Article Type: Military History
Article Date: June 14, 2001
First Shot At An Aerial Target
"Our P-38s were high cover for a transport drop mission where C-47s parachuted supplies to troops south of Lae. We were just ready to head home when someone called, 'Zeros at nine o'clock low—drop tanks!'
I pressed the button that released my tanks and looked around. It was a clear day and there were enough Zeros for everybody with several left over. Just then one of my engines sputtered and quit. I'd forgotten to switch the tank selector when I dropped the auxiliary tanks. By the time I got my plane running again the fight had veered off in another direction leaving me very much alone!
The Zeros were all below doing aerobatics and awaiting our attacks. I made three diving passes at Zeros away from the main group. This first time I ever fired at an aerial target was less than successful. I could have fired blanks with the same results.
Then I noticed a lone P-38 below me with three Zeros on its tail. I dove to intercept them and as I was coming from the side I had to aim ahead of the P-38 to get deflection on the Zero closest to him. There was a satisfying flash as the Zero burst into flame and plummeted downward. I gave the next one in line a burst and saw my bullets exploding on his engine and canopy. 'This is easy!' I thought to myself as I gleefully lined up the third one.
Suddenly I remembered to look around and there at five o'clock high were four Zeros diving directly at me! All I could do was turn sharply and climb with full power. I hunched down in my armor plate as three hurtled past and down. There behind me was the fourth one coming closer. I wriggled down a little further behind my armor plate and went to work.
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| My Painting Of Ralph's 3rd Kill |
My instruments showed I was at 11,000 feet climbing at 600 feet a minute at 230 miles per hour. I retarded the throttle about 1/16 of an inch so my engines wouldn't blow up. I'd read somewhere that the P-38 could outclimb any other plane at 150 mph. Placing my trust in God and the Lockheed Company, I pulled the plane into a steeper climb exposing one eye above the armor plate to see the Zero beginning to stall with all guns firing as the wings began to shake.
I huddled down in the seat and did some more thinking. I decided I could clear myself if I lowered my flaps, which would give the plane a sudden rise but there was a terrific explosion and the cockpit filled with smoke. I skidded violently and saw the Zero over my shoulder do a snap turn and dive away.
I tested the controls and everything seemed to be working so I headed north toward Lae in hopes of intercepting straggling Zeros.
Upon returning 'Chris' Christopherson, my crew chief and I, inspected the hole in the right wing. It was big enough to put a fist into. There was hole in the prop too. Chris dug several 20 millimeter fragments out of the wing when he repaired it."
This was Ralph Wandrey's first hand account of his first tangle with Zeros from Rabaul in mid 1943. The Zeros were light gray with black engine cowls—Imperial Japanese Navy planes. Wandrey had gotten two kills in his first combat by performing the classic dive and zoom attack against the enemy. At times during the war he flew wing position for Dick Bong. Wandrey finished the war with six confirmed kills. His P-38F used in the above action was named "The Beast" sporting an huge black octopus on the right side of the olive drab fuselage.
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| Ralph & Me |
Ram Kill
In late 1942 Günther Rall was flying Bf 109Gs in the southern area of Russia and describes a different kind of kill. The first Fw 190 group had been deployed in the area but Rall had never seen one other than in a photo. The Russians usually flew in large formations so it was apparent when huge numbers of planes were spotted at a distance that they were Russian. On one occasion Rall saw "two dots against a big white cumulous cloud."
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| Major Günther Rall |
"When I approached these two I couldn't say if they were Focke Wulf 190s or Lagg 5s (Lavochkin La-5) which also had a tremendous radial engine. The silhouette looked, to me, quite similar. We approached them at full speed very excited to get to these aircraft. But I couldn't pull the trigger. Was it a Lagg 5 or a Focke Wulf?
I had speed and just pulled up and looked to see the red star on the dark green color—it was Russian. With my speed I couldn't pass or he would have been behind me. I pushed down and pulled the trigger. At this moment a big crash happened. I slipped away and knocked off his right wing with my propeller and his propeller cut my fuselage. I almost lost the engine cause I had a tremendous vibration.
