Aircraft Lore

[HoseNose]

Just some interesting facts I've read up. Well, not sure if this is a fact or not... hope you lads would know.

'One particularly interesting kill was scored by a Marine Lieutenant R.R. Klingman over Okinawa. According to the story, he was in pursuit of a Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu ("Nick") twin engine fighter when his guns jammed, so he simply flew up and chopped off the Ki-45's tail with the big propeller of the Corsair.' -  
 F4U Corsair - Vector Site

Any more aircraft tales are welcome.

[Major Biggles]

i highly doubt that story is accurate. it would have really damaged the corsair itself. probably would have broken the prop blades off, or atleast bent it badly enough for the balance to be insane and the engine having to be turned off. no one in their right mind would do that to their own plane lol

[Husky01]

Originally posted by Major Biggles
i highly doubt that story is accurate. it would have really damaged the corsair itself. probably would have broken the prop blades off, or atleast bent it badly enough for the balance to be insane and the engine having to be turned off. no one in their right mind would do that to their own plane lol

Biggles he probably just saw the ramming episode on DogFights so this F4U pilot tried it out!

[VooWho]

So your saying that all 6 guns jammed, or did he forget to turn off the saftey?

[HoseNose]

To tell you the truth, I have no idea. I simply read it on the site which also hinted at the exploit being propaganda. At any rate it sounded awesome. He must've had too much of Goering's speech in him.

"vat vill you do if you're right in front of a bombuh und you heff no ammunition left?"

"I shall RAAHM him Reich-mah-shall!"

Any more lore?

[Guppy35]

LOL you guys crack me up.  Dismissed it out of hand already without having checked at all.

It's a well known story.  His guns froze as did the tail gunners on the Japanese bird.  They were well over 30K

And a picture is worth a thousand words

[jeebusro]

So the Jap plane just hung out while this f4u came up behind it? Perhaps a little sensationalism took place?

[715]

Ramming was a well know technique in Russia, and Poland, during WWII; it was called Taran.  

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming

(Yes I know Wikipedia is not always an entirely reliable source, but I've read about this elsewhere as well.)

[Raptor]

Originally posted by jeebusro
So the Jap plane just hung out while this f4u came up behind it? Perhaps a little sensationalism took place?

It was a high alt recon plane that was use to being too high and fast for anyone to catch. His best bet was to fly straight and keep his speed up to outrun the enemy fighter likehe had done so many times in the past.

The whole story of the event is rather interesting.

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by jeebusro
So the Jap plane just hung out while this f4u came up behind it? Perhaps a little sensationalism took place?

Jeez, OK  here it is.


"A steady combat air patrol was maintained over Okinawa at all times.  During one of these during the morning of May 10, 1945 a four plane element of Marine Corsairs took off from their base at Kadena.  Led by Captain Kenneth Reuser, the four planes were flown by members of VMF-312.  Reuser's wingman was a Navy and Marine veteran, 28 year old Robert Klingman of Binger, Oklahoma.

The Corsairs climbed to about 10,000 feet to patrol over Ie Jima, just west of northern Okinawa, when at an altitude 15,000 feet above them they detected the contrails of a twin engined Japanese plane.  Throttling up their engines the four Corsairs set off in hot pursuit of the lone intruder.  As they climbed, so did the Ki-45 Nick, apparently on a photo mission.  At 32,000 feet one of the Corsairs had gone as high as it could go-the engine simply refused to lift it higher.  Four thousand feet higher and another Corsair left the chase for the same reason.  Reuser and Klingman persisted, firing off some of their ammunition to lighten the load.  Finally at 38,000 feet they reached the Nick's level.  The Marine Corsair's closed in.  Reuser opened up first with his remaining ammunition and shot up the Nick's left wing and engine.  But the Nick continued on it's way with the rear gunner menacing the Corsairs but not firing.

