carried them racked in fours under each wing. They were usually fired in pairs, one from each wing, though it was possible to fire a single salvo. Earl enjoyed shooting the rockets. It was like taking a victory lap after the dive.

O

n the way in I heard a tremendous thunderclap on either side of my head. The rockets were on their way! They sounded like big fieldpieces, and I was deafened by the concussion. My ears were ringing.

I tried to see where the rockets went, but Earl was banking too hard by then. All I could see was water and sky.

After firing the rockets in four passes, we came in low to strafe.

We were just feet above the water, then skimming over the island, yet Earl’s cannons stayed quiet. I imagined that at that moment I was as close to the Japs as any ground Marine. A building passed by the port side of the plane. We were so low that I had to look up to see the second-floor window! I didn’t much like that part of the job, because I was afraid we would crash on this enemy island. Assuming we survived a crash, I had heard that we would probably be tortured and beheaded. I wished Earl would get this over with.

Earl began strafing with the fixed 20mm cannons in the wings.

My machine guns were spewing out 1,200 rounds per minute, but I could almost count those cannon rounds. It didn’t take long for Earl to empty his stores.While he fired straight ahead, I picked out a few targets to the side. Soon my guns were empty, too. The Corsairs would have to cover us on the way home.

We joined up with the other planes and started back to Majuro. It was 1500. We had been over Wotje for an hour. At 1530 we again passed the western edge of Maloelap, flying at about 200 feet. I spotted a small ship hidden in the lagoon behind some palm trees. It looked like a small freighter. Captain Shields, a Corsair pilot, called the flight leader and announced that he still had his 500-pound bomb. He was granted permission to strike.

We all had a ringside seat as the Corsair peeled off toward the ship. I saw anti-aircraft shells heading his way. He tried to bob and weave, but soon I saw black smoke in his wake. I felt sick.

Earl followed procedure and circled with the rest of the flight.

“Mayday! Mayday!” called Captain Shields, sounding calmer than I would have been. He banked left, hard, and I saw his flaps come down. He barely cleared the trees and made a damned fine water landing in the middle of the green lagoon. Two Corsairs were

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low over him in seconds, circling while the PBM came in smooth and low. It had happened in a minute, as if rehearsed. I couldn’t see Captain Shields anywhere. His plane was burning on the water.

Since we were out of ammunition, all we could do was fly to Majuro. The rest of the ride was somber. As we neared the airstrip, the flight leader called out, “Dahlia Tower, Dahlia Tower, this is Nine Victor Six-Zero-Four. Request permission to enter traffic pattern and land with flight of nine Helldivers, over.” The tower quickly answered, “Nine Victor Six-Zero-Four, you are clear to land, traffic landing northeast.” I always got a kick out of that one. We had only one runway, and the wind always blew from the same direction. How else could we have come in?

As we floated through the downwind leg, I felt a comforting jolt as the wheels dropped into position. My tension eased when Earl lowered the landing flaps. We were almost home.

Touchdown was just moments away. My only worry then was the tires, which might have been hit during the mission. But soon each wheel emitted a familiar “oink-oink,” telling me we were home safe and sound. Our Helldiver rolled along at a good clip until Earl leaned into the brakes. The rapid deceleration felt wonderful. I ignored the coral pebbles and pushed my goggles up.The hot air on my face told me I was home.

As we climbed out of the cockpit, I noticed that Earl’s flight suit was wringing wet, as if he had been in the Pacific. Handling a big dive bomber with stick and rudder is a backbreaking task.

Earl flashed his foot-wide grin and extended his right hand.

We did another walk-around and saw that an anti-aircraft shell had hit the right side of the fuselage, just behind the starboard wing. That was the jolt I had felt just after we dropped our load. It had hit midway between the two cockpits and lodged in the fuselage, yet somehow had failed to explode.

After securing the plane, we went back to Group Intelligence for debriefing, then boarded trucks for the ride to our tents. As we passed the flying boats, I was relieved to see Captain Shields sitting beside an ambulance. He waved as we went past.

Those rescue people were truly brave men who disregarded the enemy to save a single soul. I took comfort in that.

As a last order of business, we reported to sick bay and drank the small bottle of “mission whiskey” allotted to each man. I didn’t really like it, but I wouldn’t have missed that ritual for anything. It meant our mission had officially ended. We drank in silence. Such moments speak for themselves. We were Marines. We were alive. And we would fight another day.

We retired to our bunks knowing the Wotje strike of July 31, 1945, was history. It had not been a monumental attack, but it had been a success. Earl had scored a direct hit, we had lost just one plane and only one man had been wounded. I supposed we would keep on with those missions until the end of the war. I hoped it wouldn’t be far away. ★ Arthur Zatarain wrote this article based on the memoirs of his father, Charles “Chuck” Zatarain Jr., who died in 1990.

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Smoke rises from a crater-pocked Wotje Island on May 28, 1944, after being pummeled with tons of bombs dropped by Marine aircraft.

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In a series of interviews before his death in 2000, Saburo Sakai set

INTERVIEW

the record straight on events in his long and remarkable career

BY COLIN D. HEATON AND JEFFREY L. ETHELL

Japan’s Legendary ZeroAce

B

y the time Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II on December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy boasted some of the best trained and most experienced airmen in the world. Among its most legendary pilots was Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero ace Saburo Sakai. Aside from the 64 aerial victories credited to him in the course of 200 missions, he never lost a wingman in battle and always brought his plane back—even after suffering tremendous damage and terrible wounds. Sakai gained renown after the war for his humanity and friendly demeanor. His book Samurai! was the first memoir to be published by a Japanese veteran and remains a bestseller. Sakai, who died on September 22, 2000, was interviewed between 1984 and 1998.

Saburo Sakai’s illustrious combat career began in Mitsubishi A5M4 Type 96 fighters over China in 1938.

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Q: Could you tell us about your childhood?

A: I was born on August 16, 1916, on Kyushu, the third of four sons and three sisters. We had a one-acre farm, and my father died when I was 11, so my mother had it very difficult. My family had been samurai for over 400 years, and we inherited that tradition of Bushido, or Hagakure, the code of honor. They served the lords of Saga on Kyushu Island.

Q: What was your education like?

A: My primary education was provided by the state, but higher education was private. My family was poor, so this was not possible until my uncle in Tokyo, who worked in the Ministry for Communication, offered to help out. I had always been the best student in my classes back home, but the new school called me a problem student, and my uncle sent me home a failure. I had let down the entire village; in my country there is no greater shame.

Q: What was it like to join the navy at age 16?

A: I enlisted in the navy in May 1933 and reported to Sasebo naval base, 90 kilometers from my village, but far enough away for me. The discipline was unparalleled. We were beaten with rattan sticks for even the smallest perceived infraction. In order to promote unit integrity, if one recruit made a mistake, the entire platoon would have to receive the same treatment. It made us tough as nails, and in battle that is often the decisive factor. The same is true in business, and in other ways of life.

That is why Japan has always been successful in these areas also; LEFT: WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVES; RIGHT:COURTESY OF COLIN HEATON

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Sakai was 21 when he downed his first enemy fighter. By the time the war was over, he had racked up a total of 64 victories to become the fourth ranking Japanese ace of WWII.

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the mediocre do not survive long. After the first six months we dared not even think about questioning orders or authority.

Q: What was your first duty station?

A: I was assigned aboard the battleship Kirishima, but being an ordinary seaman was not the life for me. I studied all the time.

In 1935 I passed the Naval Gunnery School entrance exam, and I was later assigned to the battleship Nagato.

Q: How and when did you get into flight school?

A: In 1937, 1,500 applied, and 70 had been selected. I was 20 years old when I reported to Tsuchiura. Our introduction was a shock— martial arts, especially wrestling.We had a month of ground training, then we went into theory, mechanics and tactics. Pilots were the elite. Students were dismissed for the smallest error.

Q: What were the physical requirements for flight school?

A: We had to have better than average eyesight, including peripheral vision, and we were trained to identify objects, shapes and aircraft types off to the side of us while reading a chart straight ahead. We had to climb a tall pole and hang there, holding our weight with only one hand. We had to swim 50 meters in less than 30 seconds. We also had to swim underwater for the same distance, and we were trained to hold our breath for long periods of time. We had to learn to balance on our heads for at least five minutes. We also had to do diving lessons, perfecting our balance and learning how to control our bodies.

Q: Of the original 70 students, how many graduated?

A: We had 25 students complete the course. I was awarded the Silver Watch of the Emperor as the number one student. It is also interesting to note that, of those 25 men, I was the only one to survive the war. We had additional training in aircraft carrier landings at the naval bases of Oita and Omura on Kyushu, and instrument flying was stressed heavily. That training lasted three months, although I never flew from a carrier during the war.

