debunking the myth of the Spitfire

[Gman]

Yep Beurling was quite a nut.  He would practice shooting his handgun at all kinds of crazy stuff working on his deflection shooting, would borrow his airfield's 2 seat trainer/messenger plane to do air shows of his own creation at very low alt over civilians or whomever, and a pile of other insane behavior.

That war bond tour, a reporter had asked him how he felt about killing, and that's when he started that story of shooting just his 20mm at the Italian pilot, and how "he thought it was great, killing them, and how sometimes like that case he only needed 3 or 4 cannon shots as he would plant the pilot in the head and see it explode".  He was considered by many who flew with him to have the best eyes and be the best shot in the air force. 

One CO of his decided to actually sit down and talk with him and ask him about his shooting and marks he would put on his cockpit/sights himself and whatnot - Beurling explained in depth for the day how he went at airborne shooting and his own technique for deflection.  That CO put it to use - 4 days later he had 3 quick kills doing so.

The books about him explain all this better than my memory can, but he was quite the fighter pilot.  Anyone given the nickname "Buzz", then having a new one "screwball" assigned...I think that says it all.

http://www.constable.ca/caah/beurling.htm

[Rich46yo]

That was the most flawed summary of an airplane I think I ever read. I wont bother going over its sillyness cause with 8 pages they no doubt have already been covered.

[Ack-Ack]

Yep Beurling was quite a nut.  He would practice shooting his handgun at all kinds of crazy stuff working on his deflection shooting, would borrow his airfield's 2 seat trainer/messenger plane to do air shows of his own creation at very low alt over civilians or whomever, and a pile of other insane behavior.

That war bond tour, a reporter had asked him how he felt about killing, and that's when he started that story of shooting just his 20mm at the Italian pilot, and how "he thought it was great, killing them, and how sometimes like that case he only needed 3 or 4 cannon shots as he would plant the pilot in the head and see it explode".  He was considered by many who flew with him to have the best eyes and be the best shot in the air force. 

One CO of his decided to actually sit down and talk with him and ask him about his shooting and marks he would put on his cockpit/sights himself and whatnot - Beurling explained in depth for the day how he went at airborne shooting and his own technique for deflection.  That CO put it to use - 4 days later he had 3 quick kills doing so.

The books about him explain all this better than my memory can, but he was quite the fighter pilot.  Anyone given the nickname "Buzz", then having a new one "screwball" assigned...I think that says it all.

http://www.constable.ca/caah/beurling.htm

There are some recordings around the Intertardnet of some of Beurling's war bond speeches.  He was brutally frank about combat in those speeches, didn't sugar coat it at all. 

[Gman]

Hey Rich, how you been, don't remember seeing you for a while, welcome back.

[Oldman731]

Hey Rich, how you been, don't remember seeing you for a while, welcome back.

What he said.  How's the boy?

- oldman

[bustr]

From reading the link about Beurling, he liked to make his kills 250 and closer. I bet what he did to get marks in his cockpit for aiming was to get the armorer to setup his bird for harmonization on the 250 yd target. Then place marks inside of his windscreen or on his reflector plate corresponding to the IP points for the 20mm on each wing. A bit of trig and the harmonization chart for his bird, from there and he would have the points for 150 and 50.

[Gman]

Ya very likely, I'll have to dig through my books and find the exact passages, one of them had some pretty good details regarding his self created deflection shooting method.  Beurling did take the odd shot at long range, one which was observed by several other pilots was an 800 yard shot at a very, very wide angle, and just a quick burst connected with that target and downed it - that kill it said in 2 books really started to launch his rep as a great shot. After that it is accurate to say that he tried to fire as close to 250 as possible, as his method and convergence were optimized for that range. 

The reverse is true too, he took some shots where he said the target literally blocked out the rest of the sky, around 50 yards, maybe even 30 in one case, the one where he famously described shooting the Italian pilot in the head in a white plain, to a crowd of about 10,000 shocked civilians. 

[bustr]

He must have had a singular presence of mind. Inside of 150 you have to clearly remember your rounds are very low and only one stream will be of any use against a small fighter. Sometimes in the MA I remember, many times I aim center of the reticle. You have to wonder what he would have done with his life without a war.

[Rich46yo]

Hey Rich, how you been, don't remember seeing you for a while, welcome back.

Good thanks. Sadly working PMs and a lot of it and just no time for gaming. Hopefully 2017 will be different. Or lll will be exciting enough to re-join even tho I have only a few hours a week to play. Hope you, and all, are well. I'm happy for the community a new version is launching. Be well.

[PJ_Godzilla]

I don't think it was Acheson but others in Roosevelt's administration who were outed as Soviet agents (mainly through information from defector Whittaker Chambers, then backed up by Venona intercepts and other sources), such as Alger Hiss (attendee and involved in drafting agreements at the Yalta Conference), Harry Dexter White (high-level Treasury Department official, senior American official at Bretton Woods), Lauchlin Curry (Roosevelt's economic advisor), and Laurence Duggan (also in the State Department).  Roosevelt was told about them by Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle but dismissed the information entirely.

Huge amounts of information on things like this (and much, much more) were brought to the west by Vasili Mitrokhin when he defected along with his archive.  He was a senior archivist for the KGB for 30 years.  The book "The Sword and the Shield" summarizes material in the Mitrokhin Archive.

You're correct, Brooke. It might have been wishful thinking on my part, probably based on his defense of Hiss.

I always wondered, just based on the level of penetration of admin positions in the US, which highly-placed Narzzies (Zack's preferred term) were Stalinistas. Many have suggested Bormann. I keep thinking about Zitadelle; obviously known in detail in advance, and connect that dot to the fact that the Soviets never produced Bormann's body.