P-38s

I've met Yeager a couple of times. Bud Anderson as well.

Yeager was no doubt a great combat pilot, his strike rate was phenomenal. But he still found himself floating down in a parachute because he wound up on the wrong end of a FW-190. Same thing happened to Bob Hoover (though Hoover was in a Spitfire, not a P-51).

The 190 that got you was not the one you were dogfighting with. It was the one that zoomed into range in an instant before you noticed and destroyed you with a snap shot. Very stable gun platform mounting massive firepower coupled with great control at very high speeds.... precisely what I would want in a WWII combat environment.

All those great old heros are dying off now. Gunther Rall died last year. I met him twice, hilarious old geezer full of fantastic stories. Soon they will all be gone.

I REALLY wish Hollywood would come up with a good script and make a great movie about WWII air combat. I hear yet another Tuskegee Airmen movie may be in the works. Yuck. I wish they would do a movie on the 352nd Fighter Group or George Preddy specifically.

He would get my vote for best US fighter pilot of WWII, hands down.

His commander at the 352nd, Gen. (then Col) John C. Meyer, had this to say about him:

"George was small and slight. He was soft-spoken, without even a hint of braggadocio. I have never met a man of… such intense desire to excel…. George Preddy was the complete fighter pilot."

27 1/2 Victories when he was killed by US anti-aircraft fire while chasing a FW-190 right on the deck, Christmas day 1944.



Terry

 

Terry- By the time the B-29s were hitting Japan, the Japanese had very few fighters that could operate effectively at their operational altitude and few pilots who were competent if an intercept was made. The P-51D contributed to the Pacific war, but not as much as the other three fighters. No doubt it had the best range of the three primary USAAF fighters.

The Ta-152H and the P-47M were produced in such small numbers they were not really big players. The P-47M's main claim to fame was the ease with which it ran down V-1s. Effectively, it was a hot rod that developed into the P-47N designed for really long range escort.

It is interesting to note that most of the really high Luftwaffe scorers preferred the Me-109 to the FW-190, of which the Ta-152H was the ultimate version. Habit, or ability to exploit all its capabilities? Hard to tell from reading Bubbi Hartman's memoirs. Their version of a Battle of Britain fighter, continuously updated, that continued to work because they fought similar short range battles throughout the war. The FW-190 sure surprised the Brits because it was completely superior to the Spit Mk V when introduced. The landing gear also caused many fewer operational accidents than the Me-109's narrow gear.

I only brought up the claims vs aircraft lost issue because the claims of P-38s destroyed are so outlandish compared to any actual losses. That problem started in WW-I, where the Brits and Americans were the worst offenders. Worst of all were the equivalent of the 8th AF gunners you mentioned, observers in the RFC/RAF Bristol F2B.

I met BGen Yeager at the Gathering of Eagles in 1987 and have a signed copy of his book. He was fascinating to talk to as long as you knew what you were talking about. He had no patience with dumb questions, though, and a couple of know-it-all majors really got stomped. Heard them all before, I guess. Funnily enough, he really enjoyed talking about WW-II and the fighters he flew, but had not much interest in discussing his test pilot days.

My father flew P-47Ds during the war and knew many of the aces from the ETO, and Jim Brooks was a good friend of his. He flew most of the WW-II fighters and his favorite, surprisingly enough, was the P-38, which he never flew operationally. His last fighter was an F-84B, although he did get a ride in a Hun.

If we are going to pick fighters for theaters, P-51D for ETO and P-38 for the PTO for me. A Me-262 for the other side or a Shiden ,or even better Shiden-Kai (George) in the Pacific.

Taz
Terry Philllips