Then I was sent to Formosa [Taiwan], where we had a base at Kaohsiung. Then I was sent to southeastern China.

Q: When was your first combat and what did you fly?

A: The wing commander at Kiukang did not want new pilots flying fighter sweeps, so we all flew ground support missions.

After many days, I was posted to a fighter sweep on May 21, 1938.

We flew the Mitsubishi A5M4 Type 96, with fixed landing gear and an open cockpit. We flew over [Hankow] airfield at about 10,000 feet, and I saw three enemy planes coming up to us. I was slow to react, and perhaps this was because we had flown at that altitude for 90 minutes without oxygen—we carried it, but there was only two hours of oxygen, so we used it only part-time. I almost forgot to drop my external fuel tank, but I remembered to stay on my leader’s tail. I then saw the enemy, Russian-built

Polikarpov I-16s. I tried to fire, but I had forgotten to release the safety! I did manage to shoot down one, but my squadron had covered me and allowed me to score the kill. When I was on the ground my commander called me an idiot and yelled at me. I would never make that mistake again.

Q: Is there any truth to the stories that Japanese pilots were not allowed to carry parachutes?

A: That was never true. Some commanders ordered pilots to take them, although most of our battles were over enemy territory, and we would never have considered being captured. I flew with the thing as a seat cushion, if at all, since the straps reduced range of motion in the cockpit.

Q: When were you first wounded?

A: On October 3, 1939, during a Chinese air raid, by shrapnel.

The surprise attack destroyed most of the 200 planes on the field, and the base was a wreck. I ran from cover and found an undamaged plane, took off to reach the bombers as they were leaving and smoked an engine on one.

Q: You were then sent to a new command near your home.

A: The news of my attack against the enemy bombers made me something of a hero. In November 1939, I received permission to take leave. The entire village was there, including high dignitaries, and my mother, brothers and sisters. I was then reassigned to Formosa, and this was my first meeting with the A6M2 Zero.

I loved that aircraft. It was powerful for its day, with greater range, speed and weapons—two machine guns and two 20mm cannons—and it was very agile, graceful, like a hawk that would kill.

Q: When did you first fly the Zero in combat?

A: In 1940, just after my arrival. We were flying over French Indochina. On August 11, 1941, we escorted Mitsubishi G4M1 bombers at night to attack the Wenkiang airfield. We strafed the field just as the sun was rising, and when we left, every enemy plane was destroyed. As we were flying away we saw an orange biplane. I caught him as he tried to fly over a mountain, and it was my second victory. We were sent back to Formosa, staging from Tainan.

Q: In preparation for the invasion of the Philippines?

A: Yes. We studied aerial photos and flew practice missions; we trained on conserving fuel at various altitudes, navigation and all that. The thinking was that if we could fly the 450 miles to Clark Field and 500 miles to Nichols Field and back, we would not need carriers. Our planes were designed for seven hours maximum flying time, but to try and make a 10- to 12-hour flight was crazy to us. By reducing power to near stall speed, we were able to do it.

Q: When were you supposed to launch your attack?

A: This was at 2 a.m. on December 8, 1941, but fog came in. We

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received the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and we wondered if the Americans would be expecting us. Finally, at 10 a.m., we were ordered to take off. We had reached 19,000 feet when I saw a formation of bombers, so we attacked. Then we saw that those planes were Japanese army bombers on a routine flight, and no one had informed the navy. When we arrived over Clark Field, there were five Curtiss P-40s below us that did not attack, and our orders were to not engage until all of our bombers were in the area. I was amazed that all of the American planes were in perfect alignment. After the bombers destroyed the base, I saw two Boeing B-17s. My two wingmen and I shot them up, and as we pulled out, the five P-40s jumped us. I shot down one. We destroyed four American planes in the air and 35 on the ground.

Q: What were your next missions over Luzon?

A: I flew missions the next day, and the weather was terrible.

The third day was December 10. We had 27 fighters on the sweep when I caught the B-17 that was flown by Captain Colin P. Kelly.

WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVE

Q: American press accounts credited Captain Kelly with sinking the battleship Haruna before going down.

A: Yes, I found that interesting, since Haruna was off Malaya at that time. Kelly attacked and missed one of our cruisers, Ashigara.

Many Zeros were all over him. Seven fighters from my group made firing passes, and we all seemed to miss. I closed in and fired, saw white smoke or fuel coming from the right wing; then more poured out as I fired the last of my ammunition. I saw three men

bail out at 7,000 feet. We were low on fuel and ammunition, so we never saw the plane crash, but after the war I learned that Kelly’s plane crashed near Clark Field. He and his co-pilot stayed with the bomber until their crew could get out alive. This was a very brave pilot. I was credited with the kill. In the Japanese military, the man who was the last to shoot or inflict damage resulting in destruction was awarded the victory. We flew against the Philippines for 10 days. Then we were sent to Tarakan airfield on Borneo.

Q: How important was the air battle over Java?

A: This was what took away the air cover for the Allied fleet and allowed us to take the East Indies by March. The enemy fighters were Curtiss P-40s, Curtiss P-36s, Brewster F2A Buffalos and even Hawker Hurricanes, I think. On the morning of February 19, we had 23 Zeros taking off to attack the Allied base 430 miles away. We approached at 16,000 feet, and more than 50 enemy planes greeted us at 10,000 feet over Surabaya. I snapped onto the tail of a P-36 and ripped his wing off in a burst. The pilot did not get out. I looked behind, and I saw six planes burning. One of our pilots beat me to another P-36 and blew it up, while I saw a P-40 tailing a Zero, but another Zero took him out. Our pathfinder plane had three Dutch P-36s on him, but one of our pilots shot down all three within 20 seconds. Another P-36 passed over my plane, and I pulled up; he rolled away, I hit rudder, slipped into his roll and fired a burst, but he rolled out of it. I pulled up and rolled again, hit left rudder and was within 50 feet of him in a left deflection shot. I fired three times and flamed him. This was a diffi-

A Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress at a Philippines airfield in early 1941, similar to the one piloted from Clark Field by Captain Colin P. Kelly Jr. that bombed the Japanese light cruiser Natori before being shot down by Sakai three days after Pearl Harbor.

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cult victory; the Dutchman was very good. Our leader, Lieutenant [Masao] Asai, and two other men were killed. As we departed I saw another P-36 approaching Malang Air Base, hedgehopping. I snapped off a few cannon shots until they were dry, but I caught the enemy plane over the rice paddies and ripped his cockpit with machine-gun fire. We returned the next day after the bombers hit the fields, but there was nothing to do, really.

Q: Where did you go after that?

A: We were transferred to the Philippines for a while, then to Bali in March 1942. This was a lovely place, and the natives were very friendly to us, as we treated them well. We were there for several months. Then we were told we would be rotated home, but then my commander, Lt. Cmdr. [Tadashi] Nakajima, told me that I was to go with him to our new base in New Britain, at Rabaul. The 2,500-mile trip to Rabaul took two weeks in a small, stinking ship, and I was very ill. This was when I met Lt. j.g. Junichi Sasai, and he took care of me. That was unusual, because the navy had a very rigid caste system. Officers never made friends with enlisted men, but Sasai was a different kind of officer.

Q: What was your impression of the base at Rabaul?

A: It was more like a punishment than a transfer. It had an active volcano, and sometimes the ground would shake. The fighters were the old A5Ms we had flown years earlier. I was still sick, and Sasai took me to the hospital, which was such in name only. Martin B-26 Marauders attacked the ship we had just left, and the bombers returned for two more days, bombing and strafing. Finally, 20 brand-new Zeros arrived. Several of us were transferred again, to Lae, New Guinea.We were only 180 miles away from Port Moresby, a great installation where Allied fighters and bombers operated against us, and we were in almost constant combat from the first day. Captain [Masahisa] Saito took over command.

Q: Was Lae any better than Rabaul?

A: No, it was actually worse, and there was little in the way of support and buildings. The food was terrible—rice and barley with dried vegetables for four months. The Allies kept bombing us with nuisance raids to deprive us of precious sleep.

Q: How soon did you see action?

A: On April 5, 1942, four pilots escorted seven bombers; we lost one plane, but shot down two. The next day five claims were made, and so on.

Q: How many men were at Lae? A: We had 200 sailors as anti-aircraft support, 100 maintenance men and 30 pilots, including 20 NCOs and three enlisted. The 10 officers were in separate quarters. We always had six pilots on morning standby. Every day at 8 a.m. there was a patrol over Moresby. We almost always met enemy aircraft.

Q: The Tainan Kokutai’s ranks included Japan’s top ace.

What was he like as a squadron mate?

