Photo courtesy of Earl Smith Plane owned by Jack Roush Excerpted from To Fly and Fight: Memoirs of a Triple Ace by Col C. E. "Bud" Anderson with Joseph P. Hamelin "They'd worked over the bombers up ahead and now it was our turn. Things happen quickly. We get rid of our drop tanks, slam the power up, and make a sweeping left turn to engage. My flight of four Mustangs is on the outside of the turn, a wingman close behind to my left, my element leader and his wingman behind to my right, all in finger formation. Open your right hand, tuck the thumb under, put the fingers together, and check the fingernails. That's how we flew, and fought. Two shooters, and two men to cover their tails. The Luftwaffe flew that way, too. German ace Werner Molders is generally credited with inventing the tactic during the Spanish Civil War. "Being on the outside of the turn, we are vulnerable to attack from the rear. I look over my right shoulder and, sure enough, I see four dots above us, way back, no threat at the moment, but coming hard down the chute. I start to call out, but . . . "'Four bogeys, five o'clock high!' My element leader, Eddie Simpson, has already seen them. Bogeys are unknowns and bandits are hostile. Quickly, the dots close and take shape. They're hostile, all right. They're Messerschmitts. "We turn hard to the right, pulling up into a tight string formation, spoiling their angle, and we try to come around and go at them head on. The Me 109s change course, charge past, and continue on down, and we wheel and give chase. There are four of them, single-seat fighters, and they pull up, turn hard, and we begin turning with them. We are circling now, tighter and tighter, chasing each other's tails, and I'm sitting there wondering what the hell's happening. These guys want to hang around. Curious. I'm wondering why they aren't after the bombers, why they're messing with us, whether they're simply creating some kind of a diversion or what. I would fly 116 combat missions, engage the enemy perhaps 40 times, shoot down 16 fighters, share in the destruction of a bomber, destroy another fighter on the ground, have a couple of aerial probables, and over that span it would be us bouncing them far more often than not. This was a switch. "We're flying tighter circles, gaining a little each turn, our throttles wide open, 30,000 feet up. The Mustang is a wonderful airplane, 37 feet wingtip to wingtip, just a little faster than the smaller German fighters, and also just a little more nimble. Suddenly the 109s, sensing things are not going well, roll out and run, turning east, flying level. Then one lifts up his nose and climbs away from the rest. "We roll out and go after them. They're flying full power, the black smoke pouring out their exhaust stacks. I'm looking at the one who is climbing, wondering what he is up to, and I'm thinking that if we stay with the other three, this guy will wind up above us. I send Simpson up after him. He and his wingman break off. My wingman, John Skara, and I chase the other three fighters, throttles all the way forward, and I can see that we're gaining. "I close to within 250 yards of the nearest Messerschmitt--dead astern, six o'clock, no maneuvering, no nothing--and squeeze the trigger on the control stick between my knees gently. Bamhamhamhamham! The sound is loud in the cockpit in spite of the wind shriek and engine roar. And the vibration of the Mustang's four .50-caliber machine guns, two in each wing, weighing 60-odd pounds apiece, is pronounced. In fact, you had to be careful in dogfights when you were turning hard, flying on the brink of a stall, because the buck of the guns was enough to peel off a few critical miles per hour and make the Mustang simply stop flying. That could prove downright embarrassing. "But I'm going like hell now, and I can see the bullets tearing at the Messerschmitt's wing root and fuselage. The armor-piercing ammunition we used was also incendiary, and hits were easily visible, making a bright flash and puff. Now the 109's trailing smoke thickens, and it's something more than exhaust smoke. He slows, and then suddenly rolls over. But the plane doesn't fall. It continues on, upside down, straight and level! What the hell . . . ? "The pilot can't be dead. It takes considerable effort to fly one of these fighter planes upside down. You have to push hard on the controls. Flying upside down isn't easy. It isn't something that happens all by itself, or that you do accidentally. So what in the world is he doing? "Well. It's an academic question, because I haven't the time to wait and find out. I pour another burst into him, pieces start flying off, I see flame, and the 109 plummets and falls into a spin, belching smoke. My sixth kill. "The other two Messerschmitt pilots have pulled away now, and they're nervous. Their airplanes are twitching, the fliers obviously straining to look over their shoulders and see what is happening, As we take up the chase again, two against two now, the trailing 109 peels away and dives for home, and the leader pulls up into a sharp climbing turn to the left. This one can fly, and he obviously has no thought of running. I'm thinking this one could be trouble. "We turn inside him, my wingman and I, still at long range, and he pulls around harder, passing in front of us right-to-left at an impossible angle. I want to swing in behind him, but I'm going too fast, and figure I would only go skidding on past. A Mustang at speed simply can't make a square corner. And in a dogfight you don't want to surrender your airspeed. I decide to overshoot him and climb. "He reverses his turn, trying to fall in behind us. My wingman is vulnerable now. I tell Skara, 'Break off!' and he peels away. The German goes after him, and I go after the German, closing on his tail before he can close on my wingman. He sees me coming and dives away with me after him, then makes a climbing left turn. I go screaming by, pull up, and he's reversing his turn--man, he can fly!--and he comes crawling right up behind me, close enough that I can see him distinctly. He's bringing his nose up for a shot, and I haul back on the stick and climb even harder. I keep going up, because I'm out of alternatives. "This is what I see all these years later. If I were the sort to be troubled with nightmares, this is what would shock me awake. I am in this steep climb, pulling the stick into my navel, making it steeper, steeper . . . and I am looking back down, over my shoulder, at this classic gray Me 109 with black crosses that is pulling up, too, steeper, steeper, the pilot trying to get his nose up just a little bit more and bring me into his sights. "There is nothing distinctive about the aircraft, no fancy markings, nothing to identify it as the plane of an ace, as one of the "dreaded yellow-noses" like you see in the movies. Some of them did that, I know, but I never saw one. And in any event, all of their aces weren't flamboyant types who splashed paint on their airplanes to show who they were. I suppose I could go look it up in the archives. There's the chance I could find him in some gruppe's logbook, having flown on this particular day, in this particular place, a few miles northwest of the French town of Strasbourg that sits on the Rhine. There are fellows who've done that, gone back and looked up their opponents. I never have. I never saw any point. "He was someone who was trying to kill me, is all." 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

