Matt308
Glock Perfection
Subject: Fighter Ace Bruce Carr . . Evading With A Dead Chicken Around His Neck
Col Eugene Mechling USAF ret wrote:
Bruce Carr was one of our instructors in F-80 Advanced at Williams Field in
Chandler Arizona in 1951 when I was in flying school. This is the way
training and combat was during the early stages of WWII.
.........................................
Subject: Fighter Ace Bruce Carr . . Evading With A Dead Chicken Around
His Neck
After carrying it for several days, 20-year-old Bruce Carr still hadn't
decided how to cook it without the Germans catching him. But, as hungry
as he was, he couldn't bring himself to eat it. In his mind, no meat was
better than raw meat, so he threw it away. Resigning himself to what appeared to
be his unavoidable fate, he turned in the direction of the nearest German
airfield.
Even POW's get to eat. Sometimes. And they aren't constantly dodging
from tree to tree, ditch to culvert. And he was exhausted.
He was tired of trying to find cover where there was none. Carr hadn't
realized that Czechoslovakian forests had no underbrush until, at the edge of
the farm field, struggling out of his parachute he dragged it into the .
During the times he had been screaming along at tree top level in his P-51
"Angels Playmate" the forests and fields had been nothing more than a green
blur behind the Messerchmitts, Focke-Wulfs, trains and trucks he had in his
sights. He never expected to find himself a pedestrian far behind enemy
lines.
The instant antiaircraft shrapnel ripped into the engine, he knew he was in trouble.
Serious trouble.
Clouds of coolant steam hissing through jagged holes in the cowling told Carr
he was about to ride the silk elevator down to a long walk back to his
squadron. A very long walk. This had not been part of the mission plan.
Several years before, when 18-year-old Bruce Carr enlisted in the Army,
in no way could he have imagined himself taking a walking tour of rural
Czechoslovakia with Germans everywhere around him. When he enlisted, all he
had just focused on flying airplanes .. fighter airplanes.
By the time he had joined the military, Carr already knew how to fly. He had
been flying as a private pilot since 1939, soloing in a $25 Piper Cub his
father had bought from a disgusted pilot who had left it lodged securely in
the top of a tree. His instructor had been an Auburn, NY, native by the name
of Johnny Bruns. " In 1942, after I enlisted, " as Bruce Carr remembers it,
"we went to meet our instructors. I was the last cadet left in the assignment
room and was nervous. Then the door opened and out stepped the man who
was to be my military flight instructor. It was Johnny Bruns !
We took a Stearman to an outlying field, doing aerobatics all the way;
then he got out and soloed me. That was my first flight in the military."
" The guy I had in advanced training in the AT-6 had just graduated himself
and didn't know a bit more than I did," Carr can't help but smile, as he
remembers .. which meant neither one of us knew anything. Zilch ! After three
or four hours in the AT-6, they took me and a few others aside, told us we
were going to fly P-40s and we left for Tipton, Georgia."
" We got to Tipton, and a lieutenant just back from North Africa kneeled on
the P-40's wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how
every- thing worked, then said ' If you can get it started .. go fly it' . .
just like that ! I was 19 years old and thought I knew every thing. I didn't
know enough to be scared. They didn't tell us what to do. They just said 'Go
fly,' so I buzzed every cow in that part of the state. Nineteen years old ..
and with 1100 horsepower, what did they expect? Then we went overseas."
By today's standards, Carr and that first contingent of pilots shipped to
England were painfully short of experience. They had so little flight time
that today, they would barely have their civilian pilot's license. Flight
training eventually became more formal, but in those early days, their
training had a hint of fatalistic Darwinism to it: if they learned fast
enough
to survive, they were ready to move on to the next step. Including his 40
hours in the P-40 terrorizing Georgia, Carr had less than 160 hours total
flight time when he arrived in England.
His group in England was to be the pioneering group that would take the
Mustang into combat, and he clearly remembers his introduction to the
airplane. " I thought I was an old P-40 pilot and the -51B would be no big
deal. But I was wrong! I was truly impressed with the airplane. REALLY
impressed! It flew like an airplane. I FLEW a P-40, but in the P-51 - I WAS
PART OF the airplane.. and it was part of me. There was a world of difference."
When he first arrived in England, the instructions were, ' This is a P-51. Go
fly it. Soon, we'll have to form a unit, so fly.' A lot of English cows were
buzzed. On my first long-range mission, we just kept climbing, and I'd never
had an airplane above about 10,000 feet before. Then we were at 30,000 feet
and I couldn't believe it! I'd gone to church as a kid, and I knew that's
where the angels were and that's when I named my airplane 'Angels Playmate.'
