Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: rod367th on December 05, 2002, 02:28:35 AM
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The interview
CUNNINGHAM: Col. Gabreski, what was your total score - combat victories?
GABRESKI: During World War II, in the European Theater, 31. And six-and-a-half in Korea.
CUNNINGHAM: You were at Pearl Harbor during the japanese attack, weren't you?
GABRESKI: Yes, I was .... Unfortunately.
CUNNINGHAM: What were you flying then?
GABRESKI: I was assigned to the 15th Fighter Group, 45th Fighter Squadron, at Wheeler Field. We were flying P36s and the modern version of the P-40, which was the P40B.
CUNNINGHAM: Were you able to get into the air during the attack?
GABRESKI: Well, they attacked Wheeler Field practically simultaneously as they attacked Pearl Harbor, and we received our share of bombs and strafing and so forth. To put it all in a nutshell, I mean we lost just about half of our airplanes that were parked on the ramp - the P-36s and P-40s - and, uh, we didn't get off the ground during the attack. I was fortunate in getting off in about two-and-a-half, three hours later, with a group of about 12 airplanes. But that was after the fact. We didn't see anything.
CUNNINGHAM: Early in the war you flew the Spit-9 with a Polish squadron in England.
GABRESKI: I went over in the early days from, directly from Hawaii to Europe, with the nucleus of the Eight Air Force. I flew with the Polish squadron out of Northolt. The Spit-9 was the aircraft that they were using at the time. The Spit-9 was designed principally as a fighter interceptor. It was just a tremendous airplane in that particular role. However, it had its limitations. It didn't have the range, it didn't have the endurance. So as an escort airplane all it could do was escort probably to the coast of France and back. That's about all.
I served with the Polish Air Force from January to about March of 1942. The 56th Fighter Group came to Kings Cliffe from the United States during that period of time. They were actually the first P-47 outfit that was assigned to the European Theater of Operations. And after receiving my indoctrination experience with the Polish Air Force I joined the 56th at Horsham St. Faith.
CUNNINGHAM: How did your P47s compare to the German fighters?
GABRESKI: Well, Bob, it all depends on what P-47 you're talking about. The early P-47 - which was the basic airplane - had a very thin propeller, although it was a four-bladed propeller. It didn't have water injection. It didn't have all the niceties of the P-47D20 that came into the theater sometime in the latter part of, uh ... well, it was actually about March of 1944. So the improvement that we had (was) water injection, which gave you a power increase of from 52 inches of mercury to about 72 inches of mercury, which was a tremendous boost in power and performance. Then you had tremendous visibility with the teardrop canopy. You could cover your tail and look out freely without the crossbars kinda' restricting your vision. So I would say that the P-47I finally went down with on July 20, 1944, was one of the finest little airplanes that I have ever flown. It was more than a match for the Focke-Wulf 190. It was more than a match for the 109. I had absolutely no problem as long as I used water injection, and I used it quite frequently. We had water injection that would, with sustained power, keep us there for about three minutes up to five minutes, depending upon how you use it. But it gave us that tremendous edge that we needed against the German Luftwaffe.
CUNNINGHAM: I understand you liked to bore in really close, in combat, to your opponent.
GABRESKI: Well, I wouldn't have much of a choice when it came to, uh, firing in close and destroying the aircraft, or firing out at a distance - because my gunnery wasn't as good as perhaps Gerald Johnson's gunnery. So I kinda' felt that I had to come in very, very close in order to destroy the aircraft.
CUNNINGHAM: Colonel, what German aircraft did you feel was the toughest opponent?
GABRESKI: Well, as you well know, during the early days we encountered more 109s than we did anything else. There were some Me110's, there were some Me210s that were used against the bomber formations. But the Fw190 came at a later date . . . the latter part of 1943, and then by 1944 they had their full production set up. But, generally speaking, Fw190 was probably a little bit faster airplane. It had its limitations, though. It had a very bad snap. I other words, if you could get the pilot to pull excessive g's close to the ground and he decelerated at the same time because of the drag of the airplane, why, you could have him spin in. He would snap. And once they snapped close to the ground, there's no way they can recover. So I would say from that point of view the 109 was probably a little bit better airplane. But it's practically six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. I did not fear the 109, and I didn't have any apprehension about the Fw190s.
