That's why I loved to dogfight. It was a clean contest of skill, stamina, and courage, one on one.
FLYING HIGH
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 Poznan, 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 dog fight, 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 cover and found ourselves directly over the antiaircraft 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 trigger 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.