Posted on 02/26/2010 7:12:13 AM PST by saganite
This is a video about a reunion of P-51 pilots and over 100 P-51 Mustangs in 2007. It's about 30 minutes long but if you love these old planes and the pilots who flew them you will enjoy the video.
AV ping.
There were a handfull of things you could call super weapons of WW-II and the two most notable could easily be the B29 and the P51. The P51 basically turned a sort of a tide against the Luftwaffe and Nazi Germany; it was the escort fighter which managed the impossible job of making it to all bombing targets while retaining the ability to defeat German fighters when they got there.
bookmark for later
PING.......and have a tissue handy.
Incredible....many thanks for sharing this. My dad is a huge P-51 fan (and he built his own airplane as well). He’ll love this....should have warned people to have some tissue handy...very moving.
Thank you sir.
Please don’t forget the Hell Cat. It was an awsome plane.
Man, I need an injection of this stuff daily. Meet the FINEST generation.
Super Bookmark!
with a Thank You
same here
Thank you!
That is my favorite plane ever!
Thanks for the ping. I’ll watch it later at home where I have broadband.
Thanks.
Mustang- beauty and brawn in one package!
You’re right. A list of things which played major roles in winning WW-II should include the F6.
If there is such a thing a Great Tear Jerker that’s it!
MAJ. JAMES L. BROOKS
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Tally: 13.5 destroyed, 3 probable, 2 damaged
Decorations: Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster and the Air Medal with twenty-one clusters
A native of Roanoke, Va, James L. Brooks entered the Army Air Corps in 1942. After training, he was sent to San Severino, Italy to join the 307th Squadron, 31st Fighter. There, Brooks first flew Spitfire MK IXs which were replaced by the P-51B Mustang fighters to escort the heavy bombers deep into Europe and the Balkans.
Early on with the 307th Squadron, Jim shot down his first enemy aircraft as a “shared” kill when he aided a fellow Mustang pilot Bud Bowles during his first fighter sweep over Udine, Italy. On May 18th, 1944, while escorting the heavy B-24 bombers over Ploesti, Romania he shot down a Romanian G-50 fighter. A week later on May 24th, again escorting B-24s to Vienna, Austria to bomb the Munchendorf aerodrome, the 307th Squadron became involved in a big dogfight with up to sixty enemy fighters. Brooks was credited with downing one Me-109.
On May 29th, the 31st went back to Vienna, Austria and once again the bomber attacks were challenged in full force. Sixty Me-109s were encountered before the target area was reached. The Mustangs of the 31st broke up the enemy formations and destroyed seven of their number with Brooks downing another Me-109. On a mission escorting the heavy bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force attacking the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, Brooks and the 307th Squadron shot half of the enemy fighters who tried to get the bombers prior to reaching the target area. Brooks got another Me-109 that day.
Brooks became an ace on July 18th on a mission over Germany. One Me-109 took after Brooks who headed for the mountains at full throttle. Approaching one peak, Brooks waited until the last possible moment to pull up. The Me-109, intent on getting Brooks, hesitated and slammed into the mountain.
On July 25th the 307th Squadron was assigned to escort P-38 fighters on a mission to strafe the Mielec aerodrome in Eastern Poland. On the way home they sighted a huge formation of thirty-five Ju-87 Stuka dive-bombers. The Mustangs tore into the formations and shot down twenty-one of the Stukas and damaged a number of others. Brooks not only got a Stuka, but also shot down a Ju-52 transport and a Fiesler Storch liaison aircraft. The next day the 307th Squadron strafed an airfield in Ploesti, Romania and destroyed six-enemy aircraft on the ground. A few enemy fighters were caught in the air and three were destroyed. Brooks was credited with a Me-109.
While providing close cover for B-24s bombing aerodromes in Czechoslovakia on August 25th, the 307th Squadron encountered three Folke-Wulf 190s over Brno aerodrome and Brooks shot down two of them. Brooks final scoring took place on August 29th when he went back to Czechoslovakia to cover the bombers attacking oil refineries in the Moravska-Ostrava area. Fifteen Me-109s attacked the rear of the bomber formation before the Mustangs could get at them. A ferocious dogfight ensued and the Mustangs of the 31st Fighter Group shot down five of the enemy fighters. Brooks was credited with two of them.
Brooks has deep gratitude for his Crew Chief, Staff Sergeant Dill Trest, who kept “January” and “February” in tiptop shape and battle ready at all times.
Accepting a regular commission after the war, he became jet qualified in 1946. On December 22,1950, while flying F-86s with the 4th Fighter Group during the Korean War, Brooks participated in the first big, all jet air battle at 42,000 feet over the Yalu River. Involved were twelve Migs and four Saber Jets.
Brooks resigned from the Air Force in 1951 as a Major and joined North American Aviation as an engineering test pilot. Over the next six-years he logged test flights in all F-86 series aircraft, the B-45 jet bomber, the XF-100s and the F-86 rocket augmentation project. He was one of the founders and first president of the Fighter Ace Association and is past president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.
http://www.luke.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=14028
At work :-( ping
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
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