WWII: Evading With A Dead Chicken Around His Neck

[Hedley]

*Subject:* Fighter Ace Bruce Carr . . Evading With A Dead Chicken Around
His Neck

*/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 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 they aren't constantly dodging from tree to tree, ditch to culvert.
And 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,
struggling out of his parachute he dragged it into the woods. During
the times he
had been screaming along at tree top 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 had just focused on flying airplanes .. fighter airplanes.

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, NY,
native by the name of Johnny Bruns. " In 1942, 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 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-40's
wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how
everything worked, then said ' If you can get it started .. go fly it' .
. just like that ! I was 19
years old and thought I knew every thing. 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
with 1100 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, their training had a hint of fatalistic Darwinism to it: 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 total 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.
REALLY impressed! It flew like an airplane. I FLEW a 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 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 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. I'm at
least as excited as he is. Then I
tell myself to c-a-l-m d-o-w-n."

" 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 was.

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 Carr's 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being
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. "
/*
*/Carr 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 . . 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 throughout 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 when the airplane started up the other side, 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 own
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 German fighter.

" 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, then I took it down 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. And 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
cross fields and through the trees only a few feet off the ground,
that was not his intent. At something over 350 miles an hour below
tree-top level, he was trying to be a difficult target. However,* *as he
crossed the lines . . 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 personnel. " As I
started up the last time, I saw the air defense guys ripping the tarps
off the quad .50s that ringed the 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. What they didn't realize was
that 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. 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
really important things.

*/Carr finished the war with 14 aerial victories after flying 172
missions, which included 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.

Bruce Carr continued to actively fly and routinely showed up at air
shows in a P-51D painted up exactly like' Angel's Playmate'. The
original */' Angel's Playmate' was put on display in a museum in Paris,
France, right after the war.

There is no such thing as an ex-fighter pilot. They never cease being
what they once were, whether they are in the cockpit or not. 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, Col. Bruce Carr was definitely a fighter
pilot.

by Budd Davisson
/*

[neilaroberts]

I rather enjoyed that. Thanks heds.

[Snowgoose]

Great read!

I think I found an old x-ray of his

[C-FABH]

Great read!

[Daart]

Incredible, truly our greatest generation. Thanks Hedley, that read made my day.

[xsbank]

Agreed! Excellent story!

[JW]

Yeah that was good

[Double Wasp]

Thanks Hed

[AEROMONKEY]

Excellent story....thanks

[Edelweiss air]

Great story Hedley !

[electraguy]

Great story Hedley, thanks for the read!