One-Man Wrecking Crew

[NightTrain]

Here's a couple of stories from Cracked.com; I enjoy the smartass writing style they have there.

While some of these guys aren't U.S. Military, I think anyone that reads their stories can agree that these guys all had balls the size of basketballs.


In January 1944, James H. Howard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Howard) and his squadron of P-51 Mustangs were escorting a formation of American bombers back from a mission to wipe out some aircraft factories near Berlin. While still over Germany, Nazi fighter planes attacked the American formation, and Howard, along with the other escorts, swooped in to defend the bombers. After a short battle, all of the German fighters were either driven off or shot down, but Howard found himself alone, separated from the rest of his squadron.

He returned to the bomber formation by himself, only to find the sky swarming with between 30 and 40 German fighters (http://acepilots.com/eto/jim_howard.html).

Rather than wait for the rest of his squadron, or even hesitate for a moment, Howard blazed directly into the heart of the German fighter formation. For the next 30 minutes, Howard viciously attacked the German planes with the astonished bomber crews looking on in awe. He shot down or damaged at least six enemy aircraft and received in return only a single bullet through the wing.

Running dangerously low on fuel (remember this was all happening over Germany) and with half of his guns jammed, Howard continued to swoop in on the enemy planes and force them away from the bombers before the German aircraft eventually gave up the chase.


When Howard returned to his base in the U.K., he didn't tell anyone what had happened. Only after an inquiry by the bomber crews was Howard's identity as the legendary Mustang pilot revealed.
In a press conference a few weeks later, a reporter asked Howard why he didn't wait for the rest of his squadron, and his response was -- write this down, because you're going to want to use it any time anyone asks you why you did anything -- "He who rides a tiger cannot dismount." (http://www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part2/14_howard.html)

http://www.cracked.com/article_19306_the-6-most-epic-one-man-armies-in-history-war.html

And 5 more badasses :

http://www.cracked.com/article_18810_the-5-most-epic-one-man-rampages-in-history-war.html

[namvet]

all in a days work for those pilots. thanks for posting NT

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I REMEMBER READING THIS IN A BOOK MANYYEARS AGO SO LOKED IT UP .-Tyr





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/unearthed-story-of-the-ww2-pilot-who-saved-the-palace-6170211.html


Unearthed: story of the WW2 pilot who saved the Palace





Veteran relives moment he flew into Nazi bomber as dig begins to excavate his Hurricane


It was an astonishing act of bravery which many believe saved Buckingham Palace from a direct hit by a German bomber. Fighter pilot Ray Holmes, out of ammunition after downing another plane from the skies, took the decision to fly his Hurricane directly into an enemy aircraft over central London at the tail end of the Battle of Britain.


It was an astonishing act of bravery which many believe saved Buckingham Palace from a direct hit by a German bomber. Fighter pilot Ray Holmes, out of ammunition after downing another plane from the skies, took the decision to fly his Hurricane directly into an enemy aircraft over central London at the tail end of the Battle of Britain.

Disabled by the impact, the German Dornier bomber ploughed into Victoria Station while Mr Holmes's plane crashed into a nearby street, burrowing into the ground. Mr Holmes bailed out shortly after impact and is still alive today. Now the shell of the Hurricane, buried beneath the road ever since, may be hauled from its tomb during a live excavation for Channel Five later this month.

Mr Holmes's extraordinary act of courage occurred on 15 September 1940 as Britain was besieged by German aircraft and his 504 Squadron was scrambled from Hendon to intercept 17 Dorniers on a bombing run over London.

In an interview accompanying the dig, Mr Holmes, aged 89, said: "I saw three Dorniers on their own. I shot one of them down. The other two turned round and I gave chase after them.

"All the other aircraft had disappeared. I discovered that I was heading for this Dornier. When I fired, my guns didn't operate; my ammunition was used. So I carried on and took his tailplane off with my wing. His tail came off and he went nose down. But I found out that it had damaged my aerodynamics. I had to get out."

As the Dornier plummeted to the forecourt of Victoria Station, Mr Holmes bailed out with his plane landing in Buckingham Palace Road.

"My boots had fallen off with the jerk of the parachute. I was heading for the electric rails of Victoria Station. Luckily I missed those and headed towards the roof of a three-storey house. I ended up dangling just off the ground with my feet in a dustbin."

It has long been assumed the Dornier was heading for the palace, as the building had come under fire just days earlier. Chris Bennett, who is leading the excavation team, said: "We don't know for sure that the palace was the target but that was one obvious target."

The project to find the Hurricane has been a 12-year labour of love for Mr Bennett, an aviation archaeologist, whose dig will partially paralyse a busy area of the city.

Mr Bennett said: "There is that thrill of being the first to hold the control column after all this time. It sounds a bit of a cliché, but it is like shaking hands with history."