A: I first met Hiroyoshi Nishizawa at Lae, and he was very tall for a Japanese, about 5 feet 8 inches, and very thin. He was always jaundiced looking, since he had persistent malaria, but he was an excellent fighter pilot. We called him “The Devil” due to his ruthless attacks and his demeanor, which was not unfriendly, just reserved. His eyesight was supernatural. He would call out aircraft 15 or 20 seconds before any of us could see anything. I saw him do things in a Zero that were aerodynamically impossible on a regular basis. He was credited with 87 kills.

Q: What other aces did you know?

A: Shoichi Sugita was very short, stocky and a party animal, as you might say, but he was credited with between 70 and 80 victories. Toshio Ota was very friendly, always ready with a joke.

Ota flew with Nishizawa and me, and we had some great times.

Then there was Toraichi Takatsuka. All were fantastic airmen.

Q: You were involved in quite a stunt over Port Moresby.

A: Nishizawa decided that we needed to do something. So after a flight to Port Moresby on May 17, Ota, Nishizawa and I joined our fighters wingtip to wingtip and did three perfect consecutive loops over the field. After we landed, we had a message that the commander at Moresby had sent a letter to our commander, describing our stunt and inviting us back. Sasai chewed us out and threatened us with grounding if we ever did that again, but we knew he was secretly proud of us. By the way, the letter was signed by many Allied pilots at the base. I think we made an impression.

Q: What was your most memorable combat while at Lae? A: I would say May 27, 1942, when I chased a Bell P-39 Airacobra through the Owen Stanley Mountains. This man was at treetop level, hugging the narrow valley walls, trying to shake me, but finally the mountain wall came at him. He half rolled to avoid the top, but he did not quite make it, and he crashed. I barely cleared the ridge. I was soaked in sweat after the 10-minute chase. Aerial combat is tiring, with the adrenaline and blood pumping through your body, your mind always thinking, your eyes always looking, your muscles reacting to every thought and circumstance.

Q: When did your fighting over Guadalcanal begin?

A: On August 7, 1942. This was the longest-range fighter mission we ever conducted. I saw my first American amphibious operation, hundreds of ships. Then we were jumped by the first six Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats I had ever seen. They went after the bombers, but they failed to score against them. I saw a single F4F chasing three Zeros, which was suicide. But the American rolled away from their fire and managed to invert, roll, dive and climb into a counterattacking posture. This Wildcat pilot was scoring hits on every plane, and he finally caught the tail of one Zero. I

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‘I slid my canopy back, and we stared at each other. His plane had lost much of its skin, the rudder was a skeleton. I could see that he was wounded in the chest’ came down 1,500 feet to help, then the American snap-rolled, turned into me and forced me to roll away. On the fifth spiral and inverted roll I thought I had him, but he turned away and rolled under me. I rolled over and cut power, forcing him to overshoot. He pulled an Immelmann and ended up on my tail! Then he tried to flee, perhaps low on fuel or out of ammunition. I cut inside his turn and fired into the cockpit, then I made a mistake and overshot. Nothing happened. I knew he was out of ammunition. I slid my canopy back, and we stared at each other. He was an older man, explaining his skill. His plane had lost much of its skin, and the rudder was a skeleton. I could see that he was wounded in the chest.

Q: Did you finish him off?

A: Killing him like that, wounded and unable to defend himself, would have been dishonorable. I fired into the engine, which caught fire, and he got out of the plane. The parachute opened, and he drifted into the beach. [Sakai’s opponent, Lieutenant James J. Sutherland II of the carrier Saratoga’s fighter squadron VF-5, survived.] After re-forming the flight, I saw a Douglas SBD Dauntless, and it attacked four Zeros. I dropped behind him and fired, killing the rear gunner. I fired into the engine, and the pilot bailed out. [Sakai’s 60th victory was from the carrier Wasp’s scouting squadron VS-71. Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Harry E. Elliott was killed, but the wounded pilot, Lieutenant Dudley H. Adams, was rescued by the destroyer Dewey.]

Q: You were then wounded. What were the circumstances?

A: I attacked a flight of Grumman TBF-1 Avengers [actually, more SBD-3s of VB-6 and VS-5], as I had mistaken them as Wildcats from the rear. I closed in to less than 50 yards and was in the crossfire of eight gunners. I had steel fragments in my left arm and leg; I was permanently blind in my right eye, and during the flight back I could not see well out of my left. I also had many pieces of steel pushed into my back and chest, making breathing very difficult. Perhaps the worst were the pieces of .50-caliber bullet deep in my head. The canopy had been shattered, as were my flight goggles. The controls worked, but I could barely see the instrument panel, which had been smashed. I felt nothing in my left leg and foot; only the right worked. I felt nauseous, and I could not move my left hand. I was able to place my scarf under my helmet to try to stop the bleeding from my head wound.

Q: What were you thinking during this time?

A: I felt that if I must die I should try and find an enemy ship.

If I could crash into one, then my death would be meaningful.

Then I decided to try and get home. I found my chart, covered in my blood. I wiped it off and tried to focus on the map. I tried to see the compass, and finally I made out 330 degrees, which put me heading out into open ocean, so I altered course. My greatest problem was to avoid passing out. When I reached Rabaul I had to land, and it took me four tries circling the field.

I felt people lifting me out of the cockpit. I remember Nakajima and Nishizawa being there, and Ota helping me in the car that took me to the hospital. All my friends and superiors came to see me before they sent me home. That meant a lot to me. I would never see most of them again.

Q: How long did it take you to recover and how did you feel about having to return to combat after such an ordeal?

A: Almost two years. I reported to Yokusuka hospital and they operated on me—eyes and head, scraping and probing, all of it done without anesthesia, and it was very painful. It was my duty, and I never questioned my duty to my country and my emperor.

In October 1942, I was assigned to Sasebo naval base, where they again placed me in the hospital for recuperation. The next month I was promoted to warrant officer, and this meant that I could remain at home during my convalescence.

Q: How else did warrant officer status change your life?

A: There were more privileges, and I had the opportunity to read secret and top secret reports that detailed our disasters. It was February 1943 when I learned the truth about Midway and Guadalcanal. Our propaganda had broadcast a major victory on June 5, 1942, but those of us in the know knew something was erroneous, since the planned invasion [of Midway Atoll] had been canceled.

I knew in my heart that we were not going to win this war.

Q: You got into trouble speaking to the press?

A: Yes, a reporter wanted an interview. I was not sure about the wisdom or even the legality of speaking to him, so I called the base information officer. He simply said to use my discretion.

That was a mistake. My honest opinions on the state of our aircraft and military compared to the Americans were intercepted and suppressed by the military in Tokyo. I was ordered to keep my mouth shut in the future, and I did.

Q: Did you ever see your friends again?

A: Nishizawa came to see me and informed me that only he and I were left alive from the original group. Nishizawa was suffering from guilt. I think that in today’s world that would be considered a kind of post-trauma problem.

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Q: When were you released from medical control?

A: January 1943. I was sent to Toyohashi, where I met Commander Nakajima again. Within a few weeks I was flying my Zero.

It all came back to me. I was assigned as a flight instructor at Omura air base. This was how I was able to witness firsthand how the requirements were lowered as younger men were drawn into training. In April 1944, I was transferred to the Yokosuka Kokutai.

Q: When did you return to combat?

A: I was ordered to Iwo Jima in June 1944. We had nearly 100 aircraft on the volcanic island when I arrived with our flight of 30 aircraft, led by Nakajima. This was the time of our great defeat in the Marianas, where we lost almost all of our veteran carrier pilots. Our bombers would attack American ships and their base at Saipan, and many would never come back.

Q: How was Iwo Jima compared to Rabaul and Lae? A: It is interesting that you never think that you will be placed in any position that could be worse than the others before, and then the fates prove you wrong. We all had diarrhea because of the contaminated water supply, and the food was terrible. We could take hot baths, but the water was full of sulfur.

Q: How could you fly and fight with a blind eye?

A: I can say that it was difficult. Only twice had I ever been caught unawares by my enemy, and the second time was on June 24, 1944, when we flew to intercept an inbound force of American planes. This was also when I first met the Grumman F6F Hellcat. I shot one down, but as I took off the straps of my parachute harness so I could turn my head around, I saw perhaps six Hellcats on my tail. I reduced power, they overshot and I turned right inside them. I shot down another, but then there were more on me! I pulled away and rolled over into a dive to get away. Then I pulled out, but found myself surrounded by 15 Hellcats, and these aircraft matched me at every maneuver. No other enemy aircraft I had ever fought could do this, and I learned that my old tricks were of no use. What saved me was the fact that these pilots were very new. I was in this fight for nearly half an hour.

