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This is from historynet.com. I thought it was a very nice article.
George Preddy: Top-Scoring World War II Mustang Ace
With 27 1/2 confirmed aerial kills, George Preddy -- the top-scoring Mustang ace of World War II -- was undefeated until he ran into friendly fire on Christmas Day during the 1944 Ardennes offensive.
By Kelly Bell
The tropical heat in Darwin, Australia, was brutal on the afternoon of July 12, 1942, when four pilots of the U.S. Army Air Forces' 49th Fighter Group clambered into Curtiss P-40E fighters for what was supposed to be just one more training mission. They were First Lieutenant I.B. "Jack" Donalson and Second Lieutenants John Sauber, Richard Taylor and George Preddy Jr.
The mission started out in routine fashion, with Preddy and Taylor peeling off to play the role of Japanese bombers on which Sauber and Donalson would practice their interceptor skills via a dummy attack. Sauber made the first pass, but as he dived on Preddy's plane, he became disoriented, possibly blinded by the sun, and misjudged his distance. Too late he tried to pull up, but slammed into the tail of Preddy's aircraft at 12,000 feet, sending both planes tumbling earthward in flames.
Sauber, who never made it out of his cockpit, was killed. Preddy managed to bail out but came down in a tall gum tree that shredded his parachute and dropped him through the branches to the hard ground below. Aided by Lieutenant Clay Tice, who spotted his position from his P-40, ground crewmen Lucien Hubbard and Bill Irving found Preddy, who had a broken leg and deeply gashed shoulder and hip. After the squadron's surgeon examined Preddy in the airfield's infirmary, he announced the young airman would have bled to death if he had not been found before morning.
George Preddy's bloody baptism into World War II had come at the hands of his own comrades. But he would recover from that initial mishap and be reassigned to another front, where his dogfighting skills made him the war's top-scoring North American P-51 Mustang ace at age 25.
When the U.S. Army Air Forces' 352nd Fighter Group arrived at Scotland's Firth of Clyde on July 5, 1943, its pilots were mostly grass-green rookies fresh from flight school. On that same day, however, Queen Elizabeth delivered a few seasoned campaigners to bolster the new unit. One of them was Preddy.
Learning to fly the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt meant Preddy had to do some retraining before he was battle-ready, but after a year out of action he was chafing for combat. The budding hero was addicted to crap games, and when he tossed the dice he would yell "Cripes A' Mighty!" for good luck. To enhance his chances aloft, he had those words painted on the nose of every warplane he ever flew.
Operating from Bodney Airfield, the 352nd got into the action on September 9, 1943, flying cover for out-of-ammunition and low-on-fuel Thunderbolts of the 56th and 353rd Fighter groups as they returned from escort missions. It was boring at first, but these newcomers would soon be in the midst of massive air battles over the Third Reich.
On what became known as "Black Thursday," October 14, 1943, Preddy was among 196 frustrated escort pilots whose almost empty fuel tanks forced them to turn for home just as the Luftwaffe swept down onto Eighth Air Force bomber formations attacking the Schweinfurt ball bearing works. The resulting carnage among the unguarded bombers made it clear the P-47's 200-gallon-per-hour fuel consumption handicapped its value as an escort fighter.
Short range notwithstanding, Preddy and Cripes A' Mighty stayed busy sticking as close and long as possible to the Strategic Bombing Offensive's four-engine formations throughout the autumn of 1943. On December 1, he and a formation of Thunderbolts rendezvoused with bombers returning from an attack on Solingen. He latched onto the tail of a Messerschmitt Me-109 approaching the last bomber box from the rear. When the German saw the charging P-47, he made the mistake of trying to outdive Preddy's 13,000-pound gun platform. At 400 yards Preddy opened fire and held down the firing button as he closed to 100 yards, disintegrating the luckless interceptor. Preddy's 487th Fighter Squadron was the only one in the 352nd Group to score kills on that day of light fighter opposition.
On December 22, the 352nd lifted off to guard part of a returning force of 574 bombers that had savaged the marshaling yards of Münster and Onabrück. Preddy's wingman that day was brilliant young concert pianist Lieutenant Richard L. Grow. Just east of the Zuider Zee, the pair of Americans became separated from the rest of their flight during a swirling, confused dogfight in blinding cumulus clouds. Climbing back to the bombers' altitude, they spotted a gaggle of six Messerschmitt Me-210s and 10 Me-109s chewing on the tail of a crippled Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Unhesitatingly diving into the interceptors, Preddy quickly torched the Me-210 nearest the bomber before the Me-109s could interfere. With the pack now chasing them, the intrepid Thunderbolt pilots plunged for the clouds. Preddy managed to outpace his pursuers, but the fighters on Grow's tail apparently finished him before he could reach the fleecy cloud cover. The blossoming concert star never made it back to Bodney, but the limping Liberator, Lizzie, got home. Preddy was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross for that action, but instead received his country's third-highest award for heroism, the Silver Star.
