A while back, my roomate told me that one of his freinds, an elderly lady, was having problems with her computer and he asked me if i would be willing to help. He also mumbled something about her late husband "Flew airplanes or sumthin" years ago.
It turns out...this woman is none other than Jeanie Riddle, wife of Capt.Bob Riddle one of Oregons top air aces of WWII!!! Apparently, he had begun writing a book of his exploits in WWII just before he died and she asked for my help in retrieving and unlocking the docs(stored on this OLD fossil of a PC running the very 1st version of DOS)that he was able to complete.
Well, I did it and in return she graciously gave me the LAST available original autographed picture of him sitting on the wing of his Mustang AND permission to share some of his stories with "Those who truly understand bravery"
Here ya go:
(Posted with permission of Jeanie Riddle)
(Excerpts from a MSS by Robert E. Riddle-(All rights reserved,1984.)
File:P-51-D
FIGHTER PILOT
(Aerial Combat & Other (Mis)Adventures)
On 19 June, 1944, I climbed out of our Group's battered B-25 onto the airstrip of the 332 Fighter Group based near the Adriatic coast of Southern Italy. The 332nd was the all-black Group built around the original 99th Fighter Squadron of Tuskeege University. They had only recently traded in their P-47's for olive drab P-51 B's and C's. Among their dunn colored old '51's sat several bright and shiny new P-51-D's with bubble canopies and natural unpainted aluminium skins. They were beautiful. A half-dozen of our 307th Squadron members surveyed the assembled aircraft under the hostile stares of black pilots and crews. Lugging my parachute and helmet I picked out a likely looking ship numbered 418510 attended by a sullen black mechanic who merely grunted when I asked if it was flyable. He offered no help as I threw my gear into the cockpit and buckled up. Mixture Full Rich, throttle cracked, a couple of shots of primer and emergency fuel pump ON; prop pitch full forward. The engine caught immediately and sounded sweet so I taxied out to the end of the metal Marsten mat and took off. Once in the air I found numerous minor discrepancies: no operable compass; radio frequences not set; oil and coolant shutters required manual control; - little things. But since our 31st Group based near San Severo was only about fifteen minutes west, I stayed in the air for a while testing, particularly the manual supercharger override (and secretly feeling relieved that a bomb hadn't been planted by the "disenfranchised" black crews of the 332nd.)
As I shut down the new plane in my revetment, I reported to my Crew Chief, Staff Sgt. LaSalle, and he seemed pleased and should have been. My old Angel II had required a lot of night work to keep it flying. A few days later after some test flights my new ship was ready to go, complete with "Angel III" painted under the exhaust stacks, my name and my crews names in small block letters on the left side under the cockpit along with two modest black crosses signifying my victories to date. Perhaps because of my implicit faith in my armorer, I failed to take the ship out over the Adriatic for sight testing the six .50 caliber guns. Cleaning six guns was quite a chore and I thought I would save him some work. It was almost a fatal omission!
23 June, 1944
The first mission in a new plane was supposed to be the one to sweat out; the same sort of superstition as having one's photo taken before take-off. The only thing different about this take-off was a slight sense of disorientation as I formed my element of two into close for- mation on Willie Shanning's flight, while dodging an unusual number of low level puff-ball cumulous clouds. As usual we headed East climbing to about 25,000 feet where we picked up our assigned group of B-24's. As we caught up with the weather front it was socked in solid below us with spires of towering cumulous thrusting white mountains through the overcast. It made for dandy concealment of enemy aircraft and pretty soon we began hearing quite a bit of radio chatter calling out groups of bogies high above us as we approached the target area. (Jimmy Brooks had to abort the only other D Model flying in our Squadron that day. Mechanical trouble.> The warnings on the radio became more urgent as the E/A above us split into smaller bunches and when their contrails disappeared we knew they were coming down on us.
Suddenly an FW-190 came screaming through in front of us headed for the heavy bomber stream. He was very close and Willie Shanning tried to draw on him but couldn't hold the turn. I pulled through in a shuddering four "G" turn firing until I lost sight of the FW under my nose. Apparently my wing man couldn't hold that high speed stall either because when I racked back to the left all I saw was the 190 heading for a cloud. He vanished into the cumulous and because of my speed and attitude I had no choice but to follow into the wall of white. Trying to straighten up on instruments I passed 15,000 feet when I popped into a clear pocket in the cloud - and there was that FW so close our wingtips almost brushed. Neither of us had time to fire a shot and as I plunged on into the soup, I was hoping the encounter had frightened the FW driver as much as it had me.