Q: How did you get out of it?

A: I headed for Iwo and hoped that the air defenses would provide some cover. They did, and I headed for a large cloud. After I entered the cloud I was in a storm, and this took the controls away from me. Finally I fell below the cloud and was able to locate the airfield. Forty of our fighters were lost in battle, yet my Zero did not have a single bullet hole in it. However, the engine was worthless. After that we were given orders that created the kamikaze.

Q: What went through your mind when Nakajima read what amounted to orders to commit suicide?

A: We all expected to die for our nation in war. But this was a

call to desperation. I could see a few old-timers, cripples like myself, doing this, but the one percent who were truly gifted needed to be salvaged, not thrown away. Taking a ship for the loss of a fighter and pilot seemed logical. But all the patriotic speeches and ceremonial sake in the world would not change the fact that we were fighting for our lives against an enemy who would neither ask nor give quarter, just like us. The difference was that he could back up his position with might, and we had nostalgia.

Q: What were the specifics of your suicide orders?

A: We were to fly through the enemy fighter screens, refuse to accept battle and locate the largest ships we could find. But this was a violation of the samurai code. Bushido never asks a man to simply kill himself, but to prepare to die in battle and therefore take his enemies with him, so in this way it was explained.

Q: How did your July 4, 1944, mission go?

A: The pilots left behind due to a lack of aircraft brought us gifts.

My Zero would not start at first, but finally I followed the eight bombers and the few Zeros able to fly. We’d reached 16,000 feet when some Hellcats attacked the bombers. Then another group of 20 Hellcats attacked, destroying the bombers. I had to disobey my orders—I fired into a Hellcat, and he went spinning into the ocean. I still had my external fuel tank attached, so I dropped it.

Q: Did you ever find the U.S. fleet?

A: No. We managed to shake off the enemy and flew into a storm front. Visibility was nil. We dropped from high altitude to only about 50 feet or so, and still we could not get away from the storm.

There was no way we were going to find the enemy carriers. I also had two young men with me who never had a chance at life, and I would take the responsibility of returning to base. [Masami] Shiga’s Zero had the cowling torn off by the storm. The other pilot was all right. When we landed, Captain Kaneyoshi Muto, the flight leader of the other section, also had been forced back. We all just looked at each other, feeling ashamed.

Q: When did you leave Iwo Jima?

A: After the October 25, 1944, attacks against the American fleet [off Leyte in the Philippines], the U.S. Navy began to shell Iwo Jima, in addition to airstrikes. Hundreds of men were killed. The last of our planes were destroyed as well. A few days later, we went to the beach and saw the transports blow up as American submarines torpedoed them. We waited for the invasion, but this was not to be until the following year. We were informed that naval staff officers and pilots were to return to Japan, so we did.

Q: What was your status at that time?

A: I was promoted to ensign, coming up from the ranks in 11 years, and this had never been done in the Japanese navy before.

Most commissions like this were posthumous.

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Q: Weren’t you also married at about that time?

A: That was February 11, 1945, when I married Hatsuyo.

Q: You got to test a new generation of Japanese navy fighters. What was your opinion of them?

A: The Kawanishi N1K1-J Shiden (“violet lighting”), which the Americans called George, was a very difficult plane to fly, and only experienced pilots could handle it. The Mitsubishi J2M3 Raiden (“thunderbolt”) had steel armor plate and four 20mm cannons, and could fly at 400 mph and outclimb the Zero. But the Raiden was a difficult aircraft to maneuver, and many fell to enemy fighters once they patrolled Japan. Then I was ordered to test the new A7M1 Reppu (“hurricane”) carrier fighter. It would outclimb and outdive anything the Americans had and was ruggedly built, but the Mitsubishi factory building was destroyed in a bombing raid.

Q: How did the war end for you?

A: I heard about the two devastating bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. But then we heard that the emperor was accepting the Allied surrender terms, and that was even more surprising.

WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVES

Q: You had another air battle before the war ended, right?

A: Yes, I assisted in the destruction of one bomber that crashed in the ocean. This mission was launched after we were ordered to stand down, so it never went into the official records, but the U.S. Army Air Forces recorded the loss over Tokyo Bay. [A Consolidated B-32 was damaged on August 17, 1945.]

Q: How was life for you after the war?

A: I was not allowed to hold any public office or work with the government. I was also banned from working in aviation. These were all conditions imposed by the Allied controllers. Certain provisions had been placed into the new Japanese constitution that were extremely restrictive. We were considered war criminals. Fortunately, I was able to start a small printing shop after the war, and in this way I tried to help my former comrades and their families with work. It became successful.

Q: You were offered positions in the new Japan Air Self Defense Force, but you declined. Why? A: I decided that I had done my duty in the military when it was important, and in my later years I just decided to stay away from all of that. Life moves on. There were many ghosts that I thought needed to be kept at rest.

Q: Have you ever had any lingering ill feelings toward the the Americans and their allies?

A: That would be self-defeating. I accepted the fact that my country was not in the right during the war. It is not a matter of forgiveness; soldiers should never have to forgive their enemy or themselves. If they did their job the best they could, and lived by a code of honor, then they understand that we pilots and soldiers do not make wars, but we must try and end them. ★ Noted aviation historian Jeffrey L. Ethell was killed in an accident while flying a Lockheed P-38 Lightning shortly after collaborating with Colin D. Heaton on this interview with Saburo Sakai.

A Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat, the rugged American fighter that gave Sakai a memorably valiant fight over Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942, takes off from Henderson Field to intercept yet another Japanese air raid in February 1943.

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FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT

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The curtains are pulled back, revealing a map of Europe with red ribbons leading to our target, the synthetic oil refineries at Magdeburg

BY GARY ROSENTRATOR,

AS TOLD BY GLEN M. HOTZ

B-24 Raid on Magdeburg GLEN MICHAEL HOTZ, BORN IN 1921, FLEW ROUGHLY 30 MISSIONS as a radio operator in Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany and occupied Europe between December 1944 and April 1945. He was stationed in England at the Old Buckenham Air Base, with the 734th Squadron, 453rd Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force.

Several decades after the war, he wrote an account of his experience—printed in pencil—filling 119 yellow-pad sheets. The following, which describes a raid in early 1945, is excerpted from Hotz’s unpublished memoir. Michael Hotz died in 1986.

M A Consolidated B-24 Liberator on a bomb run during the March 3, 1945, mission to destroy the Brunkahle Synthetic Oil Works near Magdeburg.

Glen Michael Hotz (above) was a radio operator in a B-24 on some 30 missions, including the strike on Magdeburg.

y deep sleep is disturbed by the air-raid siren.

Mixed with the low moan of the siren comes the heavy rumble of many engines; Jerry is active tonight. The question now is, get dressed and go to the shelter or just stay in bed? “Nuts,” I say to myself, “I guess I’ll stay where I am, and at least I’ll die warm.” In about 30 minutes, the all-clear sounds and I’m back in dreamland.

The hut door opens quietly. A figure with a flashlight consults his clipboard and asks in a low voice, “Feldman’s crew in here?”

I mumble, and he says, “You are scheduled to fly.” I ask, “How is the weather?” and his reply is “Clear and cold.” “What is the gas load?”“Twenty-five hundred gallons, topped off.”“Thanks,” I say.

I realize then, given that amount of fuel, that our mission will probably involve a deep penetration into Germany. Topping off the tanks means that after the engines are run up and checked by the ground crew, they are shut down and the fuel tanks are refilled to the necks, usually giving us another 200 to 300 gallons of fuel.

I crawl out of the old sack and put my feet on the cold concrete

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‘I am at ease, unafraid of what the day might bring. If I don’t survive, at least I’ll be prepared and have all my faculties. I will not let fear enter my thoughts’ floor, which jars me into total consciousness. I grab some heavy socks, pull on my wool pants. Then I’m startled by a noise on the shelf above my head. I shine my flashlight at the shelf, and a pair of eyes look back at me from behind my girl’s picture. It’s the ferret we keep in our hut to prevent the rats from invading our quarters.

I remove my personal belongings from my pockets and place them in my footlocker, grab my toilet articles and head for the latrine. I return to the Quonset hut and grab my heavy flight jacket and mess gear; no one else on my crew is yet stirring. I walk over to the engineer’s cot, pick the end up about 12 inches off the floor and let it go. It lands with a loud thud—minor compared to the noise that comes from the engineer. I hastily retreat, followed by a verbal barrage of typical GI language.

The walk to the mess allows me to be alone with my thoughts.

The sky is filled with stars. I’m at ease, unafraid of what the day might bring. If I don’t survive the day, at least I’ll be prepared and have all my faculties. I will not let fear enter my thoughts.

