I love these; hope to be able to play them someday...
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In late 1944 American P-51-''Mustang'' fighter pilot, Captain Bruce Carr USAF was on a fighter sweep over Austria from St. Dizier, France, where he and his 353rd Fighter Group were based when his P-51 was hit by 20mm cannon ground fire and the P-51 mortally wounded.
Succesfully parachuting into Austria, Captain Carr avoided being captured and went on the lam in enemy territory. More by accident than design Captain Carr stumbled across a Luftwaffe airfield where from his hiding place in some bushes he watched Luftwaffe ground crew fuel up and service an FW -190 FIGHTER.
Carefully avoiding the sentries and succesfully climbing the barbed wire perimeter fence , Captain Carr crept into the FW-190'S cockpit and after a while figuring out the plane's engine starting instructions in unfamiliar German he succesfully started the FW-190 and took off, heading back to St..Dizier, France.
Arriving over his home St. Dizier base but unable to lower the FW'S undercarriage, Captain Carr successfully belly landed the ''Butcher Bird'' and became an instant hero to his fellow 353 Fighter Group buddies.
Now, I've previously read of other allied escaping airmen trying the same stunt but failing for various reasons so the question is -was Captain Bruce Carr the ONLY ALLIED AIRMAN to succesfully heist an Axis powers aircraft from an enemy airfield and make good their escape to allied territoery?.
I know about the British POWS picked up by an Italian Cant flying boat in the MED sea who took over and overpowered their would-be captors and who then forced the Eyties to fly the Cant back back to Malta but were there any other ssuccesful individual Axis plane heists beside that of feisty Yank Bruce Carr.?
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Robert A. "Bob" Hoover
In 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France and he was taken prisoner.[5] He spent 16 months at the German prison camp Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Germany.[6]
He managed to escape from the prison camp, stole an Fw 190, and flew to safety in the Netherlands.[7]
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Just read this article in Military Officer, December 2004 about Capt
Howard Ellsworth
http://www.moaa.org/Magazine/Current...f_holidays.asp
Wondered how many documented cases there are of Axis planes being stolen
(or for that matter Allied planes being stolen)?
Capt. Howard Ellsworth, U.S. Army Air Corps, 1944.
I had just dropped a load of napalm on a rail yard east of Aachen,
Germany, when antiaircraft fire struck the left engine of my p-38,
forcing me to bail out. I landed safely but was taken prisoner by German
soldiers and marched to a small airfield called Sohie Bslad. I was
interrogated, then put to work filling the craters made by Allied
bombers.
On Dec. 26, my fifth day of captivity, a group of German Me-262s landed
just as Allied b-17s began bombing. A German pilot leaped from his
cockpit and sprinted for cover, leaving his plane running. Quickly I
climbed in and pushed the throttles full open. The engines began to
scream and the plane accelerated as guards shot at me. I lifted the
plane off the ground but kept it low to avoid fire.
I couldn't read the instruments or raise the landing gear, and the
canopy, which was open when I got in, had torn away. Luckily, the
compass was readable, and I soon crossed into friendly territory. Almost
immediately I came under heavy fire. I closed the throttles and landed
on a small hillside.
I was greeted by an Army truck filled with troops. The second lieutenant
advised me I was under arrest for impersonating an American pilot.
Several soldiers suggested I immediately be shot as a spy. I quickly
explained my situation, asked to use the phone, and called the 474th
Fighter Group Operations. Eventually, I was retrieved and returned to
base. After being debriefed about the German jet, I returned to my
squadron on the evening of Dec. 31.
H. Ellsworth lives in Alexandria, Va.
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