The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (54 page)

I observed what I believe was an attempt at air-to-air bombing, although I didn’t see the bombs dropped. A patch of seventy-five to 100 gray-white bursts, smaller than flak bursts, appeared simultaneously at our level, off to one side.

One B-17 dropped out on fire and put its wheels down while the crew bailed. Three ME-109s circled it closely, but held their fire, apparently ensuring that no one stayed in the ship to try for home. I saw Hun fighters hold their fire even when being shot at by a B-17 from which the crew was bailing out.

Near the IP, one hour and a half after the first of at least 200 individual fighter attacks, the pressure eased off, although hostiles were nearby. We turned at the IP with fourteen B-17s left, two of which were badly crippled. They dropped out after bombing the target and headed for Switzerland. The number-four engine on one of them was afire, but the plane was not out of control. The leader of the high squadron received a cannon shell in his number-three engine just before the start of the bombing run and went in to the target with the prop feathered.

Weather over target, as on the entire trip, was ideal. Flak was negligible. The group got its bombs away promptly on the leader. As we turned and headed for the Alps, I got a grim satisfaction out of seeing a column of smoke rising straight up from the ME-109 shops, with only one burst over in the town of Regensburg.

The rest of the trip was a marked anticlimax. A few more fighters pecked at us on the way to the Alps. A town in the Brenner Pass tossed up a lone burst of futile flak. We circled the air division over Lake Garda long enough to give the cripples a chance to join the family, and we were on our way toward the Mediterranean in a gradual descent. About twenty-five fighters on the ground at Verona stayed on the ground. The prospect of ditching as we approached Bone, shortages of fuel, and the sight of other B-17s falling into the drink seemed trivial matters after the nightmare of the long trip across southern Germany. We felt the reaction of men who had not expected to see another sunset.

At dusk, with red lights showing on all of the fuel tanks in my ship, the seven B-17s of the group still in formation circled over Bertoux and landed in the dust. Our crew was unscratched. Sole damage to the airplane: a bit of ventilation around the tail from flak and 20-mm shells. We slept on the hard ground under the wings of our B-17, but the good earth felt softer than a silk pillow.

FLYING HIGH

CHUCK YEAGER

Chuck Yeager achieved world fame in 1947 when he became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, flying the Bell X-1. In this extract he recounts an earlier exploit, flying his P-51 Mustang in a wild aerial fight over Germany in the dying days of World War II and also gives his thoughts on the tactics of dogfighting. He emerged from World War II with 11.5 “kills”.

On rainy nights in the flight leader’s Nissen, we’d listen to Glenn Miller records on the phonograph and toast grilled cheese sandwiches on the coke stove. If we had a good day at work, we heated a poker red hot and branded another swastika on the front door. Each swastika represented a dogfight victory, and by the end of my tour, that door displayed fifty. Four of us accounted for more than half the squadron’s total number of kills. During the last week in November, I became a double ace with eleven kills by shooting down four German planes during an historic dogfight – the greatest single American victory of the air war.

Andy was leading the squadron and I was leading one of the flights of four. Our job that day was to escort Mustangs carrying a bomb and a drop tank under their wings for attacking underground fuel facilities near Poznah, Poland. We provided top cover, flying at 35,000 feet, while the bomb-carrying Mustangs cruised below. On German radar we were mistaken for a fleet of unescorted heavy bombers, and the Luftwaffe scrambled every available fighter in East Germany and Poland. Andy and I were the first to see them coming; at fifty miles or more, they were a dark cloud moving toward us. “God almighty, there must be a hundred and fifty of them,” Andy exclaimed. We couldn’t believe our luck. Andy called for a turn left that put me in the lead; we punched our wing tanks and plowed right into the rear of this enormous gaggle of German fighters.

There were sixteen of us and over two hundred of them, but then more Mustangs from group caught up and joined in. Christ, there were airplanes going every which way. I shot down two very quickly; one of the airplanes blew up, but the pilot bailed out of the other. I saw him jump, but he forgot to fasten his parachute harness; it pulled off in the windstream and he spun down to earth. To this day I can still see him falling.

A dogfight runs by its own clock and I have no idea how long I was spinning and looping in the sky. I wound up 2,000 feet from the deck with four kills. Climbing back to altitude, I found myself alone in an empty sky. But for as far as I could see, from Leipzig to way up north, the ground was littered with burning wreckage. It was an awesome sight.

