⌛ A true fighter pilot's story during WWII...

This is a true story of 20 year old Bruce Carr, a fighter pilot shot down
behind enemy lines in World War Two.


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20 year old Bruce Carr, a fighter pilot

The dead chicken was starting to smell. After carrying it for several days,
20-year-old Bruce Carr still hadn't decided how to cook it without the
Germans catching him. But as hungry as he was, he couldn't bring himself to
eat it. In his mind, no meat was better than raw chicken meat, so he threw
it away.

Resigning himself to what appeared to be his unavoidable fate, he turned in
the direction of the nearest German airfield. Even POW's get to eat
sometimes. And aren't they constantly dodging from tree to tree . . . ditch
to culvert? He was exhausted!

He was tired of trying to find cover where there was none. Carr hadn't
realized that Czechoslovakian forests had no underbrush until, at the edge
of the farm field, he struggled out of his parachute and dragged it into the
woods.

During the times he had been screaming along at treetop level in his P-51,
Angels Playmate', the forests and fields had been nothing more than a green
blur behind the Messerchmitts, Focke-Wulfs, trains and trucks he had in his
sights. He never expected to find himself a pedestrian far behind enemy
lines.

The instant antiaircraft shrapnel ripped into the engine, he knew he was in
trouble. Serious trouble. Clouds of coolant steam hissing through jagged
holes in the cowling told Carr he was about to ride the silk elevator down
to a long walk back to his squadron. A very long walk.

This had not been part of the mission plan. Several years before, when
18-year-old Bruce Carr enlisted in the Army, in no way could he have
imagined himself taking a walking tour of rural Czechoslovakia with Germans
everywhere around him. When he enlisted, all he could think about was flying
fighters.

By the time he had joined the military, Carr already knew how to fly. He had
been flying as a private pilot since 1939, soloing in a $25 Piper Cub his
father had bought from a disgusted pilot who had left it lodged securely in
the top of a tree. His instructor had been an Auburn, New York, native by
the name of 'Johnny' Bruns.

"After I enlisted," as Bruce Carr remembers it, "we went to meet our
instructors. I was the last cadet left in the assignment room and was
nervous. Then the door opened and out stepped the man who was to be my
military flight instructor. It was Johnny Bruns!"

"We took a Stearman to an outlying field, doing aerobatics all the way; then
he got out and soloed me. That was my first flight in the military.

"The guy I had in advanced training in the AT-6 had just graduated himself
and didn't know a damned bit more than I did." Carr can't help but smile, as
he remembers: "which meant neither one of us knew anything. Zilch!

"After three or four hours in the AT-6, they took me and a few others aside,
told us we were going to fly P-40s and we left for Tipton, Georgia. We got
to Tipton, and a lieutenant just back from North Africa kneeled on the P-40s
wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how everything
worked, then said, 'If you can get it started . . go flying,' just like
that!

"I was 19 years old and thought I knew everything. I didn't know enough to
be scared. They didn't tell us what to do. They just said: 'Go fly!' so I
buzzed every cow in that part of the state. Nineteen years old and 1,100
horsepower, what did they expect? Then we went overseas."

By today's standards, Carr and that first contingent of pilots shipped to
England were painfully short of experience. They had so little flight time
that today; they would barely have their civilian pilot's license. Flight
training eventually became more formal, but in those early days, it had a
hint of fatalistic Darwinism: if they learned fast enough to survive, they
were ready to move on to the next step.

Including his 40 hours in the P-40 terrorizing Georgia, Carr had less than
160 hours flight time when he arrived in England.

His group in England was to be the pioneering group that would take the
Mustang into combat, and he clearly remembers his introduction to the
airplane.

"I thought I was an old P-40 pilot and the P-51B would be no big deal. But I
was wrong. I was truly impressed with the airplane. I mean REALLY impressed!
It flew like an airplane. I just flew the P-40, but in the P-51 I was part
of the airplane. And it was part of me! There was a world of difference."

When he first arrived in England, the instructions were, 'This is a P-51. Go
fly it. Soon, we'll have to form a unit, so go fly.' A lot of English cows
were buzzed.

"On my first long-range mission, we just kept climbing, and I'd never had an
airplane above about 10,000 feet before. Then we were at 30,000 feet with
Angels Playmate and I couldn't believe it! I'd gone to church as a kid, and
I knew that's where the angels were and that's when I named my airplane
Angels Playmate.'