Klingman soon learned why as he moved in to take up where Reuser had been forced to leave off.  Hoping to make certain his 50 calibers could finish off the Nick, he throttled to within 50 feet of the Japanese plane.  But when he pressed the gun switch he found that at high altitude his guns had frozen.  Incensed, Klingman moved ever closer  upon the Nick, determined to get the plane one way or another.  He charged the fleeing Nick and with his propeller started hacking away at the tail assembly, biting pieces out of the rudder and nearly into the rear cockpit in which the Japanese gunner furiously pounded away at his own frozen guns.  The Nick flew on as did Klingman's Corsair.  he brought it around again and this time sheared away the rudder completely and chewed away pieces of the right stablizer.  Still flying, Klingman jammed rudder, turned and came in for a third time.  His buzz saw propeller went to work again on the Nick.  The Stabilizer fluttered away in the slipstream and the Nick bucked into a spin.  By the time it had fallen to 15000 feet the wings had snapped from the fuselage and it fell into the water below.

But Klingman had overstayed his patrol.  His fuel supply ran out.  Even so he succeeded in bringing his Corsair home deadstick.  Once down Klingman jumped from the plane to inspect the damage and found that a generous portion of the propeller tip was missing.  Wing engine and fuselage were pocked and pieces of the Nick were found lodged in the Corsairs cowling."

[Gwjr2]

More of the good stuff

On May 10th, one of the most unique fighter interceptions of the war took place. Captain Kenneth Reusser, callsign Ruby 6, was on patrol with 3 other Checkerboarders over the island of Okinawa.  The following excerpt is from an article published in the May 1995 edition of Leatherneck.  The author is Ray Schanamann, 1st Lt. of VMF-312.

…The pilots started their climb to altitude, prepared for another routine patrol.  Instead, they received a transmission from        "Handyman", the Air Defense Control Center.

    "Ruby 6, this is Handyman, over."
    "Handyman, Ruby 6, go ahead."
    "Ruby 6, Handyman, We have a bogey approaching on course one eight zero, angels 25 (altitude 25,000 feet).  Climb to angels 25, steer 270 buster (full speed), over."
    "Handyman, Roger, course 270 angels 25, out."

    The flight dropped their belly tanks, test fired their guns, put their props in full low pitch, and firewalled their throttles.
Klingman remembered, "We could see the vapor trails as the bogey made two complete circles over the harbor."  The Marines had a good idea about the plane they were pursuing.  For several days that week their squadron and others took turns trying to intercept a plane that followed the same flight plan.  Intelligence believed the plane was on photo reconnaissance of the ships in the harbor, for use in planning kamikaze raids. The previous intercept attempts failed because the intruder, aware of the chase planes, kept climbing as he headed for home.  With his initial altitude advantage he easily outran his pursuers.  This time the Marines tried to close while climbing at their best speed.  Captain Reusser said, "We were turning inside him to try and join up, but we were so far below him we had little chance of reaching him.  I just pulled the nose up and held the trigger down, no aim, no accuracy, just trying to loop it up there.  I saw a couple of glints, but I remember I didn't think anything of it at the time.  He leveled off and headed back toward Japan."
    The division kept climbing and stayed on the bogey's tail even though it didn't seem possible to overhaul him.  Captain Jim Cox's plane fell back until he was about a thousand feet below the others-he couldn't coax another knot of speed out of the battle-weary Corsair.  Reusser ordered Cox and 1st Lt. Frank Watson to return to orbit over Point Nan while he and Klingman continued the pursuit.  Now they were at 38,000 feet, the service ceiling for the Corsair.  The bogey was still about a mile ahead, and the chase continued.

    Because of the thin air and limited power, maneuvers had to be limited to small, careful changes in direction or altitude; otherwise a stall or spin would result with small chance of recovery.  At such an altitude bailing out would have meant freezing to death.

