Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2024 i Flight Journal

JOE PETERBURS ENJOYED “EVERY MINUTE” of his combat experience during the late stages of World War II. Becoming a five-victory ace and shooting down an Me-262 flown by a famed German pilot was simply part of four intense months of combat, days as a POW, and fighting alongside a Russian tank unit. And that’s just one period of an Air Force career that lasted 36 years, including combat in the skies of Korea, ejecting from a jet during the Cold War, and an assignment to Vietnam that nearly cost him his life during the Tet Offensive. Eighty one years after it all began when he was called to active duty in January 1943, 99-year-old Peterburs is buoyant, congenial, and modest about his incredible career. Prepared and eager to fight There…

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty, as a Division Leader in Marine Fighter Squadron 221 in action against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the Solomon Islands area, April 7, 1943. In a daring flight to intercept a wave of 150 Japanese planes, First Lieutenant Swett unhesitatingly hurled his four-plane division into action against a formation of fifteen enemy bombers and during his dive personally exploded three hostile planes in midair with accurate and deadly fire. Although separated from his division while clearing the heavy concentration of antiaircraft fire, he boldly attacked six enemy bombers, engaged the first four in turn, and unaided, shot them down in flames. Exhausting his ammunition as he closed the fifth Japanese bomber,…

Hawker Hurricane II vs. Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX Pilot 〉〉 Charles E. Edmondson, 451 Squadron RAAF In August of 1941, while stationed in Egypt, I was thrust into the cockpit of a Hawker Hurricane and was given some words of advice by my instructor. “You’ll find the controls on this kite to be more sensitive to anything else you will ever fly—if you survive long enough, laddie!” And boy, was he ever right! The cockpit on the Hurricane was nice and snug and the forward visibility was not bad at all. But the problems started when I pushed the throttle forward. With a 1,030-horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin engine dragging me down the desert, it felt as if I was on a roller coaster as I went up and down while my…

P-40 Warhawk vs. Macchi MC.200 / Bf 109 / Fw 190 Pilot 〉〉 Wayne “Fox” Rhynard, 79th Fighter Group For the most part, all I knew about fighters during my early combat days were P-40 Warhawks. Most of my time was in the Merlin-powered P-40F. The P-40 was a rock-solid airplane; in fact, it climbed just like a big rock—slow and sluggish! But down low it was a great gun platform and a killer strafer. Although it lacked the get-up-and-go to tangle with the Luftwaffe and Italians at high altitudes, I nevertheless met them head-on when they dove into us. Not only did I tangle with a variety of enemy fighters, but I also wound up flying some of them as well. For whatever reason, our 79th Fighter Group came…

Captain Henry T. Elrod did it all. In the 16-day defense of Wake Island in December 1941, the 36-year-old Marine shot down at least one Japanese aircraft, sank an enemy warship, and conducted the ground defense on his part of the 1,400-acre sandspit when the invaders got ashore. A native Georgian, Elrod had enlisted in the Corps in 1927, received a commission, and won wings of gold in 1935. He was an experienced fighter pilot in Maj. Paul Putnam’s VMF-211 when Mitsubishi G3M Nells attacked on December 8, across the International Date Line from Pearl Harbor. Elrod was leading his four-plane division but was out of position to intercept the bombers. They wrecked much of Wake’s defense, including all the F4F-3s on the ground. The pilots took turns flying the…

SUPERMARINE SPITFIRES MH415 and MH434 represent something of a warbird Holy Grail. Two of the most original combat veteran Spitfire Mk IXs in the world, built just 20 airframes apart on the same production line in 1943, they share large elements of their operational histories and both are credited with wartime kills. In more recent times, they have been connected to some outstanding names in the warbird world, and here they are, airborne as a pair once more, for the lens of John Dibbs. Spitfires MH415 and MH434 Spitfires Mk LF IX MH415 and MH434 were part of a batch of Spitfires ordered at the end of May 1943 and manufactured at the Castle Bromwich Spitfire factory near Birmingham, England, where they were assembled just 20 airframes apart on the…

IN NOVEMBER 1942, I had been assigned to VMF-221, not as an original member of the squadron but as a replacement pilot for all the men who had gone through holy hell at Midway. The group had lost a tremendous amount of pilots and planes on the tiny Pacific island, as they stood and fought the Japanese onslaught. After my advanced fighter training in Hawaii, I was sent to a place in the south Pacific called Guadalcanal and became a member of the “Cactus Air Force”—cactus being the codename for Guadalcanal. Our living conditions were very basic; we lived in tents next to slit trenches. When the Zeros strafed us on a daily basis, we simply rolled out of our tents into a trench and waited for them to leave.…

ALTHOUGH UNDER DEVELOPMENT since 1937 with a handful of preproduction and developmental examples, it wasn’t until the introduction of the “E” model of the P-38 in late 1941 that the Army Air Force finally had an advanced fighter ready for combat. Bringing Lockheed’s Model 222-62-09 to that level required over 2,000 engineering changes. Electrical and hydraulics were improved, nose armament was standardized with four, now staggered, .50-calibers and the Hispano 20mm centerline cannon. The nose gear retraction drag strut location was reversed, now to the rear and allowed more room for ammunition in the nose compartment. Leading edge wing to fuselage fillets became standard as a solution to a previously discovered buffeting problem unconnected to the already uncovered compressibility phenomenon. Curtiss Electric props were fitted to most of the 210…