Rapier: Latter-day writers and novelists have made a case for the fact the P-51 was chosen because it was relatively cheap to manufacture (compared to the P-47 and P-38) and that the engine durability of the Merlin was not on a par with the power plants in those two airplanes. Does this match your experience?

Bud: No. It would be my judgment that the P-51 was placed into mass production because we needed an escort fighter with long range. The Mustang had that great long range and was a great combat fighter as well. The P-51s could escort the bombers anywhere they wanted to bomb in Europe and return with them. Not other fighter could do that. The P-47 probably had the most durable power plant, the P-51 was second and the P-38 last. The air war in Europe was fought at a high altitude and the P-38 Allison engines did not hold up as well as the Packard Merlin. The P-47's air-cooled radial engine could take more battle damage than either the P-51's Merlin or the P-38's Allison since both of these engines were liquid cooled. One hole in the coolant system usually spells disaster. The Mustang was probably cheaper to build but that was just a plus.

Rapier: I know that this will be a difficult question, but that's why I get paid the big (not!) bucks. Do you have any thoughts on what do you think was the "best" fighter aircraft of WWII and why? If the P-51 was best what was second best?

Bud: I have always thought that the P-51 Mustang was the best all around fighter built during WWII. You will get different opinions from different pilots. The Mustang had the great range and endurance, was very fast and it was agile. It packed decent firepower and pay load and could outmaneuver or hold its own with 'most any other fighter. The problem is that opinions are formed about the best fighter in relation to what theater you fought in and what kind of mission you had to perform. One could select a fighter and establish the criteria to make it come out number one. I think that it is academic about which aircraft is second best. Second is not an option in combat anyway!

Rapier: There is a huge debate in the flight simulator community as to the size of the aircraft that should be presented. If they are presented at an accurate size in relation to a 14- to 17-inch monitor, they are often just dots until they are less than 2,000 yards away. Is this accurate? How difficult was it to identify aircraft in combat? How large do they seem to appear to you?

Bud: Training is required to identify aircraft in combat. WWII pilots spent hours looking at black silhouette shapes flashed on a screen in split seconds to hone their skill at aircraft identification. The silhouettes were presented at all aspect angles and at different ranges (sizes).

Eyesight was also a factor. 'Most all pilots had at least 20/20 vision but a lot of pilots could "see" better than others. There is a certain skill of picking up targets at long range and identifying them. A lot of the aces seemed to have this skill. I personally did not think it was that difficult to pick up targets and identify them.

There are many other factors to consider when trying to identify targets at long range. For example, what kind of formation and tactics are they using, where are they coming from and what are they doing. We could see bombers many miles away, they were in large formations and sometime creating contrails (Editor's note - Contrails are high altitude water vapor condensation trails.) You could see little tiny specks near them; if they were flying an escort type formation you could assume they were friendly. If they were diving through the bomber formations and you could see the sparkle of the expended cannon fire, then there was no doubt that they were enemy, although you could not tell if they were Me 109s or FW 190s at that range.

As for the presentation on a computer screen game, a dot at less than 2,000 yards is not realistic. You can identify an aircraft in flight at a much greater distance than that. Great progress has been made in the aerial combat computer simulation games but they need to strike a balance between being "realistic" (which actually can not be simulated anyway) and just having fun.

Rapier: That definitely puts the visibility problem in a new light. Another "holy grail" of multiplayer air combat simulations involves voice communication. How did your radios work and how reliable were they?

Bud: We had four-channel VHF radios and the radio equipment itself was quite reliable. I do not recall a single incident where I had a pure failure of the radio itself. I am sure that we had some radio failures but it was not a big problem. The quality of the radio transmission was acceptable. The radios were so much better than we had in our training days that we thought they were great. One of the big problems was chatter on the radios. Two radio channel frequencies were for emergency and air-sea-rescue. One channel was a fighter group common and the other was for fighter-to-bomber communications. There was good radio silence discipline until you got into combat, then it was hard because everyone was talking at once.