Then a bunch of Germans roared down through us, and my leader immediately
dropped tanks and turned hard for home. But I'm not that smart. I'm 19 years
old and this SOB shoots at me, and I'm not going to let him get away with it.
We went round and round, and I'm really mad because he shot at me. Childish
emotions, in retrospect. He couldn't shake me . . but I couldn't get on his
tail to get any hits either. " Before long, we're right down in the trees. I'm
shooting, but I'm not hitting. I am, however, scaring the hell out of him. I'm
at least as excited as he is. Then I tell myself to c-a-l-m d-o-w-n."
" We're roaring around within a few feet of the ground, and he pulls up to go
over some trees, so I just pull the trigger and keep it down. The gun barrels
burned out and one bullet . . a tracer . . came tumbling out . . and made a
great huge arc. It came down and hit him on the left wing about where the
aileron was.
He pulled up, off came the canopy, and he jumped out, but too low for the
chute to open and the airplane crashed. I didn't shoot him down, scared him
to death with one bullet hole in his left wing. My first victory wasn't
a kill - it was more of a suicide."
The rest of Carr's 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being red-hot
fighter pilot, however, was absolutely no use to him as he lay shivering in
the Czechoslovakian forest. He knew he would die if he didn't get some food
and shelter soon.
" I knew where the German field was because I'd flown over it, so I headed in
that direction to surrender. I intended to walk in the main gate, but it was
late afternoon and, for some reason . . I had second thoughts and decided to
wait in the woods until morning."
" While I was lying there, I saw a crew working on an FW 190 right at the edge
of the woods. When they were done, I assumed, just like you assume in America,
that the thing was all finished. The cowling's on. The engine has been run.
The fuel truck has been there. It's ready to go. Maybe a dumb assumption
for a young fellow, but I assumed so. "
Carr got in the airplane and spent the night all hunkered down in the cockpit.
" Before dawn, it got light and I started studying the cockpit. I can't read
German, so I couldn't decipher dials and I couldn't find the normal switches
like there were in American airplanes. I kept looking , and on the right side
was a smooth panel. Under this was a compartment with something I would
classify as circuit breakers. They didn't look like ours, but they weren't
regular switches either."
--End Part I--
Col Eugene Mechling USAF ret wrote:
Bruce Carr was one of our instructors in F-80 Advanced at Williams Field in
Chandler Arizona in 1951 when I was in flying school. This is the way
training and combat was during the early stages of WWII.
.........................................
Subject: Fighter Ace Bruce Carr . . Evading With A Dead Chicken Around
His Neck
After carrying it for several days, 20-year-old Bruce Carr still hadn't
decided how to cook it without the Germans catching him. But, as hungry
as he was, he couldn't bring himself to eat it. In his mind, no meat was
better than raw meat, so he threw it away. Resigning himself to what appeared to
be his unavoidable fate, he turned in the direction of the nearest German
airfield.
Even POW's get to eat. Sometimes. And they aren't constantly dodging
from tree to tree, ditch to culvert. And he was exhausted.
He was tired of trying to find cover where there was none. Carr hadn't
realized that Czechoslovakian forests had no underbrush until, at the edge of
the farm field, struggling out of his parachute he dragged it into the .
During the times he had been screaming along at tree top level in his P-51
"Angels Playmate" the forests and fields had been nothing more than a green
blur behind the Messerchmitts, Focke-Wulfs, trains and trucks he had in his
sights. He never expected to find himself a pedestrian far behind enemy
lines.
The instant antiaircraft shrapnel ripped into the engine, he knew he was in trouble.
Serious trouble.
Clouds of coolant steam hissing through jagged holes in the cowling told Carr
he was about to ride the silk elevator down to a long walk back to his
squadron. A very long walk. This had not been part of the mission plan.
Several years before, when 18-year-old Bruce Carr enlisted in the Army,
in no way could he have imagined himself taking a walking tour of rural
Czechoslovakia with Germans everywhere around him. When he enlisted, all he
had just focused on flying airplanes .. fighter airplanes.
By the time he had joined the military, Carr already knew how to fly. He had
been flying as a private pilot since 1939, soloing in a $25 Piper Cub his
father had bought from a disgusted pilot who had left it lodged securely in
the top of a tree. His instructor had been an Auburn, NY, native by the name
of Johnny Bruns. " In 1942, after I enlisted, " as Bruce Carr remembers it,
"we went to meet our instructors. I was the last cadet left in the assignment
room and was nervous. Then the door opened and out stepped the man who
was to be my military flight instructor. It was Johnny Bruns !