    "As we got closer, Ken was firing, and I guess the bogey was firing at us.  I had a few small bullet holes in the plane.  My plane had no gun heaters and the guns were frozen, but I was pretty eager to get me a Jap plane.  My plane was faster because it was a brand new so I went on ahead of Ken at max speed and streamlined as much as I could…"

    "…We closed on the bogey until I was 20 or 30 feet behind him-I couldn't get any closer to him due to his prop wash.  It held me back and kept me from running into him.  I had to slowly climb above the airplane, and then I nosed over and ran into his tail with my prop.  I only had enough extra speed to chew off some of his rudder and elevator before being blown away (from Nick's prop wash) Since he was still flying, I climbed above him for a second run.  I nosed down and I pulled out too soon and only got some of his rudder and part of the top of the rear canopy.  At this time I remember seeing the rear seat gunner frantically looking around and trying to operate his machine gun.  I imagine at this altitude he was probably freezing to death.  I realized that a third wasn't necessary, but I was even more determined so I climbed above him for my third run and chopped the right side of his elevator, and we both went into a spin.  This run did the most damage to my plane, but I recovered after losing only about 1,000 feet.  Ken was along side then, and we both observed the enemy plane in a spin with both wings coming off at about 15,000 feet."



     Reusser had a bird's-eye view when Klingman first passes were made and related.  "The Japanese gunner pounded on his machine gun to free it up, but it was frozen solid and so was mine.  When Bob came down on the canopy with his prop, he tore the gun away from the mount and hit the gunner.  His plane was full of bullet holes and shrapnel holes from fragments of the Nick."
    Klingman had his kill but they were hundreds of miles from base and his plane shook and vibrated with the stick jumping in a large circle. Close to home at about 10,000 feet Bob ran out of fuel  but felt he could still reach the strip even though Ken suggested he bail.

    Pilots stood quietly at the upwind end of the runway.  They watched the Corsair plunge silently in a steep glide: no engine roar, the prop windmilling slowly.

    "Don't stretch the glide: don't be short.: they said almost prayerfully.

    At the last possible second, Klingman raised the Corsair's nose and the plane slammed into the ground and bounced the few remaining feet onto the airstrip.

    Watchers gasped as they saw the planes condition.  The tips of all three blades jutted outward with 6 inches missing from each end and the blades pierced by bullets; each wing contained large holes, and pieces of the Nick were in the cowling.  After extensive tests and a new propeller, the F4U Corsair Bob Klingman used in the downing of the Japanese Nick was returned to service!

    Bob Klingman and Ken Reusser both received the Navy Cross for their actions.

Bob Klingman explained it this way:
 
"I'm gonna get this son of a betch if it's the last thing I do."

    Two days after this amazing victory, Bob Klingman was forced to bail out of his Corsair when it developed hydraulic problems.  He landed safely and was picked up by a destroyer a short time later.

[jeebusro]

Thanks for the info fellas. Truly remarkable....

Amazing the things you find out are possible during war time huh?

[aztec]

Originally posted by Major Biggles
i highly doubt that story is accurate. it would have really damaged the corsair itself. probably would have broken the prop blades off, or atleast bent it badly enough for the balance to be insane and the engine having to be turned off. no one in their right mind would do that to their own plane lol

I love it when loudmouth know it alls are proven wrong.

[Furball]

IN ONE of the celebrated episodes of the Battle of Britain, sergeant pilot Ray Holmes became something of an overnight hero when he rammed a Dornier bomber over London to prevent it, as he had reason to believe, from dropping its bombs on Buckingham Palace. On the morning of September 15, 1940, Holmes had taken off from Hendon with other Hurricane pilots of 504 Squadron, to intercept a formation of 36 Dornier Do17s which had been reported to be closing in on Central London.
Acting as tail-end Charlie for his squadron, Holmes was keeping a weather eye open for German fighters as the aircraft approached the German bombers. He attacked two Dorniers, seriously damaging the first and causing its crew to bale out. The second sheered off as he fired at it. A third Dornier appeared to Holmes to be making directly for Buckingham Palace, but as he lined up on it — aiming to shoot through its cockpit window in a head-on attack — and pressed his gun button, the hiss from his breechblocks told him that he had run out of ammunition.

