5. A Pilot Who Scared an Enemy to Death
After he graduated from Spence Airfield, Bruce Carr spent two months on more advanced training. It included qualifying in early models of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter, and its ground attack and dive-bombing variant, the A-36 Apache. He was sent to England in early 1944, and assigned to the 380th Fighter Squadron, 363rd Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force. Until then, Carr had never flown about 10,000 feet. When he took his P-51 to 30,000 feet, he was so impressed by its handling that he named his airplane “Angel’s Playmate“.
Carr notched his squadron’s first victory on March 8th, 1944, when he pursued a Messerschmitt Bf 109 near Berlin, and chased it to near-ground-level while he fired his guns. Only a single bullet hit the enemy fighter, but its pilot panicked. Unable to escape in his 109 from Carr’s P-51, the Luftwaffe airman tried to escape by abandoning his plane and parachuting to the ground. Unfortunately for the German, he jumped too close to the ground for his parachute to fully open.