We took a Stearman to an outlying field, doing aerobatics all the way;
then he got out and soloed me. That was my first flight in the military."
" The guy I had in advanced training in the AT-6 had just graduated himself
and didn't know a bit more than I did," Carr can't help but smile, as he
remembers .. which meant neither one of us knew anything. Zilch ! After three
or four hours in the AT-6, they took me and a few others aside, told us we
were going to fly P-40s and we left for Tipton, Georgia."
" We got to Tipton, and a lieutenant just back from North Africa kneeled on
the P-40's wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how
every- thing worked, then said ' If you can get it started .. go fly it' . .
just like that ! I was 19 years old and thought I knew every thing. I didn't
know enough to be scared. They didn't tell us what to do. They just said 'Go
fly,' so I buzzed every cow in that part of the state. Nineteen years old ..
and with 1100 horsepower, what did they expect? Then we went overseas."
By today's standards, Carr and that first contingent of pilots shipped to
England were painfully short of experience. They had so little flight time
that today, they would barely have their civilian pilot's license. Flight
training eventually became more formal, but in those early days, their
training had a hint of fatalistic Darwinism to it: if they learned fast
enough
to survive, they were ready to move on to the next step. Including his 40
hours in the P-40 terrorizing Georgia, Carr had less than 160 hours total
flight time when he arrived in England.
His group in England was to be the pioneering group that would take the
Mustang into combat, and he clearly remembers his introduction to the
airplane. " I thought I was an old P-40 pilot and the -51B would be no big
deal. But I was wrong! I was truly impressed with the airplane. REALLY
impressed! It flew like an airplane. I FLEW a P-40, but in the P-51 - I WAS
PART OF the airplane.. and it was part of me. There was a world of difference."
When he first arrived in England, the instructions were, ' This is a P-51. Go
fly it. Soon, we'll have to form a unit, so fly.' A lot of English cows were
buzzed. On my first long-range mission, we just kept climbing, and I'd never
had an airplane above about 10,000 feet before. Then we were at 30,000 feet
and I couldn't believe it! I'd gone to church as a kid, and I knew that's
where the angels were and that's when I named my airplane 'Angels Playmate.'
Then a bunch of Germans roared down through us, and my leader immediately
dropped tanks and turned hard for home. But I'm not that smart. I'm 19 years
old and this SOB shoots at me, and I'm not going to let him get away with it.
We went round and round, and I'm really mad because he shot at me. Childish
emotions, in retrospect. He couldn't shake me . . but I couldn't get on his
tail to get any hits either. " Before long, we're right down in the trees. I'm
shooting, but I'm not hitting. I am, however, scaring the hell out of him. I'm
at least as excited as he is. Then I tell myself to c-a-l-m d-o-w-n."
" We're roaring around within a few feet of the ground, and he pulls up to go
over some trees, so I just pull the trigger and keep it down. The gun barrels
burned out and one bullet . . a tracer . . came tumbling out . . and made a
great huge arc. It came down and hit him on the left wing about where the
aileron was.
He pulled up, off came the canopy, and he jumped out, but too low for the
chute to open and the airplane crashed. I didn't shoot him down, scared him
to death with one bullet hole in his left wing. My first victory wasn't
a kill - it was more of a suicide."
The rest of Carr's 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being red-hot
fighter pilot, however, was absolutely no use to him as he lay shivering in
the Czechoslovakian forest. He knew he would die if he didn't get some food
and shelter soon.
" I knew where the German field was because I'd flown over it, so I headed in
that direction to surrender. I intended to walk in the main gate, but it was
late afternoon and, for some reason . . I had second thoughts and decided to
wait in the woods until morning."
" While I was lying there, I saw a crew working on an FW 190 right at the edge
of the woods. When they were done, I assumed, just like you assume in America,
that the thing was all finished. The cowling's on. The engine has been run.
The fuel truck has been there. It's ready to go. Maybe a dumb assumption
for a young fellow, but I assumed so. "
Carr got in the airplane and spent the night all hunkered down in the cockpit.
" Before dawn, it got light and I started studying the cockpit. I can't read
German, so I couldn't decipher dials and I couldn't find the normal switches
like there were in American airplanes. I kept looking , and on the right side
was a smooth panel. Under this was a compartment with something I would
classify as circuit breakers. They didn't look like ours, but they weren't
regular switches either."
--End Part I--