Holmes made the split second decision to prevent the enemy reaching its objective by ramming the Dornier, aiming to clip the left hand edge of its twin-rudder tailplane with his left wing. In fact he sliced the whole tailplane off and the Dornier, with its outer wings also ripped off by the violence of the impact, plunged to earth in the forecourt of Victoria station. As Holmes later recalled of the impact: “There was a bit of a bump but nothing much. I thought I had got away with it. But immediately the plane went into a spiral dive and I couldn’t pull out of it.”

Holmes took to his parachute at a desperately low 350ft and came down by the side of a house on Ebury Bridge Road, ending up with his parachute lines snagged on a drainpipe, suspended comically over a dustbin in the back garden. “I undid the parachute and stepped out. There were two girls in the next garden, so I vaulted over the fence and kissed them both,” he recalled.

Meanwhile, his Hurricane had crashed in Buckingham Palace Road at 400mph, burying itself many feet below the surface. The Dornier pilot had managed to bale out but subsequently died in hospital from his injuries. Mercifully, there were no casualties on the ground from either the Dornier or the Hurricane crash.

Holmes was taken by rescuers to the Orange Brewery in Pimlico Road, where he was steadied with a fortifying brandy before being taken to Chelsea Barracks, where he was checked over by an army medical officer. Thereafter, he was returned by taxi to RAF Hendon, where it was “business as usual” .

Raymond T. Holmes (always known as “Arty” because of his initials), was born and raised on the Wirral, where he was educated at Wallasey and Calday Grange grammar schools.

After leaving school he went into journalism, beginning work as a reporter on the Birkenhead Advertiser. He was also one of the early recruits to the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, joining it in 1936 as its 55th volunteer and completing his aircrew training. By the time the Second World War broke out he was already an experienced pilot, and he joined 504 (City of Nottingham) Squadron, flying Hurricanes.

As it happened, the intense airfighting over London on September 15, 1940, marked the virtual culmination of the Battle of Britain. Thereafter the German bomber offensive continued at night.

When Fighter Command went on to the offensive in the spring of 1941, Holmes flew fighter sweeps over occupied France. Subsequently he was sent to Murmansk to instruct Soviet airmen in the Hurricanes that were being delivered to them via the Arctic convoys, also escorting Soviet bombers on air raids over German occupied territory. On his return from Russia, he qualified as an instructor and spent two years at the Central Flying School.

Later in the war he specialised in photographic reconnaissance, joining 541 Squadron and flying high-altitude Spitfires over Germany to get high resolution pictures of targets. Such missions took him to the Ruhr, Berlin and Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden. Towards the end of the war he was flying dispatches for Winston Churchill as King’s Messenger. He had in the meantime been commissioned, and he ended the war with the rank of flight lieutenant.

Demobilised in October 1945, he resumed his prewar career in journalism, specialising in agricultural photography and developing colour photographs in his own lab. He also had his own news agency which concentrated on covering Liverpool law courts for local and national newspapers.

As it happened, Holmes had not seen the last of his trusty Hurricane. After many years of research to pinpoint the remains of the aircraft, an excavation was carried out in Buckingham Palace Road in May last year, and parts of the Hurricane were recovered, the latter part of the operation being shown live on television. The remnants were given on loan to the Imperial War Museum, but parts of the engine casing that had been shattered beyond effective restoration were used to cast some miniature Hurricane sculptures, one of which was presented to its pilot.

A supremely modest man, Holmes lived life to the full, and was playing tennis well into his eighties. He was granted the freedom of the Wirral last year.

Holmes is survived by his wife, Anne, by their son and daughter, and by two daughters of his first marriage to Elizabeth, who died in 1964.

Ray Holmes, Battle of Britain fighter pilot, was born on August 20, 1914. He died on June 27, 2005, aged 90.

[Larry]

Yea furball I remember watching that. Was sad to hear he pass on shortly after.