CUNNINGHAM: Did you ever fly the Hurricane?
GABRESKI: No, I never flew the Hurricane. The only British airplane I flew was the Spit-9. And it was the Cadillac of them all as far as interceptor work. But the Hurricane was really the backbone of the Battle of Britain.
CUNNINGHAM: What about maneuverability of the planes you flew?
GABRESKI: The maneuverability of the P-51 was probably just a little bit better than the P-47. I have never turned, really, with the P-51 versus the P-47. But I would say if I had a choice of the two airplanes .... I would say, for long-range work, the P-51 is probably a better plane, because it had a greater range than the P-47. The P-47 had its limitations. And that's the part that the P-51 played in the European Theater. But we had eight machine guns in the P-47, which was tremendous firepower compared to the six machine guns that you had in the P-51. So when you take your paddle-blade propeller improvement, you take your water injection improvement, and you take the eight machine guns into consideration versus the six ... all in all, I preferred the P-47. And I'm a little bit partial to the P-47s, since it was the only thing that I'd flown in combat in World War II, outside of the Spit-9, that really brought me home every time - except once. And it was my own fault.
CUNNINGHAM: That was on your last mission - strafing the German airfield.
GABRESKI: Yes, I got a little too low.
CUNNINGHAM: Did you get any of your kills in the Spitfire?
GABRESKI: No, I didn't. And it was ironical. Of course, you know, in the heat of excitement you're ... the first time you see an enemy aircraft, your adrenalin flows and you get all worked up. This particular time, I saw the Fw190 at a distance and I started firing at him. Naturally he was out of range, so I never did hit him and he finally rolled down. But in the meantime, when I landed and they developed the film, there was another 190 in the frame as big as could be. He was directly in front, below my nose, and I was concentrating on the aircraft that was about fifteen hundred or two thousand feet ahead. So I missed an opportunity.
CUNNINGHAM: did you ever encounter any of the Me262 jets?
GABRESKI: No I didn't. That came after my time. I went down July 20, 1944. The Me262s started coming into, uh, into the combat arena sometime after July and August.
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CUNNINGHAM: Your combat experience, Colonel... was there any one action that stands out in your mind, any combat that you particularly remember?
GABRESKI: Well, there were two that kinda stand out in my mind. The one was on the positive side, where I destroyed four airplanes - three at the time and the fourth one was confirmed later. I went down to tree-top level at this aerodrome where there were 20 or 30 airplanes, Fw190s, taking off, and it was just like puttin' myself in a bees' nest. There were airplanes, German airplanes, all over the place. And, of course, the fortunate thing was I had a cloud cover of fair weather cumulus that gave me the opportunity to duck in and out when I got into trouble. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have survived. But anyway, I did the aggressive shooting and downed three airplanes. I was working on the fourth there at that point, and I looked behind and I had one on my tail. He was just about in firing range so I broke into him, went into the clouds, and lost him. When I came out of the clouds, I saw another airplane right beneath me and I went down and started firing at him. Just at that particular point there were airplanes on my tail again. They were firing at me, and I broke into them. So I have no idea. . . I did hit the airplane real well and I had no idea what happened to him so I went back into the clouds. And that just about ended my operation for the day. So I had, uh, three destroyed and one probable during that particular episode. And then, finally, the fourth was confirmed later on. So that was on the plus side.
