Fighter Pilot

by Christina Olds

  Gradually, I came to realize that although no two men are alike, certain deep characteristics could indeed be generalized. One man can be self-assured. He’s not the one who’s going to get hurt. He has convinced himself nothing can touch him. He’s type 1. The other guy has the unshakable premonition that he will not last out his combat tour. His apprehension often leads to fulfillment of the premonition. He’s type 2. As it turned out, we lost both kinds. I guess getting shot down came as a surprise to type 1. Getting shot down only confirmed type 2’s suspicions.

  * * *

  On August 25, eleven days after those first two kills, we were finally sent on a real, honest-to-God sweep out in front of the bomber force, clearing the way and daring Jerry to come up. The morning’s briefing map revealed yarn lines showing the route of bombers in two segments, one to the north and the other farther south by a hundred miles or so. That wasn’t unusual. What brought us to our feet was the red line depicting the 479th. We were between the two bomber raids, and OUT IN FRONT! We were the point of the spear. This was the position of honor and our first crack at the greatest of all distinctions for any fighter group in the 8th Air Force. At long last, we wouldn’t be in the grind of close escort, just watching, weaving, and waiting, knowing that if our assigned bomber box got tapped by the Jerries, we’d already be at a disadvantage and damned lucky to down any Focke-Wulfs or Messerschmitts before they tore into our big friends like sharks into a school of tuna.

  When Hub stepped onto the stage we settled down. He looked at us sternly for a moment and then started. “OK, you guys, here’s the drill. I’ll be leading Bison. Lakeside Squadron will be on my right, Newcross on the left. Copy down your numbers and we’ll be sharp and crisp on the taxi, takeoff, and join-up. I’ll do the standard three-circle orbit round the ’drome while you join up flights and squadrons in trail. I’ll set course after the third go-round and start climbing. Squadrons, you fan right and left to your assigned positions. Hold close formation within your flights until I give the signal for combat spread. We’ll set course for IJmuiden on the coast of Holland climbing to 28,000. I want us really spread out today, but don’t lag. Keep it damn near line abreast right across the whole group. That way we’ll cover the widest swath of sky and have the best chance of picking up the Jerries. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut unless you really see something. The Hun has been coming up in large gaggles lately. That means we’ll probably be outnumbered, but he’ll be unwieldy and not as maneuverable as our combat formations. You wingmen, stick with your element lead. Check six o’clock and try to keep a mental picture of the general position of the aircraft around you. Remember, a midair collision kills you just as quickly as a burst of 20 mm. You’ve heard the weather. It couldn’t be better all day, so no sweat there. No contrails though. That works both ways: We can’t see them, but they can’t find us as easily. Intelligence will brief the enemy order of battle and the known flak sites on our route. I’ll keep us away from the bigger concentrations, but we can expect some attention from the odd marshaling yard or airfield we might overfly. As spread out as we’ll be, we can’t avoid all the gunners. Hell, shooting’s what they’re paid for anyhow.”

  He finished with a big grin. “Right, troops. This is your big chance. Let’s give ’em HELL!”

  A cheer greeted that, and we broke for our individual squadron briefing rooms. After a cup of bitter coffee and a piece of toast with real butter and some wonderful English jam, we tried to settle down for our squadron CO’s short briefing. We could tell he was excited, too, but trying hard to hide it. His advice and admonitions were normal-normal, and I’m afraid we fidgeted and hardly paid attention.

  On the way out I told Blue Flight I intended to sneak us out as far to the left of the rest of the squadron as I dared. I wanted us to spread out even farther than our normal combat formation, and we’d keep a sharp watch to our left front and out to the left side. Enough eyes would be looking straight ahead and to our right. We’d concentrate totally on our own piece of sky.

  I reminded my guys to keep their eyes moving and not to let their focus fix on infinity. Look at the most distant airplane across the group, then sweep eyes back to our piece of sky. Look to the ground to refocus on every cycle. Always sweep. Remember, anything you see is bound to be enemy; no one else will be out there.