We found out later that we hadn’t even attacked their main force: the Germans put up 750 fighters against what they thought was a huge bomber fleet. They ran into two hundred Mustangs from three different fighter groups and lost ninety-eight airplanes. We lost eleven.

I climbed to 35,000 feet and saw three small specks way off and slightly higher. I still had plenty of fuel and ammo, and I just began to turn toward those specks, when I heard a familiar voice: “Bogie down south.” Only one pair of eyes could’ve spotted me the moment I began my turn. “Andy,” I asked, “is that you?” It was. And crazy bastards that we were, we raced toward each other and began to dogfight, happy as clams. He had shot down three. Andy led us home and it turned out to be one of the funny moments of our friendship.

We encountered unusually powerful headwinds, and after a couple of hours Andy assumed we were over the Channel and began his descent. We followed him down into a thick cloud over and found ourselves directly over the anti-aircraft emplacements on the Frisian Islands. I mean we could’ve walked home on that flak; the sky was black with it. And there we were, only 500 feet above those big guns. Man, did we cuss poor Andy. By the time we landed his ears were purple. And we kept at it for days. Hell, I still haven’t let him forget that one.

That day was a fighter pilot’s dream. In the midst of a wild sky, I knew that dogfighting was what I was born to do. It’s almost impossible to explain the feeling: it’s as if you were one with that Mustang, an extension of that damned throttle. You flew that thing on a fine, feathered edge, knowing that the pilot who won had the better feel for his airplane and the skill to get the most out of it. You were so wired into that airplane that you flew it to the limit of its specs, where firing your guns could cause a stall. You felt that engine in your bones, felt it nibbling toward a stall, throttle wide open, getting maximum maneuvering performance. And you knew how tight to turn before the Mustang snapped out on you, a punishment if you blundered. Maximum power, lift, and maneuverability were achieved mostly by instinctive flying: you knew your horse. Concentration was total; you remained focused, ignoring fatigue or fear, not allowing static into your mind. Up there, dogfighting, you connected with yourself. That small, cramped cockpit was exactly where you belonged.

You fought wide open, full-throttle. With experience, you knew before a kill when you were going to score. Once you zeroed in, began to outmaneuver your opponent while closing in, you became a cat with a mouse. You set him up, and there was no way out: both of you knew he was finished. You were a confident hunter and your finger never shook. You picked your spot: slightly below, so you could pull up, lead him a little, and avoid being hit by metal when he disintegrated. When he blew up, it was a pleasing, beautiful sight. There was no joy in killing someone, but real satisfaction when you outflew a guy and destroyed his machine. That was the contest: human skill and machine performance. You knew when you killed a pilot in his cockpit from the way his airplane began to windmill, going straight down. Then, you followed him to the deck, flipping on the camera to record the explosion and document your kill. The excitement of those dogfights never diminished. For me, combat remains the ultimate flying experience.

Tactics? Keep the sun at your back and as much altitude advantage as possible; bounce the enemy out of the sun. Not always possible, of course, and sometimes you were the one being bounced. For every action there was a possible reaction, and with experience I learned to anticipate and outguess my opponent. I knew, for example, even while I was cutting him off that he would probably try to reverse himself, so I led him a little; if I was right, I had him. If I was wrong, I had to go back to work to get him. But, really, my biggest tactical advantage was my eyes. I spotted him from great distances, knowing he couldn’t see me because he was only a dim speck. Sometimes he never did see me when I bounced him out of the sun; or when he did finally see me, it was too late.

In a sky filled with airplanes, I needed to keep my neck on a swivel to avoid getting hit, being shot down, or running into somebody. The best survival tactic always was to check your tail constantly and stay alert. Dogfighting was hard work. You needed strong arms and shoulders. Those controls weren’t hydraulically operated, and at 400 mph they became extremely heavy. Without cabin pressurization, flying at high altitude wore you out. And so did pulling Gs in sharp turns and steep dives. (A two-hundred-pound pilot weighs eight hundred pounds during a 4-G turn.) After a couple of minutes of dogfighting, your back and arms felt like you had been hauling a piano upstairs. You were sweaty and breathing heavily. Sometimes you could see a German’s exhaustion from the way he turned and maneuvered – another advantage if you were stronger.

