Excerpted from To Fly and Fight: Memoirs of a Triple Ace by Col C. E. "Bud" Anderson with Joseph P. Hamelin "The sky above was a bright crystal blue, and the land below a green-on-green checkerboard divided by a silver-blue ribbon. Below was occupied France, beyond the river lay Germany, and it all looked the same, rolling and peaceful and bursting with spring. "But this was an overpoweringly sinister place. From our perch six miles up, we couldn't see the enemy, some huddling over their guns taking aim, some climbing into their airplanes to fly up and get us, and some, on the far side of the river, waiting with pitchforks and hoping we'd fall somewhere close. All we could see was the green of their fields and forests. But we knew they were there, looking up, watching us come, and thinking how they could kill us. "The day was unusually, incredibly clear. In better times, it would have been a day for splashing through trout streams with fly rods, or driving so fast that some giggling girl would beg you to slow. But these weren't those kinds of times. These were the worst times God ever let happen. And so the trout streams were left to the fish, gasoline was a thing you used sparingly, and it was just one more day for flying and fighting and staying alive, if you could, six miles high over Germany. Staying alive was no simple thing in the skies over Europe in the spring of 1944. A lot of men couldn't. It was a bad thing to dwell on if you were a fighter pilot, and so we told ourselves we were dead men and lived for the moment with no thought of the future at all. It wasn't too difficult. Lots of us had no future and everyone knew it. "This particular day, out of the year I flew combat in Europe, is the one I have thought of on a thousand days since, sometimes on purpose and sometimes in spite of myself. Sometimes it's in cameo glimpses, other times in slow motion stop action, but always in Technicolor. I sit on my porch, nearly a half-century and half-world removed from that awful business, looking out over a deep, green, river-cut canyon to the snow-capped Sierra, thinking about getting tires for the Blazer or mowing the lawn or, more likely, the next backpacking trip . . . and suddenly May 27, 1944, elbows its way to the front of my thoughts like a drunk to a bar. The projectionist inside my head who chooses the films seems to love this one rerun. "We were high over a bomber stream in our P-51B Mustangs, escorting the heavies to the Ludwigsbafen-Mannbeim area. For the past several weeks the Eighth Air Force bad been targeting oil, and Ludwigshafen was a center for synthetic fuels. Oil was everything, the lifeblood of war. Nations can't fight without oil. All through my training, and all through the war, I can't remember ever being limited on how much I could fly. There always was fuel enough. But by 1944, the Germans weren't so fortunate. They were feeling the pinch from the daily bombardments. Without fuel and lubricant, their war machine eventually would grind to a stop. Now that the Mustang fighters were arriving in numbers, capable of escorting the bombers all the way to their targets and back, Germany's oil industry was there for the pounding. "The day would come, and it would be soon, when the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, would begin picking its spots, contesting some missions and not others; or concentrating on isolated bomber formations, to the exclusion of all the rest, largely at random from what we could tell. The Luftwaffe's idea was to conserve fuel and pilots. But for the moment, at least, there seemed no great shortage of fighter planes between us and the target. "We'd picked up the bombers at 27,000 feet, assumed the right flank, and almost immediately all hell began breaking loose up ahead of us. This was early, still over France, long before we'd expected the German fighters to come up in force. You maintained radio silence until you engaged the enemy, and after that it didn't much matter since they knew you were there, and so people would chatter. They were chattering now, up ahead, and my earphones were crackling with loud, frantic calls: 'Bandits, eleven o'clock low! . . . Two o'clock high, pick him up! . . . Blue leader break left!' It sounded as though the Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs were everywhere. "You knew how it was up ahead, and you knew it would be like that for you any minute now, the German single-seat Fw 190s and Me 109s coming straight through the bombers, mixing it up with the Mustangs, the hundreds of four-engined heavies and the hundreds of fighters scoring the crystal blue sky with their persistent white contrails. "The Germans liked to roar through the bombers head-on, firing long bursts, and then roll and go down. They would circle around to get ahead of the bomber stream, groping for altitude, avoiding the escorts if possible, then reassemble and come through head-on again. When their fuel or ammunition was exhausted, they would land and refuel and take off again, flying mission after mission, for as long as there were bombers to shoot at. They seldom came after us. Normally, they would skirmish the escorts only out of necessity. We were an inconvenience, best avoided. It was the bombers they wanted, and the German pilots threw themselves at them smartly and bravely. It was our job to stop them. "It seemed we were always outnumbered. We had more fighters than they did, but what mattered was how many they could put up in one area. They would concentrate in huge numbers, by the hundreds at times. They would assemble way up ahead, pick a section of the bomber formation, and then come in head-on, their guns blazing, sometimes hitting the bombers below us before we knew what was happening. "In the distance, a red and black smear marked the spot where a B-17 and its 10 men had been. Planes still bearing their bomb loads erupted and fell, trailing flame, streaking the sky, leaving gaps in the bomber formation that were quickly closed up. Through our headsets we could hear the war, working its way back toward us, coming straight at us at hundreds of miles per hour. The adrenaline began gushing, and I scanned the sky frantically, trying to pick out the fly-speck against the horizon that might have been somebody coming to kill us, trying to see him before he saw me, looking, squinting, breathless . . . Over the radio: 'Here they come!'" ADDITIONAL INFORMATION You can get your own copy of Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson's book signed by the author. Visit Bud’s site, www.cebudanderson.com, for information on a personally signed copy of To Fly and to Fight . For more Military History books check out Pacifica Military History Online