I couldn't bail out since we were over Russian territory so I fiddled with the throttle to find a power setting with which I could reduce this vibration. In a dive I knew I could reach the German front line safely. Three or four kilometers behind the front lines we had auxiliary airfields. I made it to one and landed but the aircraft looked awful with its propeller bent like a banana. This 109 was certainly out of operation."
Both Russian and German pilots purposefully used this ramming technique when the need arose, though Rall's was purely accidental. His tally for war combat was 275 victories, 271 on the Russian Front. His score would have certainly been higher but for a crash in which he suffered a broken back leaving him out of action for nine months.
". . . He Opened A Door!"
Walter Krupinski considered the Me 262 as the best German fighter of WWII having flown with JV 44 at the end. But in 109s earlier on he had an amusing first encounter with a "dirty green" Russian P-39 Bell Airacobra Lend-Lease aircraft. Export P-39s were called P-400s.
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| Major Walter Krupkinski |
"I encountered many of your (American) aircraft. My experience with the Airacobra—they were easy to shoot down with the engine behind it. I had easily gotten behind one and fired. It was burning like hell. The aircraft was in heavy smoke and the pilot tried to bail out. This was my first experience with the Airacobra remember, and he opened a door! I had never seen that before; that the pilot could just open a door and step out of the aircraft cockpit!"
Krupinski went on to meet many more P-39s in combat and ended his run with 197 enemy aircraft, 177 on the Eastern Front, during his 1,100 combat missions.
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| Colonel Alexandri Pokryshkin |
One of the better Russian Airacobra pilots was Guards Colonel Alexandri Pokryshkin. He had several ramming kills, was shot down four times and had a total of forty-eight in the P-39. Flying Lavochkins he gained eleven more victories and ended the war with three Hero of the Soviet Union awards.
Spitfire Rhubarb
Right before D-Day in early June of 1944 Alan Geoffery Page led five other Spitfire IXs into German airspace on a "low-level penetration mission" to seek out enemy aircraft. These sorties were called rhubarbs and their intent was for a small number of planes to basically go out and look for trouble. The Spits carried drop tanks for a long flight of this sort for maximum range.
"I warned my pilots that if we came across German night fighters doing their daytime flying practice where they had to check their radios and radars, I told them never attack an airplane called a Messerschmitt 110 head-on because they had four big cannons in the front of the airplane. So one of my pilots, a New Zealander, and I were going along at treetop height when across our path came this Messerschmitt 110.
Unbeknownst to us it was piloted by one of their top night fighter aces called Hans(?) Joachim Jabs. My New Zealander went off, attacked him head-on, paid the penalty and was promptly shot down and survived. So I chased this Messerschmitt and fired. I could see my bullets and cannon shells were hitting but he hadn't read the RAF book of air fighting and he didn't burn up! Then I noticed that in front of him, as I continued to fire, was a German airfield and he calmly put his wheels and flaps down as I kept on firing and hitting him. At this point every single flak and anti-aircraft gun opened up on us and my number two wingman was hit and killed as I broke off."
Upon crashing Jabs jumped into a vehicle and picked up the New Zealand pilot and looked after him giving him some cigarettes.
Years later when Page met Jabs he related his side of the shoot down. He was frightened because all the flak aimed at Page was also headed in his direction. But after jumping from his burning plane he was angry since he'd left behind in his aircraft several kilos of bacon, which he'd gotten from another airfield for his officer's club. So after having met Jabs, Page send him a kilo of bacon that Christmas to make up for it!
Jabs ended the conflict with fifty victories and Page had fifteen.
Lightning Strikes
The Kawanishi N1K2 Shiden (Violet Lightning) was the finest Japanese fighter of the war. It was fast and had four 20-millimeter cannons plus armor plate. In the hands of a talented pilot it used its combat flaps to attain superior maneuverability against American fighters. One such talented ace of the Imperial Japanese Navy was Shoichi Sugita. In March 1945 the IJN had their equivalent of Germany's JV44—a squadron staffed by top aces—at the Matsuyama Wing.
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The N1K2 Violet Lightning was based upon the above pictured NIK1 Shiden 'George'  |
Sugita reckoned he had some 120 aerial kills though a large number were; no doubt, "probable" kills and others were unconfirmed. Many times he shot down planes alone in the frenzy of battle distantly separated from his mates who didn't witness the actions.