"Then a bunch of Germans roared down through us, and my leader immediately
dropped tanks and turned hard for home. But I'm not that smart. I'm 19 years
old and this SOB shoots at me. And I'm not going to let him get away with it


"We went round and round. And I'm really mad because he shot at me. Childish
emotions, in retrospect. He couldn't shake me, but I couldn't get on his
tail to get any hits either.

"Before long, we're right down in the trees. I'm shooting, but I'm not
hitting. I am, however, scaring the hell out of him. But I'm at least as
excited as he is. Then I tell myself to calm down.

"We're roaring around within a few feet of the ground, and he pulls up to go
over some trees, so I just pull the trigger and keep it down. The gun
barrels burned out and one bullet, a tracer, came tumbling out and made a
great huge arc. It came down and hit him on the left wing about where the
aileron is. He pulled up, off came the canopy, and he jumped out, but too
low for the chute to open and the airplane crashed. I didn't shoot him down,
I scared him to death with one bullet hole in his left wing. My first
victory wasn't a kill; it was more of a suicide."

The rest of his 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being a red-hot
fighter pilot, however, was absolutely no use to him as he lay shivering in
the Czechoslovakian forest. He knew he would die if he didn't get some food
and shelter soon.

"I knew where the German field was because I'd flown over it, so I headed in
that direction to surrender. I intended to walk in the main gate, but it was
late afternoon and, for some reason, I had second thoughts and decided to
wait in the woods until morning.

"While I was lying there, I saw a crew working on an FW 190 right at the
edge of the woods. When they were done, I assumed, just like you assume in
America, that the thing was all finished. The cowling's on. The engine has
been run. The fuel truck has been there. It's ready to go. Maybe a dumb
assumption for a young fellow, but I assumed so. So, I got in the airplane
and spent the night all hunkered down in the cockpit.

"Before dawn, it got light and I started studying the cockpit. I can't read
German, so I couldn't decipher dials and I couldn't find the normal switches
like there were in American airplanes. I kept looking, and on the right side
was a smooth panel. Under this was a compartment with something I would
classify as circuit breakers. They didn't look like ours, but they weren't
regular switches either.

"I began to think that the Germans were probably no different from the
Americans in that they would turn off all the switches when finished with
the airplane. I had no earthly idea what those circuit breakers or switches
did, but I reversed every one of them. If they were off, that would turn
them on. When I did that, the gauges showed there was electricity on the
airplane.

"I'd seen this metal T-handle on the right side of the cockpit that had a
word on it that looked enough like 'starter' for me to think that's what it
was. But when I pulled it, nothing happened. Nothing.

"But if pulling doesn't work . . . you push. And when I did, an inertia
starter started winding up. I let it go for a while, then pulled on the
handle and the engine started!"

The sun had yet to make it over the far trees and the air base was just
waking up, getting ready to go to war. The FW 190 was one of many dispersed
through-out the woods, and at that time of the morning, the sound of the
engine must have been heard by many Germans not far away on the main base.

But even if they heard it, there was no reason for alarm. The last thing
they expected was one of their fighters taxiing out with a weary Mustang
pilot at the controls. Carr, however, wanted to take no chances.

"The taxiway came out of the woods and turned right towards where I knew the
airfield was because I'd watched them land and take off while I was in the
trees.

"On the left side of the taxiway, there was a shallow ditch and a space
where there had been two hangars. The slabs were there, but the hangars were
gone, and the area around them had been cleaned of all debris.

"I didn't want to go to the airfield, so I plowed down through the ditch and
then the airplane started up the other side.

When the airplane started up . . . I shoved the throttle forward and took
off right between where the two hangars had been."

At that point, Bruce Carr had no time to look around to see what effect the
sight of a Focke-Wulf erupting from the trees had on the Germans.
Undoubtedly, they were confused, but not unduly concerned. After all, it was
probably just one of their maverick pilots doing something against the rules
They didn't know it was one of OUR maverick pilots doing something against
the rules.

Carr had problems more immediate than a bunch of confused Germans. He had
just pulled off the perfect plane-jacking; but he knew nothing about the
airplane, couldn't read the placards and had 200 miles of enemy territory to
cross. At home, there would be hundreds of his friends and fellow warriors,
all of whom were, at that moment, preparing their guns to shoot at airplanes
marked with swastikas and crosses-airplanes identical to the one Bruce Carr
was at that moment flying. But Carr wasn't thinking that far ahead.

First, he had to get there, and that meant learning how to fly the airplane.
"There were two buttons behind the throttle and three buttons behind those
two. I wasn't sure what to push, so I pushed one button and nothing happened
I pushed the other and the gear started up. As soon as I felt it coming up
and I cleared the fence at the edge of the German field, I took it down a
little lower and headed for home.

