Watched a Wings TV show last night, about the
PBYs!! One story was great!

Returning from patrol, just before daylite, a PBY
encountered a flight of Zeros, with Nav. lights on,the PBY fell in at the rear of the flight and followed them to
Wewak, the flight got in the pattern and began to land,
one Zero flashes his lights trying to get the PBY to turn
on his Nav. lights, DUH! On the down wind, the PBY,
instead of turning on final, goes into a shallow dive,
puts in the power, strafes a ship in the harbor, drops
4, 500lb bombs, 2 hits, and get the hell out of there!!
One Zero follows but turns back, most likely low on
fuel!!
The pilot received a letter of warning, a threat of court
marshal and the entire crew received the Silver Star
and a Presidental Citation!!
The PBY was a proto type, the only one with cannons
in the noise!! Good test run!!

Just a nice aviation story for those of you without
Wings TV!

X
Brad

Some where I heard, read, a story about
Spitfires running out of ammo and kept
chasing the 109s, they knew the 109s were
limited on fuel and would have to head home,
If they could just keep them busy, It saved
someone else!!!

X
Brad

Never have so many, owed so much, to so few

I posted this in the cafe a few weeks age and
thought this was a fitting place to repost!
The letter was a funny thing and has no bearing
on the story, if interested it's under
'yep they're British' 


Quote:

I have a book called 'Unexplained mysteries of World War II' and one of the stories in it tells of a Polish pilot in Germany before the outbreak of war. 

It seems this pilot was due to fly out the next day and return with his plane to Poland in preparation for the war they all knew was coming.  The Pilot went out for a pack of smokes before he checked out of his hotel and as he was lighting a cigarette in the hotel doorway, a man came running up to him in a panic repeating 'Gestapo, Gestapo...'  The pilot spoke little German, but understood enough that the Gestapo was hunting this man and the man was begging him to hide him.  Without a thought, the pilot took the man up to his room and hid him.  Several minutes later the Gestapo came in looking for their victim, having been tipped off by someone in the lobby. 

After a thorough search, the officers left and the man came out. As they waited for the furor outside to calm down, the victim managed to convey that he was Jewish and the Gestapo had been looking for him to remove him somewhere (I can't remember).  The man begged for the pilot to take him to the relative safety of Poland and the man agreed.

Risking his own life and that of his passenger(who was a complete stranger), the pilot snuck the man out of the hotel, to the airfield and smuggled him on board his plane and off to Poland.  Had he been caught both of them surely would have been arrested and executed.

Crossing over into Poland, the pilot set the plane down in a field outside of Warsaw and giving his passenger what little money he had and his only map, bid him farewell.  He was long gone before he realized he hadn't even gotten his passenger's name.

A few months passed, and the pilot found himself in England fighting in the Battle of Britain.  He was out on a sortie one day when he was severly injured when his Spitfire was shot down.  Having been taken to the local hospital with severe head trauma, the pilot was set aside by the triage unit because it appeared he was hopeless and going to die.

The next morning, the pilot opened his eyes and found himself in a hospital room, his wounds bandaged and apparently recovering from surgery.  A nurse came in presently and explained that the surgeon had worked on him for eight hours straight trying to save his life and wouldn't give up.

Several hours later the surgeon came in and gave our pilot a quick check over.  'Do you reconize me?'  he asked. 

The pilot responded that he didn't and apologized, to which the surgeon quickly expressed that there was no need.

'I am the passenger you left in that field outside of Warsaw.  I got your name from the map you gave me and I am the brain surgeon who operated on you yesterday'

True Story...

How about this. During the lenghty battle of the Coral Sea in the Pacific, understandably, many pilots and crews from both sides were doggedly tired. One Japanese pilot flying a Zero was perhaps so tired that he mistook a US aircraft carrier for a Japanese and tried to land. He realized during his approach that he made a boo-boo, bounced off the flight deck and took off. Most of the flight deck crew aboard the US carrier were likewise tired and were resting waiting for the returning US aircraft. One flight deck crewmember however spotted the plane coming in for a landing and could not believe it was a Japanese Zero. Scurrying around looking for a weapon but could'nt find any, he picked up an airplane wheel chock which was laying around, ran across the flight deck and threw it at the Japanese aircraft as it touched down. No damage done of course but there was one scared Japanese pilot and one chuckling US flightdeck crew.

Hogans Alley