Of course, on the minus side, I recall shooting down two Me110s on another mission and starting back to England alone. I was lost, everybody was doing a lot of shooting and so forth, and, uh, my wing man shot down a couple of airplanes and he separated from me. So I was going home all alone. And I saw a few airplanes off in the distance - about eight or ten airplanes together - and I thought they were P-47s , so I immediately threw my throttle forward and came in from the rear and went off to the side. And when I went off to the side I saw that they were Fw190s with great big noses. I didn't say a word. I turned around gracefully, hoping that they didn't see me. They didn't, and I made a 180 and started heading for home.
While I was heading for home, I saw this lone log above me going the opposite direction - going into Germany - and I was headed for England. He was about 3000 feet above me and I was hoping that he didn't see me and wouldn't see me, because I was practically at the end of my reserve fuel and it was time to go home. So I was running low. As a matter of fact, I was worried about getting home with the amount of fuel I had left., so, as he went by me, I saw a quick flicker and he made one turn and he looked . . . and sure enough, he made a 180 and started after me. I had one decision to make, either to break into him or run that throttle all the way forward and run out of gas or do something before I got home. I wasn't about to run that throttle forward, so I went up to about 42 inches of mercury, just enough power to have full control of the airplane, and as he came down I was going to run him out of ammunition. That was my decision, and I felt that I was good enough to do that.
So he came down, and I broke into him. And as he went on by me, firing, I pulled up in sort of a chandelle. As my airspeed was dropping, he came back up again, turned around, and started coming into me. As he was coming up, I gave him a 90-degree deflection shot. Well, the first deflection shot was great. In other words, he fired and I could see the 20 millimeter gun spittin' smoke, or spittin' fire. I broke and he lost his airspeed, and I went down into him and he came down after me and we picked up enough speed and went . . . I did that twice, and on the third one I had all the confidence now that I was gonna run him out of ammunition.
So the third time we went ahead and did this same thing and he came up with about a 90-degree deflection shot again, the same shot that I'd been giving him. I was very fortunate the first two times, but that last time he rang the bell. I mean, he really hit me! I heard an explosion in the cockpit and I felt my foot grow numb. I lost power in my engine. I says, "Oh, boy!" So the first thought that came to my mind was that the high explosive blew up as it hit my foot. And the second thought that came to my mind was, "oh, he hit my engine, so that's it. I'm out of power and I've gotta go down - bail out - whatever." So I pointed the nose down again, rolled over in kinda a steep dive, pointed the nose down and I was afraid to look at the foot because with the sight of blood, or something like that, I mighta gone into shock and passed out. So I didn't look. I pulled back on the canopy and was ready to bail out. I looked at my airspeed indicator and I still had plenty of airspeed, but my RPM started coming down and my manifold pressure started coming up. So the thought again occurred to me that, "Well, it must be the turbine supercharger and not the engine." And then I looked at the foot and at the pedal. The pedal was shot away but the foot was in good shape. I had heavy boots on and the bottom side of the boot was kinda shredded and broken up. But the foot was in good shape.
So then I had to make a decision as to whether or not I was gonna bail out before he came in to pick me up, or whether I was going to go down to the deck where there was a cloud layer. I decided to do that, so I went down as fast as I could, straight down into the overcast, hoping to get there before he could finish me off. He came down with me, but I did get into the overcast, leveled off, and stayed there. Periodically I'd pop up and I could see him behind me, looking around at the overcast. And then it was a question . . . I knew I could stay in the clouds and go home.
But then the fear went through my mind that I didn't have enough fuel to get home on. So I stayed in the clouds as long as I could and then, once I hit the channel, I decided to get down to the lower levels. I just rolled the RPM back as far as I could - which was about 1700 RPM - and started callin' in "MAYDAY" And I called in Mayday all the way across the channel and when I got to the shoreline, I saw an airfield, and I set it down.
Well, I ran out of fuel shortly after that, in a taxi situation. And I soon discovered, after the individuals at that airbase came out and met me on the runway with the engine shut down and so forth . . . they discovered that the oil tank was practically dry. He hit me once in the oil tank and I was losing oil. My turbine supercharger was shot away. He got in three good shots. And my boot was pretty well torn. So I left the airplane there, called the group, and told them where I was. Somebody came up and picked me up and I left the airplane there and went home. So that was the opposite end of my experiences.