  My wingman, the usually unflappable B. E. Hollister, was positively twitching. His eyes glittered with excitement. If any of my Blue Flight guys were nervous or apprehensive, it certainly didn’t show. They reminded me of three six-month-old pups waiting for their master to throw the ball, tails wagging furiously, tongues out, prancing, waiting to be off. I don’t suppose I looked or acted much different.

  The takeoff drill went like clockwork. After the three orbits, Colonel Zemke rolled out on course for the North Sea and Holland. Lakeside and Newcross squadrons smoothly slid out to either side as we started our climb to 28,000 feet. We crossed the coast of East Angelia and headed out over the Channel. Highway called Colgate Control and announced, “Feet wet.” Radio silence then settled over us, each in the cocoon of his cockpit with nothing but his thoughts. I looked down at the North Sea’s relatively calm and peaceful surface and thought how deceptive it was. There were far too many burned and sunken ships and ditched airplanes, too many lives lost, too many years of agony and strife in those icy depths, to appreciate any beauty in it.

  Hub’s voice broke through. “Highway here. Go spread formation.”

  Each squadron moved slowly away from the other, and each flight, each element within the flight, then each individual, took spacing. Soon I could barely make out the farthermost flight of Lakeside Squadron, but I knew that Highway could see all of us from his central position leading Bison Squadron. What an absolutely wonderful sight from my cockpit: P-38s stretched as far as the eye could see off toward the right horizon, the morning sky deep blue and not a cloud anywhere. It was a great day to be a fighter pilot!

  We crossed the coast of Holland and saw a few haphazard puffs of flak from IJmuiden burst below us. This was routine. We would have felt unwelcome if those particular gunners hadn’t noticed our passage. We flew on across the Zuider Zee, and then the prominent peninsula on the eastern shore with the town of Urk at its tip slid beneath us.

  Things tensed up as we flew over the patchwork fields and canals of central Holland. No flak. Everything was ominously quiet. Things were way too still. Then on into Germany, and my mind was working on two distinct levels: The predominant one was intensely alert, watching, analyzing, gauging, totally tuned to the sky, the land, and the aircraft around me. The subordinate part was more at ease, aware of the situation, yet free to enjoy the beauty, power, and serenity surrounding me.

  Suddenly, there they were! Tiny specks way out in front moved right to left across our horizon. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight out. No problem of recognition—I knew they were the enemy. Many more of them were seen as a few seconds passed. I delayed a few seconds calling them out—a dirty trick on my part. My intentions were thwarted just as I started to call Highway. One of my flight members saw them and yelled out, “Bogeys. Eleven o’clock. Level!” I confess I mashed down on the mike button to block any further conversation, and then called, “Newcross Lead, Newcross Blue Lead here. Turning left to pursue and identify.”

  The air became a confusion of transmissions, most not decipherable, some broken: “… Say again direction … Blue, what’s your heading? What’s your heading?… I haven’t got them yet.… Blue where are you?”

  Blue knew exactly where he was. He was balls out, full throttle, max boost, full rich mixture, closing on the tail end of some forty-five to fifty Me-109s flying in a ragged formation of three big Vs of about fifteen aircraft each, with a few singles above and behind. These last ones bothered me. Common sense said to attack them first. Instinct told me to continue, keep an eye on them, but break off my attack only if they saw me and made a threatening move.

  Suddenly, I remembered m
y drop tanks and hit the pickle button. Away they went with the usual thump, and I felt my P-38 surge forward from the reduced drag. I looked over my shoulders for my flight members. B.E. was right there with me, but the other two were far back, both trailing black smoke as their engines detonated under the strain of overboost. I knew they couldn’t catch up and that the initial part of this fight was going to be two against the world.

  “Newcross Blue Lead, Highway here. What’s your position?” Zemke called.