Rapier: Flight modeling is a BIG subject with nearly all flight games with game creators presenting everything from a very loose and hard to control flight models to where the plane feels like it is on rails. How is it really to fly a plane in combat? How stable was the P-51 at speed? How stable was it while shooting?

Bud: This is a difficult subject and I repeat myself by saying that a balance between being "realistic" and having fun needs to be achieved in order to have good product. Since you cannot be 100% accurate in flight modeling presented on a flat monitor screen anyway, I like the games that provide reasonable flying qualities so that you do not have to monitor your instruments all the time just to keep right side up.

How is to really fly a plane in combat? Flying a plane in aerial combat is instinctive and natural. You have been trained and worrying about keeping the plane right side up just should not ever be a problem. When you are engaged in one vs. one combat you seldom ever look back into the cockpit except for the gun sight. Almost total concentration is spent on situational awareness: flying is automatic, instinctive and natural. You "feel" the airplane if it approaches any critical flight regime and take care of it without thinking about what you are doing. You have G-forces acting on your body that cannot be simulated. You can see all around by simply turning your head. The P-51 was a noisy environment and changes in the noise are also clues to what is going on around you. It you made that noise "realistic" no one would ever use a computer combat game in the house.

The P-51 was stable at speed as long as you did not exceed the recommended limits. The P-51 was a good gun platform. It really didn't enter combat until late in WWII, yet the P-51s shot down more enemy aircraft than any other Allied-type fighter by a wide margin.

Rapier: How hard was it to keep the sight on the target? For example, how about a tail shot with no deflection, assuming no turbulence from the target aircraft?

Bud: It is a lot harder than one might think. It takes training and discipline.

The idea is to hold fire until you are in range. As soon as the target gets in the center windshield you have the urge to fire. It is difficult to hold the pipper [the center dot in the gun sight] right on for a long time so you keep it close until you are in range and then get it on the target. Not just the target, but some particular part of the target. Think about what it would look like on the playback of the gun camera.

If you have a great overtaking speed in a zero deflection shot you have much less time to get everything right. You need to have a certain amount of overtaking speed to close as well as to have the energy to break away positively for re-attack or escape.

It was critical to have the P-51 in trim when shooting. If you have the pipper right on but the ball is way off in the corner you are probably not going to do much damage. I would always keep my rudder trimmed for the general flight conditions and then use the rudders pedals to do the fine-tuning. Again this has to be done automatically. A close-in zero deflection shot is what you pray for. It is the easiest shot and you have the best chance of getting a kill.

Rapier: What is your view on the importance of pilot ability vs. aircraft performance?

Bud: I would say that a great pilot might be able to make a poor performing aircraft look good where a poor pilot might not be able to take advantage of a high performance aircraft.

When you are a great pilot and you are flying low performers, tactics are what makes the difference and maybe a little luck depending on the opposition. The key is to know the capabilities of your aircraft as well as the enemy. Tactics are important, as you must know what to do and what to expect of the enemy. What you really want it a pilot with great ability and an airplane with great performance!

Rapier: Did the performance of individual planes of the same model vary noticeably or significantly?

Bud: I do not think that the performance varied significantly but there may have been some planes that varied slightly. For example, there was always the wingman that had to carry a little more power than his leader. There was always a squadron dog or a hanger queen, a plane that always had more problems than the others. You could tell which one it was when it came time to transfer an aircraft to another unit; the maintenance guys knew just exactly which aircraft to send.

The good thing was to be able to assign a pilot to a specific aircraft and crew chief. That way the pilot really got to know his aircraft and if there were problems the crew chief got them fixed for his pilot.

Rapier: How did your aircraft performance compare to official specifications and performance data? Was it accurate? How relevant was it to your job?

Bud: The only time I was ever able to actually compare the performance flight test of a specific P-51D was when I was going through test pilot training after the war. I did notice a variation in the quoted specs of the P-51 in the various publications. But the variation was not that far off to be of major concern. During WWII I do not remember seeing the Tech Order on the P-51 that would give the official specifications. By experience we knew we had the range and the performance to do the job.

Rapier: Revisionist historians point out that the crew losses in training during WWII were very high and that the main focus was on speed of training and not safety. Do you feel you got adequate training prior to combat?

Bud: It is a fact that we had a terribly high accident rate while training for WWII. It was a time of great rapid expansion to build a massive combat force.

I survived the training and the combat. I flew two tours of combat in the European theater and destroyed 16 ¼ enemy aircraft in the air and another one on the ground. I flew 116 combat missions, 480 combat hours and received no damage from enemy action except for one tiny hole in the wing from small arms fire while strafing. As for training, one is never satisfied and you can train forever. I believe that except for actual weather flying experience and flying in large formations I received adequate training before I went into combat.

Rapier: What would you like to see in the flight sim that hasn't been done?

Bud: Probably the hardest thing to improve on with today's technology in the computer flight simulation/game area is some great advance in situational awareness.

PART III >>>