Conclusion
When air combat victories were tallied at the conclusion of WWII Gabreski emerged as America's top scoring ace to i survive that conflict. . . but he wasn't done yet! This indomitable fighter pilot remained in military service and once more wound up in the thick of things as hostilities broke out in Korea. Now flying jets, Gabreski was credited with 6.5 victories to become an ace in two wars.
Like Father, Like Son
Following in the footsteps of his illustrious father is Lt. Col. Don Gabreski, USAF. Like 'Gabby', Don is a fighter jock, now (1987) flying F-16s out of Ramstein AB, West Germany. Lt. Col. Don Gabreski is a 1970 graduate of the Air Force Academy. He was graduated from flight school in 1971 , and served as a T-38 instructor for three years. After transitioning to F-4s he later spent some time in Iceland ushering errant 'Bears' to proper airspace.
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Sir Douglas Bader
After losing both legs in a crash of his fighter in 1931, Sir Douglas acquired artificial legs, learned to fly with them, and was later credited with 22.5 victories during aerial combat in World War II. In combat over France on August 1, 1941, he had a mid-air collision and was captured. In later years he was knighted for his work in helping the handicapped.
Cunningham: Sir Douglas, how did the aerial warfare of World War II differ from that of the First World War?
Bader: In my day - and in World War I days - you had to do the navigation yourself. You had to see the enemy, you had to get behind him, and then you had to shoot him down. But in World War I, a dogfight was with aeroplanes flying in small circles at 90 to 100 miles per hour. When World War II started, they said, ‘No, you’ll never do deflection shots at 200 or 300 miles per hour,’ like the Hurricane and Spitfire did. The fact was, World War II was just like World War I - except that the circles were bigger, that’s all. I read every book by McCudden and all these fellows, and I reckoned these chaps knew because they did it. All my fighting and everybody else’s subsequently was based on World War I, where the chap who got the surprise and the height had control of the battle, and the bloke who shot best shot them down. And of course the awful thing (I must say this because it always make me laugh)… In the far-off happy days of World War I, when they staggered off in these aircraft with open cockpits and no guns, they’d have a pop at each other with pistols. And they wouldn’t hit each other. And they’d say ‘Cheers’, and go back off to their bases. Then, of course, some toejam invented a machine gun that fired forwards, and we started killing each other. There’s the trouble. You didn’t recognise the bloke, but you saw him. And of course, now … now you’re being shot by people you never see - by missiles - and it’s become too impersonal. But, I mean, everything I did in World War II in the way of being a fighter - attacking another fighter - was based entirely on World War I. Entirely on the McCuddens, the Richthofens.
Cunningham: Sir Douglas, which was the better fighter? The Spitfire or the Me109?
Bader: It’s a very interesting thing. Naturally, the Spitfire was better. The Spitfire was a stronger aeroplane than the 109. It would take more g and it wouldn’t … I mean, it would come flying back. Some of them almost had their fins shot off - or, you know, ammunition boxes knocked clean off, with a hole you could a body through - and it would still come back. But the 109 was a jolly good aeroplane. It was smaller, it was initially quicker on the dive, and we were quite sure it wouldn’t take the g’s the Spitfire would.
Cunningham: Did you ever do any air-to-ground work?
Bader: Oh yes. But the only air-to-ground I ever did was beating up E-boats in the Channel. There was a lull after 1940 - after the Battle of Britain finished - and, we used to go off two at a time. They used to call it peasant shooting, some of the blokes, because the French were on the other side. But we used to go over and look for things, you know. You see, an E-boat was great fun because they used to come through the Channel, escorting or something, and we used to go and give them a squirt and shoot them up, and then they'd go away. It was great fun. But that was the only air-to-ground I've done.
Cunningham: Does any one combat stand out in your memory over all the others?
