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Old 14th August 2017, 13:53
PMoz99 PMoz99 is offline
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Re: Wildcat (Grumman F4F/General Motors FM-1) victories

You got me going on this so I had a quick look through the list, focusing on Army Air Force - the result is not surprising. I hope I didn't miss any.

B-17 - 16
B-24 - 9

5 MoHs were given to B-24 crew after the Ploesti raid. 2 were given to 2 members of the crew of the same B-17 in the same mission.

Many of the feats were quite amazing, but check out John C Morgan, co-pilot of a B-17F - a cut and paste from Wiki -

Morgan's experience began as his group formation neared the German coast. The B-17, nicknamed Ruthie II, was attacked by a large number of Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters and had part of its oxygen system to the gunners' positions in the rear of the aircraft knocked out. The first burst of fire also smashed the cockpit's windshield, damaged the interphone, and split open the skull of pilot Lt. Robert Campbell. The pilot's upper body slumped over his control wheel, causing it to start out of control. F/O Morgan seized the controls on his side and by sheer strength pulled the plane back into formation.

The disabled pilot continued to try to wrest the controls away from Morgan and smashed at the co-pilot with his fists, knocking some teeth loose and blackening both his eyes. Meanwhile, the top turret gunner was also seriously injured when a 20 mm shell tore off his left arm at the shoulder. He fell out of the turret position, and was found by the navigator bleeding to death. The navigator bailed the gunner out of the aircraft in a successful effort to save his life.

Unknown to Morgan, the waist, tail and radio gunners became unconscious from lack of oxygen and were threatened with death by anoxia. Morgan, unable to call for assistance because of the damaged interphone, had to decide whether to turn back immediately or try to fly all the way to the target and back within the protection of the formation. He also had to decide whether or not to subject Campbell to anoxia by cutting off his oxygen to disable him. In spite of wild efforts by the fatally wounded pilot to seize the controls, Morgan chose to complete the mission and not cut off his pilot's oxygen supply.

For two hours he held position in the formation - flying with one hand, fighting off the pilot with the other. At length the navigator entered the flight deck and relieved the situation. The navigator and bombardier secured the dying pilot in the nose compartment of the airplane. F/O Morgan's B-17 reached the target at Hanover and successfully dropped its bombs. With all his fuel gauges reading empty, Morgan landed the bomber at RAF Foulsham. Lt. Campbell died an hour and half later, and the five surviving gunners recovered from various degrees of frostbite. The B-17 was declared damaged beyond economical repair and never flew again.

Talk about total chaos.

Cheers
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