I arrive at the mess, greeted by its familiar warm, steamy atmosphere. I stop at the coffee can, draw a cup and add powdered milk, then walk to the serving table. The cook asks,“How do you want your eggs?” with a big grin on his Irish kisser. I laugh at him and say,“Sunny side up with bacon and toast.”I hold out my metal plate and he places on it three fresh eggs, fried as I requested, with bacon and toast. In disbelief, I sit down and enjoy the best breakfast I’ve had in months. What a morale booster!

Content and warm, with my stomach full, I amble outside to wash my mess gear. There’s still no sign of the rest of the crew.

I take a bus to the flight building, where I go directly to the equipment room, get my electric heated suit and return to where my flight gear is stored. I get dressed and go to the briefing room.

“Ten-hut!” Everyone pops to attention. The commanding officer enters with the briefing officer. “As you were,” he says and turns the meeting over to the intelligence officer. The curtains are pulled back, revealing a big map with red ribbons leading to our target—the synthetic oil refineries near Magdeburg, Germany. There is a low murmur among the crew members as the target is announced. We are briefed on where to expect the heavy flak and fighter opposition, also the altitude from which we are expected to drop our bombs. Then the weather officer takes over, a close friend of mine. I often kid him about how accurate his reports are. He is right 50 percent of the time. I call him Lieutenant Maybe. Today he says the target area will be under clouds and we probably will not be able to drop our bombs visually.

Once the briefing is over, I get my first-aid boxes and radio logs with my assigned frequencies. I also pick up my escape kit and maps. The navigator and I are standing together, waiting for

transportation to the plane, when two enlisted flight personnel come up to us and introduce themselves. It turns out that today we are flying in the lead group, not in the capacity of a lead crew but in a special plane, a Consolidated B-24 with a ball turret and a radar set—called a “Mickey set”—that is used for bombing in bad weather. The aircraft will be heavier because of the additional gear, the ball turret and the two extra crew members.

About that time, the rest of the crew shows up and we catch a truck out to the plane. The B-24J—a plane that I’m not familiar with—is equipped with several other goodies, such as a formation stick that enables the pilot to fly the plane with his left hand. This control is hooked into the C-1 autopilot. Earlier in the European theater, quite a few B-24s had ball turrets, but as enemy fighter attacks dwindled, the turrets were removed. Now Jerry is beginning to attack from below once again, so the turrets have been reinstalled in selected planes. As a result, we have 12 men in our crew on this mission.

W

e arrive at the plane at 5:30, with a scheduled time of 6 to start engines and 6:30 for departure. I stoop down under the bomb doors next to the catwalk and heave my parachute and gear up on the flight deck, then kneel in front of the auxiliary power unit (APU), turn on the fuel and hit the starter button. The APU shudders a few times and comes to life. Lights appear in the aircraft as the co-pilot turns the master switch. I verify that the auxiliary hydraulic pump is on. The plane becomes a beehive of activity, with many checkouts going on all at once.

The navigator and bombardier crawl under the flight deck through a small tunnel covered with thin aircraft plywood to the forward part of the plane. They complete their checks, carrying their parachutes with them, and go to the waist positions for takeoff. The bombardier says that our bombload is 10 500pound bombs. We are light. The engineer checks his slip stick for weight and balance, to verify where the crew should be placed for takeoff. Normally, the navigator and bombardier would be on the upper flight deck for takeoff, but not today. The radar set and its operator will occupy the whole left side of the flight deck directly behind the pilot. The viewing tube of the set is a large cathode-ray tube, resembling an early television set.

By now, the flight engineer has completed his weight and balance calculations and has verified them with the aircraft commander. My checkouts are complete, as well. I leave the plane to make a last-minute pit stop, consult with the armorer and get three empty fuse cans, which I stow alongside my seat. I see the doublegreen flares are in the sky, signaling us to start our engines. The

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pilot leans out of his window and yells, “Clear left!” The co-pilot short control stick—the same as moving the joystick in a singledoes the same for his side and yells,“Clear right!” The flight engi- engine fighter. This takes a lot of burden from formation flying. neer verifies that fire guards (ground crewmen) are in place, and “Navigator to crew, Dutch coast coming up.” We skirt the the pilot says, “Start No. 3!” I hear the thud of the inertia starter German-held island of Helgoland as it is heavily fortified with antiand the whine begins; the co-pilot holds the button to the “ener- aircraft. I see some telltale black bursts off our wing, and one of gize” position and the whine climbs to a high-pitched scream. The the waist gunners sings out,“Two planes have taken hits.”I wonder co-pilot adjusts the magnetos, yells, “Contact!” and the propeller why our lead crews don’t give that darned island more leeway. blades begin to move. The engine backfires, belches smoke and fire, “Right waist gunner to pilot, one Liberator is in trouble.” We then the blades turn into a blur, a yellow ring around the outside. count three parachutes; there goes the plane—it has fallen into a The ground crew removes the wheel chocks, and after more spin. We are at 26,000 feet, so I calculate 11∕2 minutes to eternity checking, a blast of the engines gets us moving. We assume our for the remainder of the crew on the doomed plane. Once a plane place in line, lurching and waddling along like some prehistoric, has fallen into a spin, escape is just about impossible for the crew noisy, fire-belching dragon. The brakes hiss and squeal like an old, in the forward part of the plane. Imagine yourself trying to crawl worn-out Mack truck in need of a brake job. The noise level in the up a vertical wall that is spinning around—that is what the crew cockpit is so high that we find it necessary to use the intercom for is trying to do. Our tail gunner advises that the plane has crashed all communications. We finally reach the run-up area, angle away into the North Sea.A sight like that is not exactly a morale booster. from the plane astern of us and perform the engine checks.

The nose gunner calls for an oxygen check. All the crew memWhen we are ready to leave the ground, we go through the bers respond, indicating that everyone is OK. We are flying in a usual takeoff procedures. Once we’re airborne, the wheels are retracted, and we verify that all wheels are up and locked and their doors are closed. We are soon at 2,000 feet and climbing at the rate of 200 feet per minute. I remember my flight instructor telling me that the engines should not be worked more than necessary in order to reduce the chance of engine failure. This point in the mission, outside of actual combat, is one of the most dangerous. Many planes are climbing to formation altitude, and when we enter clouds at about 10,000 feet, we cannot see the aircraft around us. I know there have been incidents where two planes have collided, and I am relieved when we are above the clouds. We reach 20,000 feet, the assigned formation assembly altitude, and move into our position. All the gunners move to their positions and check their weapons.

Flying a B-24 is not particularly difficult, but formation flying is a different story. The plane is a bear to handle, and depending on its position in the formation, either the pilot or co-pilot must look across the cockpit to monitor the ship off the wing.You fly with one hand on the throttles and the Thousands of B-24s other hand on the wheel. About a 20- or dropped hundreds of 30-minute stretch is all the average pilot can thousands of tons of bombs on German stand. The aircraft has what is called a forindustrial sites and mation stick. The pilot engages the autopimilitary targets. lot and then uses his left hand to move the NATIONAL ARCHIVES

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cloudless sky and will be approaching our target from the north.

Clouds are beginning to build ahead of us. The weather officer appears to have been right. Our Mickey operator will earn his keep today if we have to deal with clouds. I glance over and notice that his eyes are glued to his screen, monitoring our progress.

After our brush with anti-aircraft batteries on Helgoland, the mission has settled down to almost a milk run, with very little enemy opposition. The second cup of coffee that I enjoyed for breakfast has made me glad to have my fuse cans next to me. I glance up and see the pilot climbing out of his seat. Directly behind his seat is the relief tube, and he uses it. The tube drains along the bottom of the aircraft, and at our speed of 180 mph, creates a spray that freezes all over the ball turret. Forgetting that we had a ball gunner today, the pilot neglected to call the waist gunners and tell them to wind up the ball turret. As a result, I get a call from one very angry ball-turret gunner wanting to know who was pissing in his face. It is all I can do to keep from laughing. A glance at the free air temperature gauge indicates minus 40 degrees.

B-24H Call Me Later of the 392nd Bomb Group after crash landing on June 24, 1944, following a raid on Magdeburg.

The ground is now completely obscured by cloud cover, but we are flying in brilliant sunshine above the clouds. It is a plus for us that we’ve had no fighter opposition. Jerry is grounded due to bad weather. It is now 10 a.m.—two hours to the target.