Jimmy Earley, 80, witnessed the incident as he played football nearby. He told The Independent on Sunday: "All of sudden there was a terrific ratatatat. We looked up and saw these planes, a small one chasing a larger one. It crashed into the bigger plane and fell from the sky and landed just 20 yards from us. It frightened us a bit, you know."

He ran to see the spot where Mr Holmes had landed. "He was still smiling. What a bloody hero - to smash into a plane all that way up. We shook his hand and there were crowds of women all holding him and kissing him."

The same rapturous reception did not greet the German pilot who was beaten by a mob when he landed in Kennington and died the following day.

The dig team hopes to unearth the Hurricane during Fighter Plane Dig ... Live on 30 May. Normally metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar would be used to find the exact spot, but the amount of debris in London's streets and the depth have made that impossible. "We're 80 per cent sure we're right but we really won't know until we dig," Mr Bennett said. "When we find it, it won't look much like an aircraft. It hit the ground at something like 350 miles an hour."


How's that for bravery, dedication and HEROIC patriotism !!??? :beer:
I also think I read they did find his plane a few years ago !!

This is the type of warriors Britain and America produced. Now sadly Britain has invited in a scourge that will destroy all of its history/heritage.
A damn crying shame that is!!!!!! --Tyr

[namvet]

I REMEMBER READING THIS IN A BOOK MANYYEARS AGO SO LOKED IT UP .-Tyr




How's that for bravery, dedication and HEROIC patriotism !!??? :beer:
I also think I read they did find his plane a few years ago !!

This is the type of warriors Britain and America produced. Now sadly Britain has invited in a scourge that will destroy all of its history/heritage.
A damn crying shame that is!!!!!! --Tyr

great find Tyr. they claim it was caught on film

http://battleofbritain1940.net/bobhsoc/airmen_stories/holmes%20rh/as-holmes.html

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/holmes.html

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

great find Tyr. they claim it was caught on film

http://battleofbritain1940.net/bobhsoc/airmen_stories/holmes%20rh/as-holmes.html

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/holmes.html

Thanks.....


Dude , out of ammo , crashed his fighter into a German bomber!!!
A real act of courage that surely has no greater opposition IMHO..
And how was he rewarded?? He lived to tell about it!!!
A rare feat for such heroism. -Tyr

[NightTrain]

Good story, Tyr.

Here's one I posted a few years ago, it's one of the hairiest landings ever!





<tbody>
The most unbelieveable landing of a B-17By George Ureke, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret)


Flying bombing missions out of Fogga, Italy, off Tortorella U.S. Army Air Field, our 99th Bomb Group Flying Fortress caught one hell of a lot of flak. All four engines were still running, but ALL flight instruments failed. We had no airspeed indicator. Since we were returning form the mission in formation we didn't really need flight instruments except for the approach and landing, when we peeled off at our base and flew the landing pattern in trail formation.

How to plan my approach with no airspeed indicator? An idea came to me. "We'll drop behind the ship in front of us, so on the final approach we can establish a rate of closure to ensure our approach would be above stall speed."


Well, in the morning when we took off the steel mat runway was covered with 3 inches of slimy mud.
It had been raining for weeks. Airplanes, taking off and landing, had pushed the steel mat deeper into the mud. Every time one took off or landed, more and more slimy mud pushed up through and on top of the steel mat. So as we approached it, there were three or four inches of the slippery slime on top of the mat. But we were not worried (about coming in hot) until I called for flaps. Ken Goodwin, ore co-pilor replied, "we don't have any!...They're not coming down!" And it was too late to crank them down by hand.


We weren't about to go around again without the airspeed indicator. Due to the "hot" approach speed we didn't touch down until we were halfway down the runway. The airplane in front of us made a normal landing and turned off at a taxi strip about five hundred feet short of the end of the runway. The pilot managed to land short enough to turn there. He turned to his copilot and said, "Look out that right window. George is going to crash into the gully at the end of the runway." (Several British bombers had hit that gully in the past and had blown up.)


On landing on the mud I hit the brakes...no brakes! (In a B17 the pilot and copilot can look out their windows and see the wheel on their side.) Every time I touched the brakes, the wheel would stop, lock, and we'd hydro plane over the mud. I had one choice, something we'd normally try to avoid. "Ground Loop!" I pulled no. 3 and 4 engine throttles all the way back. I pushed no. 1 and 2 throttles forward to take off power and called for "boosters" and started tapping the right brake (trying to ground loop to the right, and let centrifugal force tip the left wing into the ground.) We'd damage the bomber but avoid crashing into the gully.


Normally the plane would turn and leave the runway, but it was so slimy, the wheels had no friction to make the B17 turn. It just kept sliding forward. No. 1 and 2 engines at full take off power caused the plane to spin around while sliding straight down the runway. As it approached 180 degrees in its turn I pushed no. 3 and 4 throttles full forward. Now we had "take off power" on all four engines. There we were, going backwards toward the end of the runway withal 4 engines at full take off power. Well, we stopped right at the end of the runway and immediately started taxiing back to the taxiway we had just passed while we were sliding backwards.


