World War II Aces Talk

The May 5th Sacramento Bee had an article about four WW II fighter pilot aces recalling their experiences at the Aerospace Museum of California. These men were in their late teens-early twenties when they battled the Germans in skies over Europe.

In order to be an Ace, you had to shoot down at least 5 enemy aircraft and only a few pilots attained that level.

They were Col. Bud Anderson, Lt-Col. Don Bryan, Col. Barrie Davis and Col. Art Fiedler. Together, these four destroyed 43 German planes.


COL. ART FIEDLER

Lived in a tent in Italy and escorted B-24 bombers on their missions. One time, he saw 2 German Messerschmidtt 109s and followed one in a verticle dive. He oipened fire with his machine guns and saw it crash. Pulling out of the dive, he found himself flying alongside the other German plane, so close he could see the enemy's pilot's red helmet and oxygen mask.

He couln't fire because his machine guns were facing forward. He firgures they flew next within 40 feet of each other for what seemed liked hours, but was probably more like 3 minutes. He unholstered his 45 and aimed it at the German pilot, hoping he would break off. Instead, the German jettisoned his canopy and bailed out. Fiedler took a phot of the parachute.

When he got back to the base, he got the name Art "Svengali" Fiedler because "He hypnotizes them into bailing out."

Fiedler had 8 confirmed kills during the war.
Anderson had 16, Bryan 5 in one day and ended the war with 13.


COL. BARRIE DAVIS

Davis shot down 6 and was almost shot down himself. On June 6, 1944, during D-Day, he mistook an enemy plane for an American and was hit. He lost consciousness and came to with the plane flying level at 20,000 feet. The canopy had blown away and he was freezing. His shoes had gotten wet while walking on the dewy grass at the base earlier in the morning, and his shoes were now frozen to his feet.

He managed to land, but his plane was shot up like Swiss cheese and a portion of the tail was gone. Metal fragments had to be extracted from his head.

The Greatest Generation. --Old Coot