Dogfighting demanded the sum total of all your strengths, and exposed any of your weaknesses. Some good pilots lacked the eyes; others became too excited and lost concentration, or lost their nerve and courage; a few panicked in tight spots and did stupid things that cost them their lives. The best pilots were also the most aggressive, and it showed.

We quickly learned basic do’s and don’ts. If the enemy was above, we didn’t climb to meet him because we lost too much speed. When in a jam, we never ran. That was exactly what he expected. It was important to always check your back when popping out of the clouds: you could have jumped out in front of a 109. We avoided weaving around cumulus clouds; they’re like boulders and you could have been easily ambushed. And we were particularly alert while flying beneath high thin cirrus clouds. Germans could look down through them and see you, but you couldn’t see up through them. Whenever possible, we carefully timed our turns in a head-on attack, to avoid being caught sideways and becoming a direct target. We also tried to avoid overshooting an enemy plane, which put you in front of his gun-sights; it was like shooting yourself down. One of the guys once asked Colonel Spicer, our group commander, what to do if caught by a large force. “Rejoice, laddie,” the old man said, “that’s why you’re here.”

Some of our guys fought that way. In the middle of a vicious dogfight, I heard one of them say: “Hey, I’ve got six of them cornered at two o’clock. Come on up and have some fun.” But one time I also heard the most horrifying scream blast into my headphones. “Oh, God, they got me. My head, my damned head. I’m bleeding to death.” That night at the officers’ club, the shrieker showed up wearing a Band-Aid, a goddamned Band-Aid, taped to the back of his neck. He had been nicked by a piece of Plexiglas. So, our squadron ran the gamut. If you wanted to stay alive, you kept an eye on the weak sisters as carefully as you watched for Germans. The worst of them would get so shaken in a dogfight that they’d shoot at anybody, friend or foe. I remember how pissed we were when the worst pilot in the outfit became the first of us to score a victory and won a bottle of cognac. He was in a flight of four that got bounced by some Germans and crawled in behind his leader, only to discover he was on the tail of a 109 hammering his leader. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

There were guys who became so terrified being in the same sky with Krauts that they began to hyperventilate and blacked out; a few actually shit their pants. Some were honest about their fear and asked to be relieved from combat duty. There were others who talked big during training, but once in combat turned tail at critical moments. Of course, they were screwing the rest of us. We also had a few abort artists, guys would would fly with you until a gaggle of Germans was sighted and then radio they were turning back with engine trouble. There were still others who would fire a burst, then quickly break off; or watch somebody else hammer an airplane, then, when the German was already windmilling and going down, dive in and fire a quick burst, then try to share credit for the kill. I had a guy do that to me. Believe me, he never did it again. Worst of all were wingmen who left you naked in a tight spot. A wingman’s job was to stick like glue to his leader’s tail, while his leader did the shooting. He was your damned life insurance, his reliability a matter of your life or death. If he failed you, there was no second chance. You got rid of him in a hurry. Eddie Simpson was Andy’s wingman until Eddie got shot down. Before they flew together, Eddie said to Andy, “Let’s go to London and get drunk together. Then, I’ll follow you into hell.” I had five or six wingmen during my tour; some had better eyesight or more discipline than others, but since I never got shot down flying as an element or squadron leader, they were competent enough, I guess.

The special closeness between the best of us – Anderson, Bochkay, Browning, O’Brien, and myself – existed because we fought the same way. Andy especially. On the ground, he was the nicest person you’d ever know, but in the sky, those damned Germans must’ve thought they were up against Frankenstein or the Wolfman; Andy would hammer them into the ground, dive with them into the damned grave, if necessary, to destroy them. So would I. We finished what we started every time. That’s how we were raised. We did our job. We were over there to shoot down Germans, and that’s exactly what we did, to the best of our ability and training. We were a pack of untested kids who grew up in a hurry. Andy called it the college of life and death. I don’t recommend going to war as a way of testing character, but by the time our tour ended we felt damned good about ourselves and what we had accomplished. Whatever the future held, we knew our skills as pilots, our ability to handle stress and danger, and our reliability in tight spots. It was the difference between thinking you’re pretty good, and proving it.