  That wasn’t a question. It was a demand. How in hell did I know where I was? There was a huge lake just ahead and I blurted out, “I’m approaching a big lake, headed north, 28,000.” That would surely merit an ass chewing when (or if) I got back. We were supposed to know where we were at all times under Hub’s leadership. Then I remembered what I was supposed to be doing for the boss, and added, “I’m closing on a gaggle of bandits headed north, about fifty of them.”

  There were more confused shouts as the rest of the group tried to focus on the action. I had to ignore the bedlam and concentrate on my own situation. The few bandit trailers at my three o’clock hadn’t noticed us yet, and I pressed on, zeroing in on the tail-end Charlie in the high Vick. He filled my gun sight with a slight angle off. Perfect. Just as I started to squeeze the trigger, both of my engines sputtered, chugged, burped, and quit. Good God, I had forgotten to switch to internal tanks after getting rid of the drops! I’m a glider!

  No time to sort that out now. I clamped on the trigger. As I slowed and started to fall behind there were bright flashes along the fuselage of the 109; my bullets had struck home. A piece of cowling blew back in my face, black smoke spewed forth, and the 109 rolled slowly to the right and headed down. He was finished, and I had other problems. I dove away to my right, desperately working the tank switches, going through the start procedures and watching the high bandits all at the same time. The engines caught and I was back in business. It occurred to me that I was probably the first fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy while in the dead-stick mode, but fascinating as that realization was, there were some forty-nine other bandits out there.

  Back under full power, I pulled around, climbing to go after them. The whole German formation started down to the left. I guessed the leader had decided the game was up, since they had been caught long before they closed on the bomber stream. Two of the stragglers were off to my two o’clock following the main bunch down. That put them crossing my path to the front, but I wasn’t in position to go for them, and they kept me from continuing my attack on the main gaggle. I checked and there was B.E. off to my right like the good wingman he was. He was in perfect position to hit them. I hollered at B.E. to take the two in front of him and watched as he opened fire. He was on his game and nailed them both on the first pass.

  I turned my attention to the main formation, closed on a tail-end Charlie, and fired. He, too, erupted smoke as the hail of bullets caught him. His 109 turned turtle and disappeared under my nose, going straight down.

  This engagement had taken me away from the main bunch and I turned to pick them up again. There was absolutely nothing in sight. The sky was empty. It was as if the enemy planes had simply vanished. Then suddenly there, well below me, was an Me-109 with a P-51 chasing him. Where in hell did that Mustang come from? Then I saw another 109 closing on the P-51 and knew the Mustang pilot was unaware of the threat. He was in deep shit and without a wingman. I rolled inverted and pulled the nose almost straight down, diving to help him.

  Airspeed built rapidly. Suddenly, my P-38 gave a shudder and the nose tucked farther down. I pulled back on the control yoke. Nothing. No feedback. No elevator response. Just looseness, and the nose tucked farther down. Damn it! It was compressibility, that dreaded phenomenon we had been warned about. Few pilots had ever recovered. None ever bailed out. There’d been smoking holes out in the Mojave Desert as mute testimony to the warning.

  Down, down I went, the throttles in idle, prop pitch full forward, the aircraft shuddering and shaking as the shock wave tucked the nose and blanked my tail. Through 18,000 … no response, down … down … down … I held the yoke just on the point of burble and cranked a tiny bit of back trim on the elevators. Anything I could get might make a difference. The bird seemed to respond. Through 12,000 and the response increased a little. The nose slowly started to rotate from the vertical. Down, still down, too fast to think of bailing out. No time anyway. As the air grew denser, the control response increased, but the ground was coming up and I wasn’t recovering. I kept milking the elevator back, back, and all of a sudden I had full bite.