Bader: Uh, yes, I suppose it does, really. Now I think probably my first Battle of Britain contact was in August 1940, when I had just 12 aeroplanes. My squadron. I was leading, and we got the absolute classic one. All the World War I methods were right in my mind. A large formation of German aeroplanes was coming. We were warned. We had taken off and we were vectored down south. They were coming in from the south and slightly west of south. The sun was over toward the west and, what happened in those days, the chaps in control would vector you . . . in other words, direct you .. .. so that you did a straight cut-in like that - mind the angle - which was quite wrong, because you can get all sorts of wrong conditions. And when I heard they were coming and they gave me a vector of 135 degrees, I thought, "Right." And I turned Southwest, went up into the sun, and then I saw them. They were coming in from there, and I got up into the sun and they never saw us at all. And we got 'em. Dived straight into them and broke the formation up. It was the absolute classic. I mean, Richthofen, uh, what' s his name, Rickenbacker, Bill McCudden - they would have all approved of that one. And that is one I remember very well, because we got no coaching at all. We knocked down twelve of them, and we didn't get a bullet in any of us. It' s always the early one that one thinks of. Really, it was the absolute classic one - classic World War I. All the things had been met: the sun, the height.
Cunningham: What, in your opinion, was the best of the German fighters?
Bader: Well, you see, I have no experience, because I missed the 190. I was shot down in August, '41, and the last I had was their 109Fs with the Spitfire V and they were just about marginal together, you know. There wasn't much advantage, except we could turn.
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Cunningham: Did you ever engage your friend, Adolf Galland?
Bader: Adolf Galland? He was probably THE great German fighter pilot - and a great leader. He was a great chap. A nice chap, too. And he was a good shot, and everything else. But you see, we knew each other's name on the other side of the Channel, and, uh, it happened that his wing was based in Visont, behind the line on the French coast. We always came in from Tangmere on a course of about 100, 110 degrees straight over his territory, so his chaps were always up. This happened two or three times a day - I mean everyday for a long while in 1941. We didn't recognise his markings, but we knew it was his lot. We used to exchange bullets every day from May 1941. But, he came to be a friend of mine, Adolf Galland, and we still have arguments about the old days. He comes and stays with me, you know, and he's, uh, he's a very . . . he's acquired a tremendous sense of humour. He's a very dear chap. I'm very fond of him.
Cunningham: Did you ever engage anyone in a single combat that you thought might defeat you?
Bader: No.
Cunningham: How many sorties did you fly a day?
Bader: Oh God, we used to do three or four a day. The Spitfire could take an awfully lot of punishment. I mean, extraordinary. But I think, generally, if you think of some of the bombers that got back, what they'd take if you didn't hit a vital spot. The German Ju.88 took a hell of a lot of punishment, too. I tell you, it was their best aeroplane. A very strong aeroplane. You could really fill it with the stuff
Cunningham: You were a very good shot yourself, weren't you?
Bader: I don't say I was as good a shot as Bob Tuck [RAF ace Robert Stanford-Tuck] but then I was a better pilot. I wish he could hear that. I have told him several times, actually. Sorry he's not here to hear that. The thing was . . . when he was in training he was almost failed, and his instructor at the school said, "For Christ's sake, let's have another go-round and we'll see what we can do." And he managed to pass. But, he was a very good shot. You see, there were those fighter pilots who were bad pilots and good shots, and fighter pilots who were bad shots and good pilots, and a rare combination of good pilots and good shots. My final score was 22-and-a-half because myself and a friend of mine blew one aeroplane to pieces, so we had one-half each. That's how that works out.
Cunningham: In your last combat, where you had your collision - would you give a brief description of that combat?
Bader: Gee, it was my fault really, like all these things. When I lost my legs it was my fault. The thing was, when I turned across, a 109 was on my right. I didn't think he was near enough or would do anything stupid, and my impression was that I hit him. Or he hit me, with his propeller, and took the whole back end of my aeroplane off, cause when I turned around . . . the aeroplane went down like that into, uh . . . it just sort of fell down. There was nothing on the stick at all.