January's weather was both sides' worst enemy. On January 29, 1944, the ice storms abated long enough for 800 bombers to fly against the industrial district of Frankfurt. The 487th was part of the fighter presence dispatched to meet the bombers on their return leg. Preddy quickly shot down a Focke Wulf Fw-190 over the French coast, but then flew over a flak pit and was hit hard. He coaxed his smoking Thunderbolt up to 5,000 feet, but could not make it across the English Channel. When his dying warbird dropped below 2,000 feet, he bailed out and inflated his pressurized dinghy while his wingman, 1st Lt. William Whisner, circled overhead until air-sea rescue units could triangulate a radio fix on the downed airman. A Royal Air Force flying boat landed, but in the rough seas it ran over Preddy and nearly caused him to drown. Then the rescue plane broke a pontoon while trying to take off, and had to call for additional assistance. By the time a Royal Navy launch arrived to tow the crippled flying boat to port, however, the American airman had been given a quart of brandy by the British crew and was beginning to thaw out.
Soon after Preddy's Channel swim, the 352nd began to switch from the P-47 to North American's new P-51 Mustang fighter. On the morning of April 22, 1944, the 487th Squadron took off to shepherd bombers on a drawn-out mission to Hamm, Sost, Bonn and Koblenz. In between bombing runs, the Mustangs swooped down onto the airfield at Stade. Preddy and two comrades simultaneously opened fire on and pulverized a Junkers Ju-88 twin-engine bomber that had just taken off, resulting in each of the Americans receiving a .33 kill credit.
On April 30, Preddy shot down an Fw-190 in a one-on-one dogfight 17,000 feet above Clermont, France. From that point, now-Major Preddy's score would rise at a steady rate as he and his new airplane became better acquainted. Between April 30 and the Normandy landings on June 6, Preddy torched 4 1/2 enemy aircraft. He completed a standard 200-hour tour of duty and two 50-hour extensions, and was starting a third. He expressed little outward interest in his score, preferring instead to concentrate on how much nearer the war's end was drawing and what he could do to hasten it. As the pivotal summer 1944 battles on the Western Front churned below him, Preddy shot down nine more Germans from June 12 to August 5.
George Preddy: Top-Scoring World War II Mustang Ace
With 27 1/2 confirmed aerial kills, George Preddy -- the top-scoring Mustang ace of World War II -- was undefeated until he ran into friendly fire on Christmas Day during the 1944 Ardennes offensive.
By Kelly Bell
The tropical heat in Darwin, Australia, was brutal on the afternoon of July 12, 1942, when four pilots of the U.S. Army Air Forces' 49th Fighter Group clambered into Curtiss P-40E fighters for what was supposed to be just one more training mission. They were First Lieutenant I.B. "Jack" Donalson and Second Lieutenants John Sauber, Richard Taylor and George Preddy Jr.
The mission started out in routine fashion, with Preddy and Taylor peeling off to play the role of Japanese bombers on which Sauber and Donalson would practice their interceptor skills via a dummy attack. Sauber made the first pass, but as he dived on Preddy's plane, he became disoriented, possibly blinded by the sun, and misjudged his distance. Too late he tried to pull up, but slammed into the tail of Preddy's aircraft at 12,000 feet, sending both planes tumbling earthward in flames.
Sauber, who never made it out of his cockpit, was killed. Preddy managed to bail out but came down in a tall gum tree that shredded his parachute and dropped him through the branches to the hard ground below. Aided by Lieutenant Clay Tice, who spotted his position from his P-40, ground crewmen Lucien Hubbard and Bill Irving found Preddy, who had a broken leg and deeply gashed shoulder and hip. After the squadron's surgeon examined Preddy in the airfield's infirmary, he announced the young airman would have bled to death if he had not been found before morning.
George Preddy's bloody baptism into World War II had come at the hands of his own comrades. But he would recover from that initial mishap and be reassigned to another front, where his dogfighting skills made him the war's top-scoring North American P-51 Mustang ace at age 25.
When the U.S. Army Air Forces' 352nd Fighter Group arrived at Scotland's Firth of Clyde on July 5, 1943, its pilots were mostly grass-green rookies fresh from flight school. On that same day, however, Queen Elizabeth delivered a few seasoned campaigners to bolster the new unit. One of them was Preddy.
Learning to fly the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt meant Preddy had to do some retraining before he was battle-ready, but after a year out of action he was chafing for combat. The budding hero was addicted to crap games, and when he tossed the dice he would yell "Cripes A' Mighty!" for good luck. To enhance his chances aloft, he had those words painted on the nose of every warplane he ever flew.
