Gathering of Mustangs and Legends at LCK

[David-aviator]

My friend, who flew out of Madna in 1944-45, commented that they never looked that good when he flew them. His assigned airplane was new and never looked that good even then. The first time it was rolled the cockpit filled with rivets, cigarette butts, lip stick containers, and other junk, all coming from the belly of the airplane. His crew chief retrieved a couple buckets full of stuff in a subsequent inspection.

Oviously, there was a rush to get these machines to the units. The airplane may not even have flown before shipment to Italy. His machine had a good engine, ran fine for some 400 hours and he protested when maintenance policy dictated a change.

I asked him if he could select the number of guns to fire. Nope, it was all six or nothing. He was on patrol one day escorting some bombers when this twin engine airplane came roaring right through their formatiion headed for the bombers. He was a flight leader then and immediately caught up with the intruder and shot it down. Gun film later determined it was not a German airplane but a Russian machine with a tail wheel. They did not know why a Russian airplane was attacking a US bomber formation but they also did not want to start a war with Russia so he got credit for an "unknown". All this at age 21....their lives certainly were not boring.