On March 19th Sugita notched up three kills with his new Shiden and flew again later in the day. Saburo Sakai describes the action when a large formation of Hellcats raided the Kure Naval Base. Due to a shortage of planes Sakai remained on the ground as forty Shidens climbed out for their baptism of fire.
"The battle exploded the moment the Hellcats came within range. Two flights of Shidens screamed down from their vantage point 1,500 feet above the Grummans. Sugita plummeted like a stone. Coming out of his dive he rolled against a Hellcat and snapped out a burst. The four cannon proved their effectiveness in dramatic fashion. Flames burst out from the fighter's engine as it careened wildly through the air, out of control. Sugita rolled away and came out directly behind a second Hellcat, sending his cannon shells into the fuselage and cockpit. The Grumman skidded crazily and plummeted for the ocean. Sugita's fighter flashed away, heading for the main dogfight."
Using the Shiden's superior maneuverability Sugita zoomed up, hung on a wing, and skidded into a diving turn. The cannons pumped out shells and blew off a third Hellcat's tail assembly. A fourth victim, taken from behind, soon joined the rest.
At the end of the melee Sugita incredibly had four confirmed and three probables. The seven in one day was unparalleled in Japan. But within a month he was gone. As he made a take off roll during an attack, a Corsair caught him with a burst just as his wheels lifted. His fighter flipped over and exploded. Sugita's total has been revised to seventy.
Texas Two Step
December 1942 saw the huge 226 pound Texan, John Landers, flying P-40s from a crude airstrip on New Guinea called Laloki, near Port Moresby. Twelve olive-green P-40s took off the day after Christmas for a combat air patrol mission to "keep the Japs from harassing supplies coming into Dobdura airstrip."
The patrol was eventless as they cruised at 16,000 feet for an hour and fifteen minutes. They had fifteen minutes more and everyone was relaxed when "someone yelled 'Zeros coming down the coast!'"
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| Lander's P-51 'Big Doll' |
Lander's P-40E, named Big Doll, makes a right turn and noses down on the Zeros flying at 500 to 1,000 feet. There were about twenty of them. Once the P-40s were spotted the Japanese groups split and Landers follows a gaggle heading south hitting about 400 mph when he picks out a vic of three that are getting larger in the sight ring.
"Our group loaded seven explosive shells for two armor piercing and one tracer. I gave him a long burst starting at 100 yards and saw hits all over him. He blew up just as I was close to him. The leader was still flying straight and I hit him just as he lifted a wing for a turn. He was trailing smoke. I gave him three more short bursts and he started smoking like hell losing altitude. I figured he was dead cause he plowed straight into a mountain."
Landers had figured that his wingman would cover him from the third Zero in the "V" element of which he'd shot down two. But he felt the hits and saw the holes open in the wings as the Zero hit him.
With all the dive speed gone he had no escape. Wide open the P-40 was not able to pull away. Over the course of the next few minutes he jinked the P-40 for all it was worth as the Zero continued to get hits carefully shooting short bursts only when he had a good line of fire. They were over mountainous terrain with steep drops down to deep rugged valleys. It was 100 feet above a ridge one second and 6,000 feet above a valley floor the next. And a descending cloud layer was just covering the peaks.
The Allison was streaming smoke and losing power as Big Doll barely crested a ridge just below the clouds. The Zero didn't follow. It was pretty sure the P-40 was done for.
Landers was close to the ground when he realized there was no place to belly in, so he bailed and his chute opened about two seconds before it caught at the top of a 125-foot tree. Making a rope from the parachute cords he made his way down and began walking toward a stream he saw with his two .45s strapped one under each arm. Eventually he found a group of friendly natives, but it still took a week of walking till he was found by an Australian and returned to Port Moresby.
John Landers went on to fly P-38s and P-51s in the ETO scoring with both planes for a total of 14.5 kills in the air 14.0 more on the ground.
Go to Gun Kills I
Go to Gun Kills II
Bibliography:
Hess, William n.
Allied Aces of WWII
Arco Publishing Co., Inc., NY, 1966
Pearl, Jack
Aerial Dogfights of WWII
Monarch Books, CT, 1962
The remainder of accounts are from the author's interviews.
