How Do You Paint That Kill On?

[MIflyer]

It was late 1944. A formation of 53 USAAF P-51's was headed into German airspace. All was quiet, downright serene, when suddenly the Mustang pilots were astonished to see a lone BF-109 appear from the Left, at about their altitude, the Luftwaffe pilot seemingly flying along as if he had not a care in the world.

All 53 P-51 pilots thought much the same thing, "What's that guy doing?" None broke formation. A very old German trick was to dangle a lone aircraft out in front of a group of Allied fighters while other Germans waited at a high altitude to pounce. But suddenly the moment when the German sighted the Mustang formation became all too obvious. The BF-109 jerked violently.

And then as the Mustang pilots simply watched, the Messerschmitt rolled upside down, the canopy opened and the pilot bailed out.

Still, none of the Mustangs broke formation, and the radio was silent. Finally someone asked, "Do we each get to claim one fifty third of a kill?"

 

[Barrett]

Fifty-three's an odd number (literally!) and left somebody without a wingman, leaving an incomplete flight. Furthermore, IMO it woulda been unusual to fly so large a formation in any case. Whether sweep or escort, SOP was to disperse squadrons both laterally and vertically so it's unlikely all 53 would've seen the same sight. Just FWIW.

However, Mlflyer raises an interesting point: how thinly to slice a credit. The smallest I've seen is from the USAS in WW I when two-seater units got as low as 1/7, counting pilots and gunners.

 

[MIflyer]

With 53 in the air I would assume the "spares" decided to keep going in order to see if there was fun to be had (Like Chuck Yeager and Bun Anderson wished they had that time). I would suspect that that 109 kill was credited to the unit but not to any single pilot, even only 1/53. Imagine the pilot who got none during the war - which was not at all unusual - getting home and being asked how many Germans he shot down and saying "I got 1/53."

In the book "Flying Through Midnight" the author, a C-123 pilot, described bagging a NVA helicopter one night while on a flare dropping mission over the Ho Chi Minh trail. They dropped tiedown chains on the chopper. Eagerly looking to see how the kill was credited to their unit, the Admin types replied there was no place on the standard form for a C-123 to score any air victories and so they had credited it to an A-1.

 

[MIflyer]

By the way, I have heard people scoff at the idea that a Luftwaffe pilot would bail out rather than fight.

I just read where a very highly experienced Luftwaffe 109 pilot managed to jump a couple of Mustangs over Ploesti and shoot them down. Then eight Mustangs came after him, and after trying everything he could think of, he finally rolled upside down, jettisoned the canopy, and bailed out.

His name was Erich Hartmann.