Find out more about Bud Anderson at his site, www.cebudanderson.com, and for additional historical material, visit Pacifica Military History Online.

by Rapier@zone.com

About ten years ago I picked up a book at a newsstand. Being a WWII air combat aficionado (ok, fanatic) my eye was drawn to the cover, which showed a P-51B with a Malcolm hood. I gave it the first page test. Within the first few words of the first paragraph this guy had me.

The first chapter (excerpted at right) was one of the most electrifying bits of combat writing that I've ever experienced. It perfectly described the sights, the sounds AND the maneuvers of aerial combat. What followed was a riveting biographical account of a 30-year career that included 17 victories, 25 decorations, two combat tours in Europe and one in Vietnam as well as test piloting during the Golden Age of Jet Aviation.

What was intriguing wasn't the biography, the dates, or the events, but the portrait of the man that came through the writing. This guy was a straight shooter in every sense of the word. I said to myself, "This is someone I'd really like to meet someday . . . "

Wind the tape forward ten years and despite all the odds against it, I'm interviewing Bud Anderson. We live in an age when there is a chasm between image and reality, but here is an exception. The man that came through to me through the pages of his book was a living, breathing reality.

And frankly, I'm still in awe.

Rapier: In your book you talk a lot about the P-51 Mustang that you flew and you were very emphatic about its performance. Now that 55 years have passed, how do you view your P-51's performance in combat?

Bud: I still have great memories of the P-51's combat performance and have not changed my mind at all. It did have some bad characteristics, which I mention in my book. For example, when the fuselage fuel tank was full it had an aft center of gravity that made the aircraft unstable. This gave you a stick force reversal when maneuvering. Further, it made instrument flying more difficult. Once you used half of the fuel in the fuselage tank you gained stability and it flew normally.

Rapier: For a lot of us who don't get any closer to a P-51 than seeing it at air show or museum, there is a great curiosity about what was it like to fly. Specifically what was it like to taxi the aircraft with the P-51's long nose?

Bud: The P-51 was a tail dragger and also had a long nose that was difficult to see over on the ground. While taxiing you had to be careful not to run into something ahead of you. By making gentle "S" turns while taxiing you could see ahead, clearing the one side then the other side. You did have to be alert while taxiing.

Steering with the rudders was positive and easy. When you needed to make a sharp turn or a 360, you pushed the stick full forward, which unlocked the tailwheel, permitting it to full swivel. In bad weather when taxiing to the runway, for a mass takeoff we would put a ground crew member on the wing out near the tip to help keep clear of other aircraft and ground obstacles.

Rapier: Did this get more difficult, ground handling, taking off in the aircraft, etc., when the aircraft was heavily loaded? Did you ever have to do ground attack missions with rockets and bombs?

Bud: Taking off at heavy gross weight was a daily routine. Not only did we have to take off at heavy weight but also we did it in formation on every mission and in bad weather many times. The take off itself was not particularly difficult. You just had to be patient, as it took longer to get the tail up so you could see ahead and the takeoff roll was longer than normal. We did lots of ground attack missions. We flew two missions a day for 30 days after the June 6 1944 invasion of Europe at Normandy. Our load consisted of 2 x 500-pound bombs and a full load of .50 caliber ammunition. The 357th Fighter Group never carried rockets to my knowledge at any time.

Rapier: I bet that maneuvering the aircraft at low speed or in particularly trying conditions (fog, rain, snow, etc.) could really hamper your ability to fly safely.