And when I looked around as far as I could see, there was nothing behind the cockpit. In other words, you would turn and see the fin normally, and I thought, "The thing's gone!" Dolpho said I was shot down, but the German Historical Branch . . . nobody can tell me. I then accused Johnny Johnson [Johnson, who was in Bader's squadron at the time, became the RAF's leading ace of WWII]. I said, "Well, you probably shot me down. You wanted a promotion, you know." I never to this day ... you know, a fellow could easily have shot me down, and at very close range with cannons, you know, knocked my back end off. But there it is. The fact was, it doesn't matter how it happened - there it was. I came down in a pretty steep dive, slightly turning to the right, and I pulled the hood off and got out. And having got out I wasn't free. I was stuck on the outside of the fuselage. My foot was evidently caught. My right foot had caught in some part of the cockpit. And there I was - hanging along the fuselage outside the aeroplane, and I couldn't get any further. Because of the buffeting I was really nailed against the aeroplane. A lot of noise of course. My helmet had come off and so on, and after what seemed like a very long time - it was probably only two seconds - I suddenly broke away from the aeroplane and pulled the parachute. I had a leather belt which holds this leg on around my waist. There's a hit of spring steel in the first hit, and what had happened, the belt had broken and luckily the leg went off through my trousers. And so I arrived with only one leg. But I arrived.
Cunningham: Later it was arranged for a spare pair of legs...
Bader: Yes. I'll tell you, the exact truth is the Germans came to see me and the fighter pilots, and I said to one who spoke English, "I've lost my right leg. Will you telephone England and have them send me my spare." I have a spare. I have four legs, actually. Two I wear and two spares, you see. And so he said, "Oh yes, we'll do that." And he came back - I think the next morning - and said they'd gotten a message on the International Wave Band asking to send me a leg out and they hadn't heard anything from them (the British). Well, it transpired ( I heard this after the war) that they had offered a free flight to land at St. Omer airfield - while I was in the hospital at St. Omer - with my legs and they wouldn't shoot it down. And, uh, our blokes said, "Nonsense. We'll drop it, but not a free ride and all the propaganda they'd get out of that, you know." So they came over in an ordinary bombing raid and one fellow detached himself and dropped the leg at the St. Omer airfield. There's a picture in the book ‘Reach for the sky’. You see the aeroplane and a box coming down with flak bursting around it, like a land mine, and luckily they didn't hit it. That's how it happened. In the meantime, the Germans [Adolf Galland's people] had found this other leg and this fellow brought it in. It was a bit buckled around the foot and so on, and he brought it in and I said, "Look. This is how it works." And he took it back and they repaired it, and they brought it back to me. It made a hell of a noise. But, I mean, I could put it on and walk. And so then I walked out of the hospital and tried to escape, with not a good result. I nearly did. If I had managed to be out for another hour, I think I could have made it.
Cunningham: What was your favourite method of attack?
Bader: Well, there's only one favourite method with fighter pilots - whether it's a bomber or whatever - and that's to come up from underneath. You've got to get behind for obvious reasons, so he can't see you, and you've got to be lightly underneath because then you have the plan of the aeroplane, not firing at just a silhouette. And it was the same with anything, whether it was a bomber or you were firing at engines or whatever you were doing. The vulnerability was underneath. Of course the 109 was not particularly difficult to shoot down, depending on how you rnaneuvered and so on. The pilot was sitting on an L-shaped tank. The petrol tank was the same shape as the seat. Oh, they had armour plating and so on, you know, but I would still keep my cheeks pretty tight if I was sitting on a petrol tank.
Cunningham: Do you have any advise for a designer of a modern fighter?
Bader: Yes. Build it strong so it won't break. That's all I want the modern fighter to be. That's what they used to say in the war. And give us some manoeuvrability. That's what you want, really.