Concentrating on needle, ball, and airspeed I came out of the cloud in a rather steep dive and couldn't see any of my bunch, but I became aware of radio chatter on our Playboy Squadron channel indicating that somebody was in a fight. Then I spotted two aircraft about fifteen miles ahead and lower and went balls out to join what I assumed was my flight leader and his wingman. As I closed in the planes broke into me and I gave them a call on the radio. Then I saw the black crosses! How I could possibly mistake FW-190's for Mustangs I'll never know. Possibly it was wishful thinking. The two planes split up and I fol- lowed one down to about 5000 feet where he slid into formation with two more FW's and an Me-109. I debated for a second while I called for help. No answer but lots of chatter on the radio, so I slid in behind one FW and started firing. He chandelled up just as two more FW's came in behind and latched onto me. I fired again at my original target without effect until I started tracking with my tracers. Bits and pieces flew off from the cockpit area and the FW started down. With my excess speed I pulled on through to avoid the arrows flashing past me and came down on the three behind me. The Me-109 had gone off somewhere - I hoped. I overran the second guy I was shooting at, but just as I did part of his tail assembly came off and he splattered flaming all over the deck. We were quite near to the ground by then.
After a couple more turns I was able to get a deflection shot at another FW-190 and lowered the hammer following my tracers again and knocking his engine out. Streaming glycol and smoke he tried to belly in and flipped onto his back at pretty high speed. My guns were beginning to quit one by one. Because of the stoppages in the B & C model 51's, I assumed it was the result of tight turns and heavy "G" forces and was thinking of trying to get out of there with a whole skin. In addition, about every ten seconds Willie Shannon would yell, "Riddle! Break!" Unfortunately there were no friendlies down there on the deck and that last Focke Wulf was sore about something. He then proceeded to outclimb me and my one gun and would stall turn down into me. I had lowered a little flap to tighten my turns and we made three near head-on passes. But he couldn't tighten enough to bring his cannons to bear. On the third pass I managed a strike in his port wingroot angled up toward the cockpit area. With that he straightened out and really got down on the deck headed home while I got a couple more strikes on his wing while getting my flaps up. My last gun quit and I was happy to let him go.
I stayed down on the deck just long enough to photograph two FW-190's burning on the ground but couldn't find the first one I thought had probably gone in. I didn't spend much time searching since it seemed a pretty unhealthy place for a lone gun-less P-51. I started back upstairs trying to figure out where I was. When red marker flak began bursting around me about 24,000 feet, I found out I was right near the target area. I looked at my clock and decided that everyone else had gone home since I'd been there an hour and the radio was very silent. But I put out a call for Playboy Squadron and found that Red Flight was only about ten minutes ahead. They turned around, picked me up and we came home - barely. My crew chief measured the gas in my tanks and just shook his head. But he smiled when he saw I hadn't broken the wire on my throttle quadrant that would have put me in full emerg- ency boost at 72 inches of manifold pressure. (Strangely enough, I never broke that wire during my entire combat tour. I quess I was too much aware of that single engine up front that usually had to get me another 600 miles before I could shut it down.) In briefing, I claimed two FW's destroyed and two damaged. I asked Willie Shanning why he kept screaming for me to "BREAK" when I was busy all by myself on the deck. He said the other three in his flight had tangled with a bunch of hostiles and he figured it was me being bounced. It turned out it was my wingman who had stayed with Willie but Willie should have identified who he was calling as Yellow 3, my call sign, then he might have figured out why Yellow 4 wasn't evading. It also turned out that my guns hadn't jammed, I'd just run out of ammo.
A day or so later after the squadron had seen my gun camera film, I walked into the bar and Sam Brown, our Squadron C.O., announced "Well, here's our steely-eyed young fighter pilot!" Hell, my eyes were just as toejam-brown as ever but I had sweated off a good five pounds in the melee`. My film also showed that my shooting was atrociously under my targets. And while I was playing around on the deck with my FW's, the rest of the Group was busy doing their job upstairs against some pretty agressive Germans trying to get to the bombers. The final tally for the day was: Destroyed- 4 FW-190's and 4 Me-109's; Probably des- troyed- 1 FW-190; Damaged- 2 Me-109's and 3 FW-190's.
A few missions later, I was leading a flight of four returning from a non-eventful mission. We were pretty relaxed until I heard some other flight becoming engaged, however we didn't see a thing until a single Me-109 popped up in front of me not over 500 yards away. He seemed completely oblivious to the four Mustangs behind him and still had his belly tank attached. As I advanced my throttle I told my flight to tighten up a bit and we steamed right up to about 250 yards behind him with my pipper centered on his rudder. Then I pulled the trigger and was astonished as my tracers flashed a good four feet below him. The Me-109 immediately shoved his nose down - and ran right into the slugs from my six .50's. His belly tank exploded engulfing his ship in flames and the four of us watched him go down. The rest of the trip home was uneventful but the minute I hit the ground I insisted that my armorer check my gun sight. A while later I watched as the target was set up and the guns were bore-sighted with our new light beam system. They did check out four feet low and my armorer was one embarrassed young man. It also taught me a lesson. Never assume anything!
Addendum: Squadron records indicate that the above mentioned victory was another FW-190, but my fading memory tells me vividly that it was an Me-109. The citation awarding me the Distinguished Flying Cross made it appear that I had saved the entire heavy bomber formation that day. Of course the fact was that I had little to do with the fight going on around the bomber stream at least 20,000 feet above me, but at least a couple of enemy pilots would not be up the next day in new airplanes! Stupidity makes for strange awards - if one survives.
Capt. Robert E. Riddle
[This message has been edited by Mars (edited 02-09-2001).]