Bud: Low visibility was quite often a problem on a combat mission at takeoff and when returning. After takeoff we flew at a comfortable speed while joining up, then we usually had to climb through overcast. Once on top we would reform as a Group - three squadrons of 16 aircraft - and then fly to a rendezvous with the bombers we were to escort.

If the weather was bad when you returned you let down through the overcast until you could see the ground and then tried to find the field. We flew slower than normal so that things didn't happen so fast. I do not recall having any problems with maneuvering the P-51 at the lower speeds. Finding the base was the problem since we had no instrument approach systems. We were able to get a D/F (Direction Finding) steer in case you were really uncertain and if we were close enough to our home field. Most everything was done by dead reckoning or just plain old visual navigation.

Rapier: Wow! That must have been hairy at times. How was it maneuvering the aircraft in combat? Many latter-day flyers have commented on how little stall warning the Mustang gives before departure from controlled flight. Did you find this to be true?

Bud: The stall warning on the Mustang is not that bad. If you have experience in the P-51 you can recognize the stall warning. I have never departed from controlled flight unintentionally. It may not have a large stall warning but it will warn you. One problem computer flyers have is not having the feel of the airframe buffet and of course if you continue to horse it around it will stall and depart from controlled flight. When in actual combat fighter pilots naturally could get pretty excited and this could lead to over-controlling, snapping out of a tight turn or even over-stressing the aircraft. This problem would pertain to any type of fighter.

Rapier: How vicious was the stall and spin of the P-39 Airacobra and the Mustang compared to the aircraft you flew after the war? How would you rate them today?

Bud: The P-39 had to be handled carefully and smoothly or it would snap. The P-39 had a reputation for tumbling. I never tumbled one myself or ever saw one tumble. I did see one go through some wild gyrations where I am sure that the pilot may have thought that he had tumble end over end. We asked the Bell test pilots after the war about the tumble. They said that they did everything possible to make the P-39 tumble but were never able to do so. However, they also added that the P-39 did have some pretty nasty post-stall gyrations!!

The Mustang was much more straightforward. It did not have much of a stall warning but after you flew it awhile the warning seemed adequate. The aircraft that I flew after the war improved in handling qualities as the years and technology progressed. The modern aircraft have computer-controlled flight control systems and as such, whatever flight characteristics you want could be tailored into the aircraft. Looking back, I am glad that I did not have to fly combat in the P-39 and appreciate what a break it was to be flying the P-51 in combat.

Rapier: Did operations ever require you to land the aircraft in less than ideal conditions? Did flying the Mustang introduce any additional problems?

Bud: In combat we usually were landing several aircraft at the same time, say a flight of four. We made [main] wheel landings in order to keep the aircraft ahead of you in sight as long as possible before lowering the tailwheel. The leader would land on one side of the runway and keep his tail up as long as he could safely, to get to the end as soon as possible. Number two aircraft would land on the other side of the runway and do the same thing. Number three and four would follow suit. Four aircraft on the runway at the same time is less than ideal but became routine in combat.

Landing in a crosswind with any tail dragger is less than ideal but using the wheel landing technique made it relatively simple. You really have to concentrate on keep it straight after touchdown, while letting your tail down and when slowing to a stop. This is standard technique. Low visibility approaches are not particularly a problem since you have good visibility over the nose on the approach. Heavy rain, snow or dense fog provide a visibility problem for any aircraft and are not problems unique to a Mustang.

Rapier: I guess for a lot of simulations players the rubber really hits the road when you fire guns or rockets in combat. What was it really like?

Bud: I did not fire rockets in the Mustang during World War II. You could feel and hear the six 50 cal. machine guns when you fired them in the Mustang. The noise was fairly loud and the hammering would vibrate throughout the airframe. All six guns fired simultaneously. You had to fire in short bursts since holding down the trigger could burn out the gun barrels quickly. Further, short bursts would help you conserve ammunition since we had only about 30 -36 seconds of fire.

Rapier: You have a wide experience with many types of planes from your years as an Air Force test pilot. When you look back on the planes of WWII, how do you see them? Did you get a chance to fly any of the Axis planes after the war?

Bud: The only WWII combat fighters I flew were the P-39, the P-51, FG-1 and the Mk II Spitfire. I look back at the WWII fighters as being pretty good machines for their time but primitive in contrast to the capability of today's top line fighters. I did not get a chance to fly any WWII Axis aircraft after the war.

PART II >>>