  The g-forces came on like a sledgehammer. Something exploded behind me with a horrible, rushing, tearing roar. I tightened my gut muscles and screamed to keep the blood from rushing from my head. The world turned gray. Looking down two dark tunnels as my eyesight went dark, I could barely see the ground. It was close, and I was going like the hammers of hell toward a huge brown plowed field. The nose came slowly up and then to the horizon. I had made it! I was dimly aware of the field furrows flashing just under my wing, scarcely 20 feet below. God, that was close. I was alive. My P-38 was flying but this boy had had enough for one day.

  I tried to calm down as I got my bearings. My left canopy window was gone, blown out from the wrenching g-force of the pullout. That accounted for the continued noise and the buffeting I now felt on the elevators. In the P-38, anything that upset the airflow over the fuselage affected the elevators back between the twin booms. I knew I was one lucky bastard to be alive. I looked over my left shoulder to check for any damage, and there, not 300 yards away, was an Me-109 blazing away, his gun flashes bright against the dark line of his wings.

  My God! The son of a bitch was trying to kill me!

  I kicked left rudder, threw in hard left aileron, and hauled back on the yoke with all my might. My P-38 stood up on its left wing, turned broadside to the direction of flight, and abruptly slowed, taking the Jerry completely by surprise. He shot past and sailed out in front. I reversed, put the pipper on his fuselage, and pulled the trigger. The 109 shuddered under the impact of the five guns, rolled over, and dove into the ground. We never thought much about the other airplane as being occupied. The airplane was the target, not a man. It was a surprise when a body would suddenly come flying out of the stricken bird, arms and legs flailing, chute blossoming. I momentarily felt a pang of sympathy for the man. I couldn’t dwell on the thought for long, because I was still some 400 miles from home plate, at low altitude, deep in enemy territory.

  I stayed low and headed for the North Sea and England. After minutes that seemed like hours the coast of Holland lay ahead. I blundered just over the top of several coastal flak emplacements and jinked wildly as I flashed over the beach and out to sea. The flak followed and churned the water around me, but the firing dropped away behind and I was home free. My hands shook as I tried to light a cigarette as I flew on toward England. No way, not with the wind. Damn, I was fucking freezing!

  Recovery was uneventful and I landed at Wattisham with a sigh of relief. Considering the unknown extent of damage to my bird, I had to forgo the time-honored victory roll. I taxied to my hardstand and Sergeant Wold waved me into my parking slot. When the engines shut down he climbed up on my wing and crouched just outside the cockpit. As I removed my helmet I could hear him clucking at me for having bent up his airplane. He wasn’t serious but tried to sound exasperated at the carelessness of all pilots, particularly his. The sight and sound of him was wonderful, totally beautiful, and I scarcely heard what he was mumbling. He assured me everyone else had come home safely as far as he knew and then asked why I was so late.

  I grinned at him and said, “It took a little longer to bag three 109s.”

  He smiled that shy grin of his and replied, “Well, I guess that explains it. And congratulations, you’re the 479th’s first ace.”

  That set me back all right. I hadn’t even thought of it, but it really didn’t matter at that moment. Life was sweet, I was alive
, debriefing had to be endured, reports had to be written, and the bar would be open, hopefully with some of the rationed hard stuff left over after early returnees had made their usual assault on the place. As was normal in the bar, everything but the standard arf an’ arf beer was gone by the time B.E. and I got there. No matter. Nothing could erase the feeling of complete aliveness coursing through my body, nor the exaltation in my soul. Tomorrow would be another day. This evening was here and now. Did anyone slap my back? I don’t remember.

  8

  Mustangs and Mayhem

  The rumor was true! Since mid-July we’d been hearing talk of conversion from P-38s to P-51s. The group adjutant hinted we might lose some maintenance people. The supply officers huddled together at one end of the bar, not exactly whispering, but looking like four conspirators. I tried to get my old buddy Captain Van Anderson, football teammate at Hampton High and now 434th maintenance officer, to fess up. His denials didn’t fool me. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. We were getting Mustangs.