“Upper turret to pilot, B-24 off our left wing just feathered No. 1 engine. He is dropping back and losing altitude.”The tail gunner calls and says the plane has jettisoned its bombs. Moments later, the tail gunner calls,“He just feathered No. 4 engine; he is changing course.” Then, “Pilot to crew, the B-24 that lost Nos. 1 and 4 engines is going to Sweden.” The Swedes and the Swiss let Allied planes land if they are having mechanical trouble and cannot make it to their home base. The plane and the crew will be interned for the duration of the war. Not a bad choice—better than going down 60 AIR COMBAT

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into the North Sea. I understand that Sweden is the land of blondes. The thought crosses my mind that maybe there was nothing wrong with that plane; maybe the crew decided that they’d had enough. It wasn’t the first time that the Army Air Forces had planes leave formation for an unknown destination. If the crewmen decide among themselves that they’d had enough, or if the pilots make such a decision, it’s not difficult to fake mechanical trouble or sabotage the plane and enter a neutral country.

There is a great deal of boredom in flying combat, almost a lull before the storm. Then the navigator calls out to the pilot,“Thirty minutes to target.”I look out my window—complete cloud cover.

Without the Mickey operator along today, we would have to scrub the mission because of inability to see the target. The bombardier and radar operator are engaged in a discussion about the target.

I’m on my assigned radio frequency, a direct contact with the base.

However, I only listen; I do not acknowledge any radio contact.

I’m in my own little world as we drone along.

“Radar to pilot, I have identified the target. We are about 10 minutes out.”

“Pilot to radio, get ready to open bomb doors.”

“Radio to pilot, how about flak suits?”

“Pilot to radio, never mind the suits.”

I descend to the lower flight deck next to the bomb-bay door lever and crouch next to the bomb doors. The call comes over the intercom,“Open bomb doors,” and I press the lever. The four big doors roll up the sides of the plane like the lids of roll-top desks.

All I can see below are clouds. The radar operator is in direct contact with the bombardier; I hear his voice as the radar operator gives instructions to the bombardier. The bombardier is making cruise corrections—flying the plane with his control. The radar operator stays steady and clear on his directions. I hear him say, “Steady now, bombs away!” I feel the plane lurch upward, then I verify all bombs have been dropped and reach for the door lever.

“Tail to pilot, flak directly astern of the plane.” We are diving and turning away from the target; the flak stays with us. The German gunners are good. They know our action after bombs away and have compensated for it. With the next flak burst, it feels like something has lifted the tail of the plane. The next burst is a loud “Ka-blam!” The left wing goes up to about a 45-degree angle, and the pilot corrects to bring the wing level.

“Waist to pilot, No. 2 engine smoking bad.”“Top turret to pilot, what’s our oil pressure on No. 2?”“Co-pilot to engineer, oil pressure is a little low.” “Engineer to pilot, we’ve been hit in the oil system on No. 2 engine. Continue to operate the engine, monitor the oil pressure. When the pressure begins to fluctuate, feather the engine.” The smoke from the engine comes from a leak that is hitting the exhaust collector ring. “Engineer to co-pilot, does the engine check out OK otherwise?”“Co-pilot to engineer, manifold pressure is down about 10 psi, rpm is down about 400.”

“Engineer to pilot, my advice to you if it means anything is to continue to run the engine as I suggested; the decision is yours.”

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‘With the next flak burst, it feels like something has lifted the tail of the plane.

The next burst is a loud “Ka-blam!” The left wing goes up to a 45-degree angle’ “Pilot to co-pilot, feather No. 2 engine. Give me a little more boost on the other three engines. We’ll see if we can stay with the group.”

“Pilot to crew, damage reports.” “Tail to pilot, the whole top is gone from my turret.”“Left waist to pilot, left vertical stabilizer is damaged extensively, additional holes in fuselage.” “Top turret, no further damage visible up here.”“Engineer to pilot, no further oil smoke from No. 2 engine.”“Radio to pilot, several large holes in the bomb bays, holes in the lower flight deck.”

Despite the battle damage, the aircraft is performing OK. We are pulling a lot more power from the remaining engines and maintaining our position in the formation. The whole formation is beginning to descend to lower altitudes. I can see that the cloud cover is just below our plane now. The fact that the formation is losing altitude as a group enables us to keep up easier. “Engineer to pilot, fabric is tearing on left rudder; how is rudder control?”

“Pilot to engineer, no loss of rudder control that I can feel.” The formation is spreading out before entering the cloud cover. That stuff looks like pea soup. Once we enter the clouds, the pilot and co-pilot are on the gauges, maintaining a constant rate of descent until we get out of the thick clouds. Everyone stays alert. I’ve left my position and am standing between the pilot and co-pilot, to provide another pair of eyes watching for aircraft.We finally break out of the clouds. I see the French landscape. We are at 14,000 feet and still descending. The three remaining engines are running well.

I realize that I’m cold, even though my heat control is at “maximum.” “Radio to co-pilot, is your heated suit working?” “Copilot to radio, negative, I’m froze.”“Top turret to radio, I have no heat either.” I’m silent for a moment. “Radio to engineer, does the generator on No. 2 engine supply current to our suits?”“Engineer to radio, you are right—loss of No. 2 engine means loss of electrical power to some positions on the flight deck.”

I go back to the liaison position on the intercom and continue to monitor my assigned frequency. In some ways, this is the loneliest job on the crew most of the time.You are completely unaware of intercom chatter. When anyone wants me, he must turn the control on the intercom box to “call” in order to override anything that I’m listening to. The altimeter indicates 12,000 feet, and I remove my helmet and oxygen gear, don my cap and headphones, snap a throat microphone around my neck, plug in my gear and continue to monitor the assigned frequency.

The free air temperature gauge indicates minus 16 degrees. It is now 3 p.m., three hours since we left the target. The lack of heat is beginning to affect me. A glance out the window reveals the beautiful French landscape. We continue to descend at a gradual rate, still free of any enemy opposition. I’m daydreaming when I get a call from the pilot, requesting a weather report. We are over

the Normandy coast. I change frequencies, snap on the transmitter and ask Old Buckenham Tower for the weather. After I answer questions about the challenge of the day and colors of the day, I receive the report. Visibility is down, with light blowing snow. I copy the report and forward it to the aircraft commander, then change back to my assigned frequency.

At 4,000 feet and over the English Channel the background static in my headphones is broken up by a loud distress signal. A B-17 radioman has locked in his key. I forward the message to Air Sea Rescue, then give the downed plane’s position to our navigator. Our B-24 banks away to a new course, and in minutes we spot the downed plane’s crew getting into rubber rafts. We circle for 15 minutes, until we spot the Air Sea Rescue boat. When the boat arrives, we set a course for England. I feel good about our part in the rescue, flying a damaged B-24 with only three fans turning.

In about 30 minutes we spot the English coast. The rest of our group has already landed. We enter the pattern and start the normal prelanding checklists. We will come in with a little higher approach speed, due to one dead engine. I hear the high-pitched whine of hydraulics as the landing gear comes down. Now I can see the end of the runway. The throttles come back, the gear touches, and we bounce once and touch again and, finally, the nose wheel is down. The Liberator slows, and after one more hard brake application we slow enough to enter the taxiway.

We follow a jeep with a sign that reads“Follow Me”to our hardstand. The plane shudders as the three remaining fans come to a stop. The postflight inspection reveals that the plane has suffered more damage than I had imagined. We throw our flight gear into the back of a transport and ride the mile to the flight building for debriefing. By the time the debriefing is over and I’ve returned and stored my gear, it’s 6 p.m. I grab the field bus to go to the mess.

There is no line, so I get a cup of tea, some dark bread and marmalade and a plate of something resembling beef stew. After eating, I walk down to my hut, get a towel and head for the shower.

Previous crews had set up a shower building with about 10 showers inside and a separate stall at one end that housed a coalfired hot water boiler. I enjoy the luxury of a glorious, hot shower and walk back to my Quonset hut. As I enter the hut through the double doors, a card game is in progress. The hut is about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, heated by one small coal stove.

I sit on my cot and get my writing gear out. I have my daily letter from my dad and letters from several girls. I settle down and answer them all. By the time I finish, it is 10 p.m., and I’m really bushed. I make a fast trip to the latrine, then crawl into my warm bunk, lie there for a few moments thanking God for my safe return, and go to sleep. ★ AIR COMBAT

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Ed Rector was one of a handful of American Volunteer Group pilots

INTERVIEW

to stay in China after the AVG’s dissolution in July 1942

BY BOB BERGIN

FlyingTigerAce

D

uring the first seven months of World War II in the Pacific, when Japan’s war machine seemed unstoppable, a small band of flying mercenaries in Chinese service became one of the most effective units in the history of aerial warfare. Although it never had more than 50 fighters operational at a time, the American Volunteer Group (AVG), or “Flying Tigers,” under the leadership of Colonel Claire Lee Chennault, destroyed 296 Japanese aircraft and had another 150 probables. Less widely known was its role at the Salween River Gorge in May 1942—a rare case of aircraft deciding the outcome of a battle and possibly an entire invasion.