Cunningham: Who, among the other aces, do you have a great deal of respect for?
Bader: Oh, there were some wonderful blokes around. Sailor Malan. He died at an early age after the war from Parkinson’s disease. A personal friend of mine. A lovely chap and Bob Stanford-Tuck. He is still alive I'm glad to say. And there were many of them. Stan Turner was a Canadian. He was with me for a long time. Johnny Johnson. These people, all from the war, have gone on and are doing pretty well, you now They were all ten years younger than me, and they're all now at the tops of their professions doing jolly well. Oh, the names that one can think of without particularly remembering. Frank Carey is another one. He worked with Rolls-Royce after the war. He was a great pilot. Peter Townsend is in France. Another splendid chap. But, I say, there were so many of them. Many are still alive, and many more dead, which is a sad thing. The wonderful thing about the youngsters who died in World War II that one knew . . . it's not the fact they are dead, but that they went out on the crest when they were 22 years old, 23 years old, or younger, some of them. But they didn't know anything but flying and fighting, which they loved. And what I think, you see, what we say in the ceremony of the service to them, "They shall not grow old as we grow old. Age shall not wither nor the years condemn." One always remembers them as they were. You don't suddenly find some dreary old bum, like myself who's 72 years old with bags under his eyes and creases all over. That's what we finish up with. But it's such fun to remember them only when they were on the crest. It's a tremendous satisfaction - a feeling actually - that it's all right. That's what I feel about it.
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[Editor’s note: Sir Douglas Bader - Cavalier of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross - died September 5, 1982.]
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Very nice :)
Thks
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Rgr that and ditto. Good read. TY
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Great stuff. :)
I heard Gabby tell some of those stories in person and that's just how he said it. :)
Thx for the DB interview too!
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great reading ty:) ,sides i always knew our ah jug is undermodelled
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Thanks
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punt also
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Who is Cunningham? Is this published in some magazine? Or is it interview done by one of "us", the sim community?
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Thanks :)
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Originally posted by Grendel
Who is Cunningham? Is this published in some magazine? Or is it interview done by one of "us", the sim community?
Bob Cunningham work with My father at General Dynamics. Both were hop's pilots and test pilots .
It was thier job to test captured 109 against 51's and ETC. I have 50 interviews to go thru. And put in context, going as fast as i can will follow with more soon.
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Rod do u have those in "electric" format i.e. Word or something?
I would gladly provide webspace for these documents if u'r interested.
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Originally posted by rod367th
Bob Cunningham work with My father at General Dynamics. Both were hop's pilots and test pilots .
It was thier job to test captured 109 against 51's and ETC. I have 50 interviews to go thru. And put in context, going as fast as i can will follow with more soon.
So, Rod, you're working on them... Ok. Those are rather awesome material. And something that's very close to me too. Might it be possible that I publish the interviews in the Finnish Virtual Pilots Association Aviation history site too?
My bad habit is to collect all kinds of hsitorycal interviews, articles and materials and slowly publish those articles where I can get permission. And it is especially cool to publish articles that were made or came through the virtual pilots community.
Please see:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/en/info/hist/
And the Association, unfortunately the english language site is "quite" limited but anyway...
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/en/
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Grendel, take a look here:
http://www.ww2pilots.com
They're having a question and answer session soon, and all are very welcome to submit any questions they'd like answered.
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Domain not found.
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http://www.worldwar2pilots.com
(embarressed blush)
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Anyone know Rod's email address?
I'd like to speak with him about those interviews....
Or Rod, if you see this please email me:
jukka.kauppinen@jmp.fi
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It made a hell of a noise. But, I mean, I could put it on and walk. And so then I walked out of the hospital and tried to escape, with not a good result. I nearly did. If I had managed to be out for another hour, I think I could have made it.
in france across the channe. with mechanical leg that shrieked when he moved .
what a man . was gonna go down swinging no matter what.