"Military Martial Plane" Author: Friedrich Lau
In the movie "Top Gun 2: The Mavericks", the male protagonist Tom Cruise escaped from the sky after parachuting and escaping. However, such a similar scene actually happened in World War II . A US pilot successfully returned to the base after being shot down by the German army. This article tells the story of this US flight ace Bruce Carl.
Bruce Carr was born in New York and was only 15 years old when World War II broke out in 1939. In the same year, the young Carl decided to learn flight technology carefully. Three years later, on September 3, 1942, he was recruited to join the US Army Air Force . Due to a certain driving basis, he was assigned to the unit's acceleration training program and was arranged to fly the Curtis P-40 Kitty Hawk fighter. By August 30, 1943, after accumulating 240 flight hours, Carl was promoted to officer and qualified to fly P-51 and A-36 fighter jets, his favorite aircraft being the P-51.
▲Curtis P-40 Kitty Hawk fighter
In 1944, Carl was deployed to the UK and joined the 380th Fighter Squadron of the 363rd Fighter Battalion of the 9th Air Force stationed in Rewinhar, England. Then in the battle, he finally forced a German Messerchmit Bf109 fighter to crash into the ground through relentless pursuit and shooting, and thus achieved his (and his squadron) first result, although this result was not actually shot down by him. It is precisely because of this behavior that Carl was considered too competitive by the commander, and directly led to his transfer to the 353rd Squadron of the 354th Fighter Team.
▲Bruce Carl stood with his car P-51D Mustang, and he named the plane "Angel's Playmate".
On November 2 of the same year, Karl participated in a strafing operation against the German air base in Czechoslovakia . During the mission, the P51D he was flying was shot down by the German army. He himself successfully parachuteed behind enemy lines and successfully dodged for several days. Due to the lack of drinking water and food, Karl decided to go to the nearby airport to prepare for surrender, but he accidentally discovered an Fw190 fighter and crew members who were under maintenance. Seeing this, Carl immediately gave up the years of surrender and instead planned to fly this fighter plane and escape.
▲Bruce Carl's car, an P51 fighter
standby crew members left, Carl quickly climbed into the cockpit and tried to familiarize himself with the layout of the cabin and the German instructions as quickly as possible. After some trouble, he successfully took off from the base, but the German army did not notice any abnormality. After taking off, Carl flew towards his base and started to make a forced landing without putting down the landing gear. Then the fuselage slammed heavily into the base. The pilots and soldiers who rushed over after hearing the news thought the base had been hit and ran over and dragged Carl in the cockpit out as a German pilot. Although Carl's loud defense could not calm everyone's anger. It was not until Carl's formation commander George Bikoll came to end the misunderstanding.
▲Bruce Carl flew to Allied airports while fleeing the German-occupied area Fw190
This bold action did not affect Carl's flight career. During the rest of World War II, Carl always fought on the front line, attacking 172 times in total, and won the title of air combat ace. After the end of World War II, Carl chose to stay and became the U.S. Army Air Force at this time. At first, he was asked to fly the Lockheed F-80 "Meteor" fighter and was stationed at Williams Air Force Base in , Arizona, as a member of the first US jet aerobatic team, Acrojets.
▲North American F-100D Super Sabre fighter of the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam
During the Korean War , Carl, who had become major, performed 57 missions in the 336th Battle-Intercepting Squadron, and fought with Volunteer Army and Soviet pilots over North Korea. He then served as commander of the squadron from January 1955 to August 1956.After that, Carl was promoted to colonel again and participated in the Vietnam War , affiliated with the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing. He mainly drove the North American F-100 "Super Saber" to perform close air support missions, with a total of 286 attacks. In 1973, Carl retired from the Air Force. In 1998, Carl died of prostate cancer and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
