The following narrative is from a book I own. I don't have the know how to post images on the web but know that many of you do this. Along with this true story is an excellent piece of WWII aviation art by the same person that wrote the narrative--Jim Laurier. If someone would step Forward to post this 1.6 megabyte image--there will be some very happy P-47 and FW 190 pilots
Aerial combat is a strange, sometimes surreal, experience, in which the unexplained recur with surprising frequency. Lt. Robert S. Johnson’s encounter with a FW 190 on 16 June 1943, was such an event; it could have come straight out of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
On 26 June, 1943, P-47C Thunderbolts from the 56th Fighter Groups 61st, 62nd, and 63rd Fighter Squadrons (“Zemke’s Wolfpack”) were launched from AAF Station Boxted to escort an Eighth AF operation against Villacoublay, France. The mission was going smoothly--- until the American formation was bounced by FW 190’s from JG 2 and JG 26, which proceeded to shoot down five thunderbolts and damage seven others, two beyond repair.
One of the P-47’s, the P-47C-2-RE s/n 41-6235 (HV-P, Half Pint) belonged to 61st Fighter Squadron pilot Lt. Robert S. Johnson, who had won his first victory in the same airplane on 13 June. On the 26TH it was a different matter. As Johnson later related in his autobiography, Thunderbolt! a FW 190 caught him in its sights and riddled his airplane with machine gun bullets and 20mm cannon shells. One 2omm round exploded in the cockpit, another passed through the rear part of the sliding hood, jamming it closed. Wounded and half-blind, Johnson could not bail out and had to limp home to survive. Any other fighter would probably have gone down, but the Thunderbolt was one tough customer, and now it showed. Half Pint’s engine kept running, there was no fire, and things looked hopeful until another 190 latched onto the crippled American. The German mercilessly hammered the helpless Thunderbolt, exhausting his machine gun ammunition without result. According to Johnson, the astonished and no doubt bewildered German pilot then eased alongside, studied his would-be victim, saluted, and turned away, leaving the shaken American to nurse his flying sieve back to Boxted. Lt. Johnson landed safely, returned to operations within a few weeks, and went on to finish the war with twenty-eight victories. Half Pint never flew again.
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AMMO
332nd Flying Mongrelswithout us the Air Force is just another scheduled Airlines
