Originally posted by Guppy35
Savage, Im curious as to your comment about the pilot of the P38 that McGuire was flying that day. He was flying 9 kill Ace Fred Champlin's #112 Eileen-Anne. Champlain may have not bent P38s like McGuire did, (few if any others did) but I'd be hard pressed to describe him as not aggressive with 9 kills to his credit. He'd been flying combat with the 475th as long as McGuire had going back to the first days.
Did that comment come from a particular source regarding Champlin's bird and Champlin for that matter?
How would one tune a 38 to McGuire's style? And why wouldn't any front line 38 be tuned to get the best out of it? Kinda doubt that the crew chief of Champlin's bird took less care of it then McGuires crew cheif took of Pudgy.
When I was involved in the project looking for the wreckage and the cause, we found through a couple of sources that Fed was not known for using differential throttling like McGuire was. It had nothing to do with his nature, but rather his flying style. The comment had nothing to do with Fred's willingness to mix it up, but rather how he flew when he did. The point is that the engines may not have been tuned for the way McGuire used the throttles, so that they may not have responded to the throttles the way Pudgy did. It doesn't have anything to do with how much peak power the engines made, or how well they ran, but rather how they responded to having the throttles opened and closed. So please, do not misunderstand the statement about the tuning of Champlin's plane as any sort of indictment of Champlin's flying abilities, aggressiveness, or anything else. Nor is it any sort of indictment of the plane itself, Champlin's crew chief, or McGuire's crew chief who was up late getting Champlin's bird ready for McGuire to fly it the next day. No doubt all involved were absolutely the best of the best, and America's finest.
By the way, with regards to what Thropp said about the fight where McGuire and Rittmayer died, I have a couple of problems with Thropp's account. First, he was far enough away from Weaver and McGuire that he did not see the crash itself, nor did he know who crashed. Second, his claim that McGuire took hits does not agree with the fact that Weaver said that he was under attack and McGuire was trying to clear him. Third, Thropp was evidently angry with Weaver, and felt Weaver abandoned him. Fourth, he also claims Rittmayer was faking engine trouble. Fifth, there are no reports of him making any effort at the time to correct what he claimed were errors and false statements in Weaver's report.
Fukuda, who shot Rittmayer down, was flying the second plane. He actually hit Rittmayer on an off angle nose to nose pass, and killed Rittmayer in the cockpit. Fukuda reported seeing Rittmayer wearing a scarlet scarf, Rittmayer wore no such scarf, and was certainly hit in the head or neck by Fukuda and was either dead or dying. Thropp was the other plane hit, taking damage to one engine. Fukuda was the pilot of the second plane which was not known to have been there with certainty until sometime in the seventies. The pilot of the first plane (I think his name was Sugimoto) was shot down, and killed by Phillipino guerillas as he was getting out of the wrecked plane.
Weaver, McGuire's wingman, and the pilot under attack calling for help originally, said the Japanese plane was behind him, trying to get in position for a shot and making good progress, and he saw and heard McGuire trying to gain position to clear him. He said McGuire's plane shuddered, the engines made an odd sound, and the plane snapped inverted and went in from about 1500 feet. That is consistent with one engine failing to respond when differential throttling is used. According to several of the best pilots with a lot of P-38 time, the only way to get a P-38 to snap over that way was to turn into a dead engine, or be in a turn and lose the inside engine. If McGuire did in fact try to use differential throttling to get inside the Japanese plane, and the P-38 was close to a high speed stall, and the inside engine didn't come back up when he throttled up, the P-38 would have instantly snapped inverted and spun, which is exactly what happened. And 1500 feet was not enough room to recover.
There were no bullet holes found in the wreckage seen after the crash, nor in the pieces seen later. Further, McGuire's body was later recovered and an autopsy performed. The findings were injuries consistent with a crash, and there was no mention of any bullet wounds or possible bullet wounds.