"All I wanted to do was clear the ground by about six inches, and there was
only one throttle position for me . . . full forward!

"As I headed for home, I pushed one of the other three buttons, and the
flaps came part way down. I pushed the button next to it, and they came up
again. So I knew how to get the flaps down. But that was all I knew.

"I can't make heads or tails out of any of the instruments. None. I can't
even figure how to change the prop pitch. But I don't sweat that, because
props are full forward when you shut down anyway and it was running fine."

This time, it was German cows that were buzzed, although, as he streaked
across fields and through the trees only a few feet off the ground, that was
not the intent. At something over 350 miles an hour below tree-top level, he
was trying to be a difficult target as he crossed the lines. But he wasn't
difficult enough.

"There was no doubt when I crossed the lines because every SOB and his
brother who had a .50-caliber machine gun shot at me. It was all over the
place, and I had no idea which way to go. I didn't do much dodging because I
was just as likely to fly into bullets as around them."

When he hopped over the last row of trees and found himself crossing his own
airfield, he pulled up hard to set up for landing. His mind was on flying
the airplane. "I pitched up, pulled the throttle back and punched the
buttons I knew would put the gear and flaps down. I felt the flaps come down
but the gear wasn't doing anything. I came around and pitched up again,
still punching the button. Nothing was happening and I was really
frustrated." He had been so intent on figuring out his airplane problems, he
forgot he was putting on a very tempting show for the ground crew.

"As I started up the last time, I saw our air defense guys ripping the tarps
off the quad .50s that ringed our field. I hadn't noticed the machine guns
before. But I was sure noticing them right then.

"I roared around in as tight a pattern as I could fly and chopped the
throttle. I slid to a halt on the runway and it was a nice belly job, if I
say so myself."

His antics over the runway had drawn quite a crowd, and the airplane had
barely stopped sliding before there were MPs up on the wings trying to drag
him out of the airplane by his arms. They didn't realize he was still
strapped in.

"I started throwing some good Anglo-Saxon swear words at them, and they let
loose while I tried to get the seat belt undone, but my hands wouldn't work
and I couldn't do it. Then they started pulling on me again because they
still weren't convinced I was an American.

"I was yelling and hollering. Then, suddenly, they let go, and a face drops
down into the cockpit in front of mine. It was my Group Commander: George R.
Bickel.

"Bickel said, 'Carr, where in the hell have you been, and what have you been
doing now?'

Bruce Carr was home and entered the record books as the only pilot known to
leave on a mission flying a Mustang and return flying a Focke-Wulf. For
several days after the ordeal, he had trouble eating and sleeping, but when
things again fell into place, he took some of the other pilots out to show
them the airplane and how it worked. One of them pointed out a small handle
under the glare shield that he hadn't noticed before. When he pulled it, the
landing gear unlocked and fell out. The handle was a separate, mechanical
uplock. At least, he had figured out the important things.

Carr finished the war with 14 aerial victories on 172 missions, including
three bailouts because of ground fire. He stayed in the service, eventually
flying 51 missions in Korea in F-86s and 286 in Vietnam, flying F-100s.

That's an amazing 509 combat missions and doesn't include many others during
Viet Nam in other aircraft types.

There is a profile into which almost every one of the breed fits, and it is
the charter within that profile that makes the pilot a fighter pilot . . not
the other way around. And make no mistake about it; Colonel Bruce Carr was
definitely a fighter pilot.

 

Amazing WW2 stories

Loved the WW2 Pilot storey.

WW2 was full of amazing stories.

A tailgunner of a British Lancaster bomber fell 20,000 feet over Germany with no chute and lived.
His plane was shot to pieces and he just fell out. (there was not enough room for the tail gunner to wear a chute. He landed in a Fir tree forest, the light, snow covered branches slowed his fall into deep snow. He had many broken bones, but he was alive!

During the Korsun (Cherkassy) Pocket battle (where the Russians had surrounded many German divisions).
A Russian armoured column stopped and allowed the retreating German 72nd Inf. Division to escape crossing the road a kilometre in front of them because a russian speaking German boldly ordered them to halt, lol They had been conned. The German told them they were reinforcements for the Russian General Vatutin passing in front of them.

cheers

PB

 

Nice finds!

 

Just adding detail to this event.

It was night time

The Russians did eventually realise that they had been duped, because the German artillery being towed, at the very end of the 72nd's column, had very distinctive silhouettes. But by the time they had restarted their cold engines, the 72nd Inf had dissappeared into the night. That soldier deserved a medal!