Supermarine Spitfire Mk XI vs. XIX Pilot 〉〉 Flight Lt. Norman Godfrey, 16 Squadron RAF She had caught my attention and curiosity late in the war. She had a larger rudder and beautiful, graceful lines, even with that big, five-bladed propeller hanging from her nose. I had flown her older sister right up until the end of the war as part of a photo-reconnaissance unit with 16 Squadron and I am bound to say that the Spitfire Mk XI was a real beauty to fly. But when I first laid eyes on the new and improved 2,035-horsepower Rolls-Royce Griffon-powered Spitfire Mk XIX sitting on our airfield, I was awestruck by her features. This Spitfire looked bigger to me and her lines and features were breathtaking. In fact, it was three…

BY THE END OF JUNE 1944, six of the original Me 262 prototypes had been destroyed or badly damaged. In order to replace them, Messerschmitt decided to take six standard production machines and give them the now-defunct Versuchs numbers. These production machines were used to test a large and varied number of experiments and modifications. W.Nr. 170303 became the second V7 and made its first flight on September 22, 1944. It made a total number of 67 test flights, totalling 18 hours and 38 minutes by the end of February 1945. It was used to test brakes, new hydraulics, the adjustable control column, wooden elevator designs, bad-weather visibility equipment, improved cabin ventilation and rocket-assisted takeoff units. It was also used for high-speed trials, high-altitude-performance measurements and single-engine test flights. The…

FIGHTER PLANES ARE ICONS. Long after their guns were unloaded, the lethal elegance of Mustangs, Lightnings, and Corsairs continue drawing new generations of admirers. If you doubt it, check any airshow. The crowds are thickest around the airframes bearing “P” or “F” prefixes. No era has produced so rich a variety or as enduring a heritage of fighters as World War II. Only several hundred remain worldwide, but they generate a disproportionate amount of interest for their numbers. The following figures contain anomalies. For instance, the Hellcat, only fifth among numbers of U.S. fighters, produced by far the most aces, and easily notched more kills than the P-40 and F4U combined. Furthermore, the most built fighter, the P-47, has vastly fewer survivors than the next two, the Mustang and P-40…

IT’S A SIMPLE QUESTION, really, and one I have asked hundreds of times over to the World War II veteran fighter pilots that I have interviewed. But the responses are far from straightforward; in fact, some are more complex than others. A number of the guys will answer, tongue in cheek, that it was the particular airplane they were flying in at the time. Others will graciously proclaim that it was, of course, the one that always brought them home safely, flak holes and all. Although a few flew only one type during their combat tour, there were those pilots, some of which you will meet shortly, who had the privilege (or displeasure) of experiencing firsthand what it was like to fly a variety of front-line fighters. So buckle up…

P-47 Thunderbolt vs. P-51 Mustang Pilot 〉〉 Frank Oiler, 1st Lt. 78th Fighter Group 8th Air Force In early 1944, after having been commissioned a second Lieutenant and with 10 hours of P-40 flight time under my belt, I was introduced to a “beast” of an airplane called a P-47C Thunderbolt. As I stood in front of this behemoth of an airplane, wide eyed and intimidated by its size, the only thought that ran through my young mind was, “It’s so damn big, it will never fly!” This monster weighed over eight tons fully loaded and towered over me like an overgrown milk jug. Simply put, I was awestruck. When they finally turned us loose and told us to crank our engines, the sound of that big 2,000-horsepower R2800 Pratt…

P-38 Lightning vs. P-51 Mustang Pilot 〉〉 Edward B. Giller, 55th Fighter Group The 55th Fighter Group went operational in October of 1943 at the controls of the P-38 Lightning. That’s about the same time I learned the important shortcomings of the Lightning in European combat. Most of our early missions were bomber escorts where we were forced to go to high altitudes above 30,000 feet—and the Germans were always way above us. The Bf 109s and Fw 190s would zoom down on us and escape using a split-S maneuver. The P-38s could never come close to catching them due to compressibility. The unique twin tails of the P-38 provided positive recognition for the Germans at distances greater than we could see them. Our initial engagements were always at a…

I WAS ONLY 5 FEET 4 INCHES TALL when I graduated from flight training in 1943, but my instructors saw something gigantic inside of me. I was one of 60 Second Lieutenants selected out of 400 to go into fighters—P-47 Thunderbolts to be exact. When I first saw the airplane I would fly in combat, my only thought was, “Why in the heck did I ever ask for this behemoth!” But after I flew the Jug for awhile, I really liked it and thought it was a piece of cake to fly—easy to handle, reliable and stable. There was nothing out there that could beat the Jug in a dive; not even a rock! What I admired most about it though were those eight .50-caliber machine guns that stuck out…

“I could see the handwriting on the wall and I knew we were going to lose the war when I watched helplessly as over 1,200 American bombers and fighters flew over Hungary. What were we to do with only 40 of us in our tired old Me 109s? It was the beginning of the end for the Pumas during that dreadful summer of 1944.” Learning the ropes in the Me 109 I remember growing up in Hungary and thinking we were stuck between a rock and a hard place when World War II broke out. My father had been a veteran of World War I and was taken prisoner by the Russians, so I grew up listening to his horror stories of being a POW in Siberia. Needless to say,…