You can imagine how scared our navigator James W. Collier, and the bombardier, Lowell E. Clifton, were. Sitting in the nose of the B17. As it approached the end of the runway and began to spin. This maneuver is one that I'm sure had never been done previously, nor will it ever be done again. Ken Goodwin and I were both copilots. God was flying the Fortress on that landing, which is why I call it the most unforgettable B17 landing ever made.


As you know, we never heard about it from anybody. Nobody ever came to ask what had caused us to land backwards. All the medals we got were for far lesser accomplishments. That is why I say it was God who made that most unbelievable landing in a B17.


NOTE: Lt. Col. Ureke (USAF Ret) has recently gone west. The Razorback Wing is very sorry to hear of his passing, and will keep his story online as a tribute to one of the hero's of WWII, Lt. Col. Ureke.


</tbody>

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Good story, Tyr.

Here's one I posted a few years ago, it's one of the hairiest landings ever!





<tbody>
The most unbelieveable landing of a B-17By George Ureke, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret)


Flying bombing missions out of Fogga, Italy, off Tortorella U.S. Army Air Field, our 99th Bomb Group Flying Fortress caught one hell of a lot of flak. All four engines were still running, but ALL flight instruments failed. We had no airspeed indicator. Since we were returning form the mission in formation we didn't really need flight instruments except for the approach and landing, when we peeled off at our base and flew the landing pattern in trail formation.

How to plan my approach with no airspeed indicator? An idea came to me. "We'll drop behind the ship in front of us, so on the final approach we can establish a rate of closure to ensure our approach would be above stall speed."


Well, in the morning when we took off the steel mat runway was covered with 3 inches of slimy mud.
It had been raining for weeks. Airplanes, taking off and landing, had pushed the steel mat deeper into the mud. Every time one took off or landed, more and more slimy mud pushed up through and on top of the steel mat. So as we approached it, there were three or four inches of the slippery slime on top of the mat. But we were not worried (about coming in hot) until I called for flaps. Ken Goodwin, ore co-pilor replied, "we don't have any!...They're not coming down!" And it was too late to crank them down by hand.


We weren't about to go around again without the airspeed indicator. Due to the "hot" approach speed we didn't touch down until we were halfway down the runway. The airplane in front of us made a normal landing and turned off at a taxi strip about five hundred feet short of the end of the runway. The pilot managed to land short enough to turn there. He turned to his copilot and said, "Look out that right window. George is going to crash into the gully at the end of the runway." (Several British bombers had hit that gully in the past and had blown up.)


On landing on the mud I hit the brakes...no brakes! (In a B17 the pilot and copilot can look out their windows and see the wheel on their side.) Every time I touched the brakes, the wheel would stop, lock, and we'd hydro plane over the mud. I had one choice, something we'd normally try to avoid. "Ground Loop!" I pulled no. 3 and 4 engine throttles all the way back. I pushed no. 1 and 2 throttles forward to take off power and called for "boosters" and started tapping the right brake (trying to ground loop to the right, and let centrifugal force tip the left wing into the ground.) We'd damage the bomber but avoid crashing into the gully.


Normally the plane would turn and leave the runway, but it was so slimy, the wheels had no friction to make the B17 turn. It just kept sliding forward. No. 1 and 2 engines at full take off power caused the plane to spin around while sliding straight down the runway. As it approached 180 degrees in its turn I pushed no. 3 and 4 throttles full forward. Now we had "take off power" on all four engines. There we were, going backwards toward the end of the runway withal 4 engines at full take off power. Well, we stopped right at the end of the runway and immediately started taxiing back to the taxiway we had just passed while we were sliding backwards.


You can imagine how scared our navigator James W. Collier, and the bombardier, Lowell E. Clifton, were. Sitting in the nose of the B17. As it approached the end of the runway and began to spin. This maneuver is one that I'm sure had never been done previously, nor will it ever be done again. Ken Goodwin and I were both copilots. God was flying the Fortress on that landing, which is why I call it the most unforgettable B17 landing ever made.


As you know, we never heard about it from anybody. Nobody ever came to ask what had caused us to land backwards. All the medals we got were for far lesser accomplishments. That is why I say it was God who made that most unbelievable landing in a B17.


NOTE: Lt. Col. Ureke (USAF Ret) has recently gone west. The Razorback Wing is very sorry to hear of his passing, and will keep his story online as a tribute to one of the hero's of WWII, Lt. Col. Ureke.


</tbody>

Amazing tales from truly amazingly brave people! WW2 was called the great war and it gave many tales of heroism to us but thousands and thousands that nobody ever heard of. -Tyr