Here it is Frenchy - thought you might have trouble finding it.
http://www.lawton-constitution.com/Centennial/Archives/Lawtonian recorded 27 kills in WWII.htm
Lawtonian recorded 27 kills in WWII
A native Lawtonian was the first American pilot in World War II to better the record of World War I super ace Eddie Rickenbacker.
Robert "Bob" Johnson, who never even saw an airplane until he was 8 years old, ended the war with 28 confirmed kills (a score later revised to 27), topping Capt. Rickenbacker?s record of 26. Johnson lost out as the ultimate ace, but his fighting abilities ranked him fourth among American pilots in World War II.
Lawton?s ace was born in a house on Summit Feb. 21, 1920, the son of Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Johnson. He gained local notice as a football hero, first at Lawton High, then at Cameron Junior College.
While Lawtonians called Johnson a football hero, Johnson?s eyes were skyward. In his book, "Thunderbolt," Johnson said he knew he was hooked on flying in 1928, when he saw three precision flyers perform at a Fort Sill air show. It was his first view of an airplane, and he stood at Rogers Dairy, staring in amazement, as three Army pilots flew biplanes over Post Field.
Johnson was 12 when he hitched a 15-minute ride with a barnstormer flying a Ford tri-motor transport. It was something he had to learn to do.
So, Johnson worked after school, 12 hours on Saturdays and up to 16 hours a day during the summer, earning $4 a week at a cabinet shop. Sunday mornings, he headed to the Lawton airport, where he could buy 15 minutes of flying time for $1.50.
The lessons came in a Wiley Post trainer biplane with an open cockpit and he soloed after 6 hours and 45 minutes; he was 14.
According to "The Fighting Men of Oklahoma," Johnson was inducted into the military Nov. 12, 1941, then trained in Texas. The book is simple in its description: Johnson served in the European Theater of Operations for 18 months, shooting down enemy planes, rescuing fellow pilots, escorting bombers and winning citations, including the Congressional Medal of Honor and Distinguished Flying Cross Air Medal.
"Thunderbolt" adds more detail, recounting his experiences with the Republic P-47C, a 2,000 horsepower, seven-ton fighter known as a Thunderbolt.
Johnson was assigned to the 56th Fighter Group in July 1942, when he and other pilots took on the P-47 fighters which had just rolled off the assembly line.
Johnson, whose previous experiences were biplanes and trainers, wrote of his first view of the Thunderbolt: "It was a giant." The plane boasted a four-bladed propeller, wide and straddling landing gear and four heavy .50-caliber guns in each wing. His previous best speed 105 to 110 miles per hour; the Thunderbolt stalled at 105 mph.
"It was love at first sight," he wrote.
The first task for the 56th was shaking out the bugs. At Johnson?s first takeoff, the canopy trigger lock snapped and the bar hit his head. Despite the pain, Johnson left the ground. When he wanted to land, the left flap wouldn?t drop and the plane went into a vertical drop. The hydraulic line also fouled up, Johnson casually noted. He managed to land with the flaps in the half-way position.
The 56th pilots landed in Glasgow, Scotland, in January 1943; the Thunderbolts arrived several weeks later. Veteran British pilots were tactful, but they said the Thunderbolts were sitting ducks for the German Messerschmitts 109 and Focke-Wulfs 190. They were wrong; the Thunderbolts allowed the 56th to take down 1,009 German fighters.
Johnson scored his first Focke-Wulf June 13, 1943, but he earned more than a kill. His plane was hit over Germany and he realized he would have to fly home alone. A fire in the cockpit put itself out, but the Thunderbolt soon indicated it was in extreme distress. Johnson thought about bailing, but realized he couldn?t; twisted metal jammed the canopy.
He fought to keep the plane in the air, even as he mentally rehearsed how to walk through Spain and France to re-enter England.
Johnson?s situation got worse. He was flying without goggles ? his lens broke the day before ? and hydraulic fluid leaked into his eyes. Splinters from 20-mm cannon shells were imbedded in his hands; a bullet nicked his nose and had shot away his wrist watch; the flesh around his eyes blistered; he had two flesh wounds in his left thigh from a .30-caliber bullet.
Then, it got really bad.
A Focke-Wulf with a yellow nose ? one of Goering?s Boys ? found him and followed him to the Channel, putting bullets in the plane with precision. All Johnson could do was ignore the bullets and keep his nose pointed toward home base.
He knew he would make it when he flew over the White Cliffs of Dover. He couldn?t find the camouflaged base closest to him, so he flew 40 more miles to home base.
On the ground, he surveyed the plane?s damage: 21 gaping holes and tears from exploding cannon shells; holes through the nose, fuselage and tail; five holes in the propeller; five cannon shell holes in the right wing and four in the left; the lower half of the rudder gone. The epic helped earn Johnson a reputation as a "hot rock."
In October 1943, Johnson lost a rudder and started to bail, but changed his mind.
"Suddenly, I came to my senses. Uh-ah. That?s Germany below me," he wrote, adding he flew home only to hit the "North Sea Stratus," a solid bank of clouds. The clouds opened long enough to slide through and he landed, holding the rudder cable in his hand. That mission brought his kill count to five, qualifying him as an ace (the fifth man in the European Theater to do so).
By March 1944, he had less than 20 hours of flying time left, meaning he soon had to rotate home. His commander gave him a 25-hour extension, because he wanted the 57th to have the first pilot to match Rickenbacker?s record.
Johnson hit the magic number in May 1944, when he had less than six hours of flying time left. A grinning commander greeted him at the base: "Get the hell out of here, Johnson. You?re going home." Johnson left England as the D-Day invasion began and returned stateside to a hero?s welcome.
Johnson resigned from the Army after the war, but continued to fly as a reservist and as a test pilot for Republic Aviation (builder of the P-47). There, he convinced the Air Force to locate the flight instruments in the center of the cockpit instrument panel, resulting in a standard instruments location on all planes worldwide.
Johnson died in a Tulsa hospital in 1998. His wife Barbara ? whom he met when they were students at Lawton High ? died in October 1995.