Operating from Bodney Airfield, the 352nd got into the action on September 9, 1943, flying cover for out-of-ammunition and low-on-fuel Thunderbolts of the 56th and 353rd Fighter groups as they returned from escort missions. It was boring at first, but these newcomers would soon be in the midst of massive air battles over the Third Reich.
On what became known as "Black Thursday," October 14, 1943, Preddy was among 196 frustrated escort pilots whose almost empty fuel tanks forced them to turn for home just as the Luftwaffe swept down onto Eighth Air Force bomber formations attacking the Schweinfurt ball bearing works. The resulting carnage among the unguarded bombers made it clear the P-47's 200-gallon-per-hour fuel consumption handicapped its value as an escort fighter.
Short range notwithstanding, Preddy and Cripes A' Mighty stayed busy sticking as close and long as possible to the Strategic Bombing Offensive's four-engine formations throughout the autumn of 1943. On December 1, he and a formation of Thunderbolts rendezvoused with bombers returning from an attack on Solingen. He latched onto the tail of a Messerschmitt Me-109 approaching the last bomber box from the rear. When the German saw the charging P-47, he made the mistake of trying to outdive Preddy's 13,000-pound gun platform. At 400 yards Preddy opened fire and held down the firing button as he closed to 100 yards, disintegrating the luckless interceptor. Preddy's 487th Fighter Squadron was the only one in the 352nd Group to score kills on that day of light fighter opposition.
On December 22, the 352nd lifted off to guard part of a returning force of 574 bombers that had savaged the marshaling yards of Münster and Onabrück. Preddy's wingman that day was brilliant young concert pianist Lieutenant Richard L. Grow. Just east of the Zuider Zee, the pair of Americans became separated from the rest of their flight during a swirling, confused dogfight in blinding cumulus clouds. Climbing back to the bombers' altitude, they spotted a gaggle of six Messerschmitt Me-210s and 10 Me-109s chewing on the tail of a crippled Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Unhesitatingly diving into the interceptors, Preddy quickly torched the Me-210 nearest the bomber before the Me-109s could interfere. With the pack now chasing them, the intrepid Thunderbolt pilots plunged for the clouds. Preddy managed to outpace his pursuers, but the fighters on Grow's tail apparently finished him before he could reach the fleecy cloud cover. The blossoming concert star never made it back to Bodney, but the limping Liberator, Lizzie, got home. Preddy was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross for that action, but instead received his country's third-highest award for heroism, the Silver Star.
January's weather was both sides' worst enemy. On January 29, 1944, the ice storms abated long enough for 800 bombers to fly against the industrial district of Frankfurt. The 487th was part of the fighter presence dispatched to meet the bombers on their return leg. Preddy quickly shot down a Focke Wulf Fw-190 over the French coast, but then flew over a flak pit and was hit hard. He coaxed his smoking Thunderbolt up to 5,000 feet, but could not make it across the English Channel. When his dying warbird dropped below 2,000 feet, he bailed out and inflated his pressurized dinghy while his wingman, 1st Lt. William Whisner, circled overhead until air-sea rescue units could triangulate a radio fix on the downed airman. A Royal Air Force flying boat landed, but in the rough seas it ran over Preddy and nearly caused him to drown. Then the rescue plane broke a pontoon while trying to take off, and had to call for additional assistance. By the time a Royal Navy launch arrived to tow the crippled flying boat to port, however, the American airman had been given a quart of brandy by the British crew and was beginning to thaw out.
Soon after Preddy's Channel swim, the 352nd began to switch from the P-47 to North American's new P-51 Mustang fighter. On the morning of April 22, 1944, the 487th Squadron took off to shepherd bombers on a drawn-out mission to Hamm, Sost, Bonn and Koblenz. In between bombing runs, the Mustangs swooped down onto the airfield at Stade. Preddy and two comrades simultaneously opened fire on and pulverized a Junkers Ju-88 twin-engine bomber that had just taken off, resulting in each of the Americans receiving a .33 kill credit.
On April 30, Preddy shot down an Fw-190 in a one-on-one dogfight 17,000 feet above Clermont, France. From that point, now-Major Preddy's score would rise at a steady rate as he and his new airplane became better acquainted. Between April 30 and the Normandy landings on June 6, Preddy torched 4 1/2 enemy aircraft. He completed a standard 200-hour tour of duty and two 50-hour extensions, and was starting a third. He expressed little outward interest in his score, preferring instead to concentrate on how much nearer the war's end was drawing and what he could do to hasten it. As the pivotal summer 1944 battles on the Western Front churned below him, Preddy shot down nine more Germans from June 12 to August 5.