Of the 70 pilots who served in the AVG, 29 became aces, including Edward F. Rector. After graduating from North Carolina’s Catawba College in 1938, Rector became a Navy dive-bomber pilot in 1940. Colonel Rector returned to the Far East after the war to help build the Taiwanese air force. He retired in 1962.

Q: What were you doing in the Navy before the AVG? A: I was a carrier pilot on the old USS Ranger when we were sent home forChristmas in 1940. I heard of a person recruiting people to go to the Far East. David L. “Tex” Hill had joined Ranger’s air group and the two of us went to a Norfolk hotel to find out what it was all about. A Reserve commander laid out the program that allowed Reserve officer pilots and ground crew to resign from their service and go out to defend the Burma Road. In June 1941, the Navy suddenly realized that it was going to lose some experienced pilots. Rear Admiral Arthur H. Cook, the commander of aircraft, Atlantic Fleet, tried to stop it. The Navy told him to let us go.

Q: Why did you join the AVG? A: I was young and in my naiveté had presumed that the isolationist trend in America would keep us from ever going to war.

In my one year in the Navy, I had gotten high marks. Two-thirds

of our pilots got an “E” for excellence in dive-bombing, but only two of us, Bert Christman and I, also got an“E” in aerial gunnery.

When I heard about the AVG, I saw an opportunity to find out if I was as good as I thought. I had also read everything that Rudyard Kipling had written, so this was right up my alley. It was a chance to go to Burma, to fight and fly Curtiss P-40 aircraft, and be paid a fabulous salary and a bounty for each plane destroyed.

Q: How did you get out to the Far East?

A: We left on the Dutch East Indies Java Line ship Bloemfontein.

We were on the passenger list as students, missionaries and other occupations. Twenty-four hours before reaching Hawaii, we found the cruiser St. Paul escorting us and wondered what was going on. We got the news from the ship’s newspaper that Japan had invaded French Indochina. We left Honolulu 48 hours later and went directly to Brisbane, Australia, running blacked-out at night. From Brisbane we went to Batavia, then on to Singapore.

We stayed at the old Raffles Hotel. There were still mementos from the days Kipling stayed there. I was in hog heaven. After two weeks we caught a Norwegian coastal freighter up to Rangoon.

Q: What did you think of Burma?

A: Rangoon was exotic. Our training base was a four-hour train ride north of Rangoon at a place called Toungoo, a Royal Air Force [RAF] auxiliary field in rice-paddy land. We lived in open bamboo barracks and slept under mosquito nets.

Q: What training did the AVG undergo in Burma?

A: We had breakfast at 0600 hours. At 0700 we met at the hangar, and Chennault gave us briefings on fighting the Japanese. At 0800 we were on the flight line, first checking out in the P-40 and then doing simulated dogfighting, using the tactics Chennault had taught us. We flew until 1300, when it got too hot to do anything.

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Ed Rector, climbing into his P-40, shot down a Kawasaki Ki.48 bomber for his—and the AVG’s— first victory, on December 20, 1941.

Q: What were some of the tactics Chennault taught you?

A: There were three things that he beat into us until they became automatic. First, never ever try to turn with a Japanese fighter in a dogfight. That was contrary to all our training, but he said that it would be on you in less than two turns. Instead, stick the nose down, and with the speed of that in-line engine you’d leave him behind. Then use that speed to climb and come back in to make a WEIDER HISTORY GROUP ARCHIVE

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pass at him. Number two was to never fail to exchange head-on passes with a Japanese fighter. We’d have him outgunned, six guns to two, and our guns were bore-sighted to cross at 300 yards. If we stayed in there, he would pull away, but more often than not we would knock him out of the sky. Number three was to never let a Japanese plane go home unharried.“Keep him turning,” Chennault would say. “You are faster than he is, and he does not have armor AIR COMBAT

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plating or self-sealing tanks. Get a couple of bullet holes in those tanks, and he’ll run out of fuel before he gets back to Thailand.”

Q: How effective were those tactics?

A: After the war, the British dragged the Gulf of Martaban, which the Japanese had to fly over to get back home. They found 62 Japanese planes that never got back to Thailand. The tactics that Chennault taught us were what made the AVG the famous Flying Tigers.

In the AVG’s first three fights with the Japanese over Kunming on December 20, and over Rangoon on December 24 and 27, the AVG destroyed more than 50 Japanese aircraft. After that, Chennault wrote a five-page treatise on the tactics we were using and why they were successful. He had it hand carried to General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, but it was never disseminated to the airmen in the field. Chennault believed in fighter tactics, and there were officers, including Arnold, who resented his effrontery in proposing fighters as an effective arm of any air force.

Q: What was the AVG’s status in December 1941?

A: Chennault envisioned a grand plan that called for a second fighter group and a bomber group to start bombing Japan. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought that to a halt. By then the AVG was three-quarters finished with its training. We were preparing to move to our home base at Kunming, China. After Pearl Harbor, Chennault sent the 3rd Squadron to Rangoon to help the British, and the 1st and 2nd squadrons to Kunming.

Q: What did you find at Kunming?

A: The Japanese had started bombing Kunming on December 17, and they came back on the 19th, when Chennault sent us up.

We landed at dusk, and things were still smoking. The next morning, there was an alert. My P-40 was ready for some maintenance, and the cowling was off. We had planes in the air. Jack Newkirk, with a flight of four, intercepted the bombers, made a pass and came on back. Other planes took off. I got the cowling on, took off and headed east. The Japanese had come up from Haiphong.

They followed the railroad, 50 miles east of Kunming, and then turned due west into Kunming. As soon as our fighters hit them, the Japanese bombers did a 180-degree turn. But instead of making a beeline for home, they started following the railroad back. When I went in for the attack, I did what we had been practicing. I got up on the high perch, started a curve of pursuit down for the last plane [a Kawasaki Ki.48 bomber] on the left of that nine-plane “V” formation and started shooting. I saw my tracers going in, wingtip to wingtip. I thought, why doesn’t he blow up?

There was a tail gunner firing back at me as I came right up the tail, just shooting the hell out of him. At the last moment, I shoved the stick down and went under the plane. The rear gunner was slumped over his gun. I had shot his lower jaw completely away. I can still see the camouflage paint on that plane and can count the rivets. As I climbed, I looked back. There was a flame from just aft

of the pilot’s cockpit, streaming 50 feet beyond the tail. I watched it slowly nose over and go in. I made a couple more passes, but I had trouble with my guns. I thought, if I can’t fire a gun, there’s nothing more I can do here. I flew alongside the bombers and got their heading, assuming that they were going to take the shortest way home. But they had gone east first and then turned south, so that the reciprocal that I flew was 70 miles east of Kunming. I got caught in a blind canyon, ran out of fuel and landed near a village when I didn’t know which areas the Japanese controlled.

Q: Your two victories on January 24, 1942, included your first success against a fighter. What happened?

A: That occurred while we were assisting the RAF over Rangoon.

We made a pass at a bomber formation, and I got one [a Mitsubishi Ki.21]. I was pulling up at 1,600 feet above the ground when I saw these red balls going by me. I looked back and saw a Nakajima Ki.27 on my tail, fishtailing to keep from overshooting me. I ducked down, rolled under him, he went past me and kept on going straight while I rolled back up and behind him. I riddled him real good. He dived straightaway, and I dived down after him.

Then I watched as that pilot, whose cockpit was in flames, opened his hood, stood up and jumped at 400 feet. Noel Bacon, the operations officer in the 2nd Squadron, saw him fall into the compound just beyond ours. After I landed, Bacon came up and handed me this pilot’s .38-caliber pistol and his wallet, with his picture and one of his wife and small child. I gave away the pistol, but kept his wallet. Decades later, the AVG had a reunion at Hangkow, which included veterans of the 44th Sentai, a unit that we fought over China. I gave the fighter pilot’s wallet to the 44th association’s president and asked him to try to track down the pilot’s family and return it for me. He promised he would.

Q: You were on the AVG strike on the Japanese Army Air Force forward bases in Thailand on March 24, 1942.

A: Chennault had good intelligence and the ability to think as the Japanese would in planning things—as well as marvelous luck. He knew there was a big Japanese force in northern Thailand, at Chiang Mai and a second airfield. The Japanese knew we didn’t have the range to hit them from Kunming. We took off from Kunming, overnighted and refueled at Loi Wing and then took off for He Ho, an RAF airfield in eastern Burma. We spent the afternoon and early evening refueling with 5-gallon tins of gasoline. We used chamois skin to filter the fuel that had been stored for years in those tins. The Burmese laid out smoke pots that night, to mark the runway for a pre-dawn takeoff the next morning.

