Well. this thread is too good to let it fade away. Here is one story from a P51 pilot in early 1944. Supposedly when the cream of the LW was still in the air..... --Westy
"Beating Four Aces "
Lt. Henry Brown pulled off one of the most amazing bluffs of the war.
Lt. Henry Brown was on his second tour in fighters, based at Steeple
Morden, UK, with the 355th Fighter Group. On the morning of April 11,
1944, in his Hun Hunter From Texas, he was number four in the 354th
Fighter Squadron's Blue Flight, escorting bombers to their target on the
outskirts of Berlin.
After the bombers unloaded and headed for home, the 355th turned its
escort duty over to another group and prepared to strafe targets of
opportunity, the most dangerous of fighter tactics. The four squadrons
fanned out, each to find its own targets. Blue Leader picked the
Luftwaffe airfield at Strausberg to the east of Berlin. The four P-51s
went down in a screaming 400-mph dive, their props cutting weeds as they
came in over the field.
On the first pass, Lieutenant Brown burned a Ju-52, then riddled a Ju-88
bomber on his second pass. Spotting an FW-190 fighter taking off, he
performed a chandelle to the left, pulling up behind the German fighter
and shooting it down just as he ran out of ammunition. While Brown was
busy reducing the Luftwaffe's inventory, the other three members of his
flight had formed up and were on their way home.
Climbing to 15,000 feet, Lieutenant Brown saw four fighters in the
distance, heading west. Maybe they were members of his group. As he
closed on them, he discovered that they were Bf-109s--difficult to tell
from P-51s at a distance. In perfect firing position but out of
ammunition, he reduced power and slid into their blind spot at six
o'clock low. Why had they not seen him? Then he spotted two Mustangs
ahead and below. The -109s were so intent on hunting the Mustangs that
they had not seen him.
Brown called a warning to the Mustangs, which broke sharply to the left
with the -109s now almost in firing range. He told the Mustang pilots he
would try to disrupt the enemy formation. At that moment, the Luftwaffe
pilots picked up on Brown as he closed on their tails, not knowing he
was out of ammunition. Henry Brown didn't pause to calculate his chance
of survival. He saw what needed to be done, and he did it.
There followed a 20-minute engagement in which Brown outturned his four
adversaries, who held all the aces, forcing them one by one to roll out
of a Lufbery circle and dive for the ground. While Lieutenant Brown
hovered constantly on the verge of a high-G blackout, the two Mustangs
he had saved disappeared to the west, leaving him alone in an unfriendly
sky.
Having won the Lufbery fight against incalculable odds, Henry Brown
throttled back and turned for home. In that moment of relaxation, one of
the -109s climbed back up and got on his tail. Suddenly, Hun Hunter was
taking hits. Fortunately, the Luftwaffe pilot overshot, giving Brown
time to split-S to the treetops. His sigh of relief was short-lived.
There were holes in his left wing, but more serious, his compass had
been shot out. With no friendly aircraft around, he could only guess at
the correct heading for England.
Brown called in the blind, giving his approximate position and asking
someone to tell him the sun position on his canopy for a rough heading
to the UK. At length, a voice came back, telling him to put the sun on
the second screw from the top of his left canopy railing. Correcting his
course, he realized he soon was going to be above solid-to-broken
clouds. No more ground checks. At last, through a small break in the
clouds, he saw the coast of Holland.
A call to Air-Sea Rescue got him a rough heading to Steeple Morden. From
there, he got a home steer from Steeple Morden tower. Six hours and 15
minutes after takeoff, Henry Brown touched down at home plate. He found
out later that the two Mustang pilots he had saved, and who apparently
had deserted him, also had been out of ammunition.
For a day marked by superior skill and unsurpassed valor, Henry Brown
was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross to go with his Silver Star,
multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses and Air Medals, and a Purple
Heart. He tallied 11 more air-to-air victories, ending the war with 14.2
(17.2?), plus more than 14 planes destroyed on the ground. What his
score might have been had he not been downed by flak while strafing an
airfield on Oct. 3, 1944, is only conjecture.
On the day he bellied in, his squadron operations officer, Maj. Chuck
Lenfest, landed to rescue him, but Lenfest's P-51 became stuck in soft
ground. Lt. Alvin White also landed in an attempted rescue. The downed
men were escaping and did not see him. White was able to take off and
returned home alone. Brown and Lenfest ended the war as guests of the
Luftwaffe.
Henry Brown remained in the Air Force, serving among other assignments
as test pilot, combat pilot in Vietnam, wing commander, and deputy
director of Operations, 7th Air Force. He retired as a colonel in 1974,
one of the most decorated Air Force officers, and now lives in Sumter,
S.C.