Q: How many of you were involved in the strike?

A: Ten, all from different squadrons. Four planes led by Jack Newkirk took off first and headed for Lampung. I was with the Chiang Mai group, six planes with Robert H. Neale leading.

There was a haze and we couldn’t see a thing. Our time frame

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was an hour and 10 minutes plus, but there was nothing but a glow in the east where the sun was rising. Charles Bond, who was leading our No. 2 section, had made a recon flight over Chiang Mai a while earlier. He knew that east and north of the town there was a mountain that came up above all the rest of the terrain. He happened to look down and saw that mountain sticking up through the haze. He came up alongside Bob Neale and rocked his wings to say,“Follow me,” and down he went. William D.“Black Mac” McGarry was on my wing. The two of us were to stay on top in case the Japanese had a dawn patrol. We circled twice. We could see fire below, planes burning, and I said, “Hell, there are no Japanese up here,” and so down we went. I made one pass, Black Mac made one. The others had already made three passes, and Bob Neale had made four. I climbed to join the others, but Black Mac went back for a second pass, and that’s when he got hit. When he came up to join us, I saw him trailing white smoke. He had to bail out and was held in Bangkok until near the end of the war when he escaped. I can’t recall the number of planes we destroyed, but we left 15 or 20 of them burning.

Q: Perhaps the most significant AVG action was to stop the Japanese push into China at the Salween River Gorge in mid-May 1942.

A: Two Chinese armies had been sent down to Burma to help the British against the Japanese onslaught. It was futile. In early May those units were retreating into Chinese territory. I had made a couple of flights into Burma earlier, checking on the Japanese advance. In one place I landed on a polo field, where Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell was resting in a nearby building. I gave his staff chapter and verse on where the Japanese were and told them they were coming virtually unimpeded. The Chinese were retreating, and the Japanese were following them right down to the Salween Gorge. The Burma Road came right down the gorge on the west side of the Salween River. There was a bridge, the only one for maybe hundreds of miles, and a road that made 18 serpentine turns coming down to the river and across the bridge and 23 hairpin turns up to the plateau on the other side. I led a flight of four planes out of Kunming to catch up with the Japanese and to see how far they had come. We caught them starting down those hairpin turns, advancing to keep the Chinese from destroying the bridge. Japanese trucks and armored vehicles were bumper to bumper, and we strafed the hell out of them. They scattered, and we got one more strike off late that afternoon. That flight found the Japanese back on the road and within six hairpin turns of getting to the bridge. The Chinese blew the bridge and started up the other

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side. The next two days, from dawn till dusk, we strafed and bombed that Japanese column up and down the river and then followed them when they retreated back into Burma. After that, the Chinese made sure the gorge was well guarded. We lost one pilot, but we destroyed a lot of Japanese and their equipment. I’m sure we stopped the Japanese from taking over China.

Q: How was the AVG disbanded?

A: The AVG was disbanded on July 4, 1942. Those who chose to would be inducted into the Army Air Forces. The 23rd Fighter Group was formed to replace the AVG. Clayton Bissell of the Army Air Forces had been in India and was promoted to brigadier general one day before Chennault. He came to China with a chip on his shoulder. His pitch to the AVG was: “You all might as well sign up now and become part of the 23rd. Your record is good, but if you go home, your draft board will meet you when your ship docks.” This rubbed everyone the wrong way. Almost to a man, they said, “To hell with that, we’re going home.” Only five pilots and 28 ground crewmen out of the original AVG stayed.

Rector (third from left) and comrades examine the rudder of a Nakajima Ki.27 of the 77th Sentai shot down in Burma, on January 29, 1942.

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Q: You were one of those five. How did that come about?

A: I was at Hengyang when Tex Hill returned from seeing Chennault. He told Tex that unless some of us experienced pilots stayed on, he would have to abandon the forward bases. Tex asked if I could stay on. I told Tex I had planned on going home and probably going back in the Navy. “Well, the Old Man asked me to check with you,” Tex said. I said to Tex,“I suppose you’re staying.”

He said,“Yeah,” and I said,“Count me in.” So one day, we’re AVG, and the next day I’m a 24-year-old major in the 23rd Fighter Group and given command of the 76th Fighter Squadron.

Q: Chennault feared the Japanese would quickly eliminate the inexperienced pilots. What happened on July 4?

A: I had moved down to Kwelin. My new squadron was a ragtag outfit, 14 pilots. I had one AVG pilot, Charles W. Sawyer, as my deputy. The rest were inexperienced pilots. I had them up until 11:30 on July 3, briefing them on the principles of Chennault’s tactics. I told them that in all likelihood they would be in a dogfight the next day, and they were. The Japanese came to attack the airfield at Kwelin. About a dozen Nates were diving on Bob Neale’s flight west of the field when we dived on them from 13,000 feet. I got one in a diving turn, and he burst into flame and went into a cloud. I climbed and made several more passes, and though one Nate forced me to dive, in doing so I got in a head-on burst at two others and saw the engine of one let out a burst of smoke as I passed over them.

Q: What did you do on leave in December 1942?

A: I did some War Bond rallies and a stint at Walter Reed for a parasite I picked up in China. Tex Hill had been assigned to Eglin Field, Fla., as the proving ground group commander, and he requested that I be assigned there. I took command of the light bomb section, to test new and upgraded equipment.

Q: When did you get back into combat?

A: In September 1944. The Japanese had kicked us out of our forward bases in the Sian Valley, and we had pulled back to Kunming.

We occupied two airfields behind Japanese lines, at Suichuan and Kanchow, and operated out of there for a while. I took command of the 23rd Fighter Group in November. We started winning and the Japanese fell back. We moved back into the Sian Valley.

Q: You had a nearly fatal experience soon after returning.

A: I’d taken command of the 23rd and wanted to get a look at some of the coastal cities. The commander of the 74th Squadron and I took off in P-51Bs. We got to Swatow, found a pair of Japanese planes under netting and set them on fire. Then we went on to Amoy. It was overcast. We stayed low and headed straight in for the airfield. As we got closer, so many anti-aircraft guns opened up that it looked like a diamond necklace. I thought, “Uh-oh, somebody could get hit!” I lined up on a Japanese airplane on the

field, then pulled up and there was one hell of an explosion. I could see the ground through the hole in my right wing and the engine started cutting out. I tried to get as much altitude as I could. I tried to release the canopy. The handle slid around, but the canopy didn’t release. I remembered reading reports of two of our pilots who had been found in the cockpits of their crashed P-51s with their fingers torn to the bone. I stood up, put my back against the canopy and shoved. It was a superhuman effort, but I broke the canopy loose. I got out at 800 feet. The parachute opened, I swung through the air one time and hit the ground.

Some Chinese came along and got me on a horse and out of there. It took me days.

Q: Describe your last victory on April 2, 1945.

A: The 23rd Group was charged with neutralizing all airfields from Shanghai south, in support of the April 1 invasion of Okinawa. There were five fields at Shanghai. I led my squadron against Kiangwan airfield. We destroyed 48 aircraft on the ground. I made two turns to attack the field, and then I saw what looked like a Cessna UC-78 twin-engine transport. I was flying a P-51D Mustang with a new gunsight. I cranked in the diamonds on the sight to close in on him. Just then I saw a flash of light out of my left eye and saw another P-51D, flown by Colonel Clyde Slocumb, the 75th Squadron commander. He blew the trainer out of the sky.As I said over the radio,“Clyde, you bastard, you took one away from me,” I saw his plane on fire. He’d been hit by groundfire.

Q: Did Slocumb survive?

A: I thought he was dead. Then, on April 25, he walked into my office in Laoyang and told me the whole story. He had bailed out, then ran to the edge of the airfield and there was a Chinese peasant motioning for him to come with him. They gave him a bicycle to ride to the next town. From there, he made his way back aboard a junk and on foot. They gave him a raincoat and a hat and showed him how to carry a load on a stick and walk like a laborer. He walked past Japanese guard posts without being noticed.

Q: If Slocumb “stole” the transport from you, how did you shoot down another?

A: After taking two turns on Kiangwan airfield, I flew over to Woosing at the mouth of the bay. As I was on my way back, I caught another of those twin-engine transports, which had taken off to avoid being caught on the ground at Kiangwan, trying to sneak back. He apparently thought we’d all left, but I got him.

Q: How did the war end for the 23rd Fighter Group?

A: We moved to Hangchow after V-J Day and lived in splendor compared to what we had before. The food was good. The men lived in barracks, the officers in hotels. We stayed there until December 1945, as a show of force. Chinese armies were on the move, and there was concern about Russian moves in the north. ★

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