P-47 vs. P-47?

[Dénes Bernád]

I found on the net the following story:
In England Fred Hillis was assigned to the 9th Air Force in France to a Republic P-47 "Thunderbolt" fighter group. When the war ended, there were five emblems designating five aerial victories painted on the cockpit canopy of Fred's P-47: four German swastikas and one American flag, so that meant he was an “Ace” ... he had shot down five aircraft in combat - four German planes and one American plane [a P-47 flown by a German pilot].
See the rest: http://www.stormbirds.com/hillis/tboltkill.htm

Is there any historical truth to this story?

Dénes

[Locobuster]

There very well could be truth to the story I know for a fact that the Luftwaffe used captured examples of Allied aircraft against the USAAF and RAF. On 4 March, 1944 Lt.Albert Fogg, 79thFS/20thFG was nursing a damaged P-38 home when attacked by an unmarked P-47...

"Believing the plane was also damaged, Fogg slowed down to allow him on his wing. Instead the unmarked P-47 came at him with all eight guns firing. Not sure if the pilot was an American who needed more time looking through recognition manuals or a German pilot flying a captured aircraft, he managed to evade him.

"Even though he was only flying with one engine Fogg dove and made a pass toward the P-47 hoping it would drive the pilot off, but he was persistent and managed to hit the P-38 several times. Both the plane’s turbo-regulator and its good engine began to act up so Fogg made one more pass and managed to drive his attacker off.

"Fogg survived the subsequent crash landing and returned to action soon thereafter. He eventually was shot down and became a POW at Stalag III."

This is just one example. The Luftwaffe actually had a special opertaions battle wing, KG 200 which used numerous captured Allied aircraft for various purposes.

For more try:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/foreign.html

http://www.stahlbrandt.com/html/history/kg200.html

also Google the terms KG 200 and Kampfgeschwader 200

[Frank Olynyk]

Dénes,
I have Hillis as a pilot of the 366th FS, credited with one destroyed, and two damaged. I have never seen him listed as an ace.

Frank.

[Csaba B. Stenge]

IMHO most of these stories based on misindetification (I know some examples) Sometimes the US fighters shot down their own planes mistakenly also (for example a 7-kill-ace, 1stLt Ernest Shipman 307 FS/31 FG was shot down by an own P-38)

The US flag sounds simply unbelievable generally: the nationality of the opponent was marked, not the manufacturer of the type (and the own goals were not counted as kills; so the US flag on an US fighter... sounds impossible in WW II)

[Ruy Horta]

First Hillis is not listed in Olynyk's Starts&Bars.

Second these stories should always be taken with a grain of salt, at best under scrutiny. Its amazing how many similar stories / reports have mainly originated from the American side. You'd believe that half the Luftwaffe was flying B-17, B-24s and captured US fighters. Seeing some captured a/c during the occupation clearly fed this wartime believe.

At least take it from the operational side.

Using a captured a/c in combat is more of a liability than an asset, since the risk of friendly fire is greatly enhanced. So all your forces need to know the difference between your friendly enemy type and the general enemy - this would mean that a LOT of germans would have known about these air operations, yet where is this german side of the story?

The investment of maintaining a valuable enemy type in the air for testing purposes outweighs any use of it flying single combat sorties, unsupported btw, that could not be flown much more effectively by readily available types. So why fly a single P-47 when you could operate a Staffel of Fw 190s?

KG 200's operational history is relatively well documented, and their clandestine operations revolve mainly around long range, behind the lines, air drops and communications flights. Not air combat...

So there are three likely answers.

1. The whole event is made up
2. The enemy fighter was misidentified
3. The P-47 was actually a friendly - a case of friendly fire

[JACK COOK]

We talked this over extensively in an earlier thread. Hillis didn't shoot down a P-47 and had only 1 confirmed kill. He's not an ace so he wouldn't be in Stars and Bars. The American not German flown P-47 was indeed shot down but by Lt Dominic 'Coppy' Coppolino of Hillis's squadron the 366th FS commanded by Maj. Sam Hitchcock. There was never any American flag on the P-47 that's just a bad war story.

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

Using a captured a/c in combat is more of a liability than an asset, since the risk of friendly fire is greatly enhanced. (...)

The investment of maintaining a valuable enemy type in the air for testing purposes outweighs any use of it flying single combat sorties, unsupported btw, that could not be flown much more effectively by readily available types. So why fly a single P-47 when you could operate a Staffel of Fw 190s?

All this is true. On top of that I'd like to add that fighter pilots needed a very high level of training and flying abilities in particular on the specific aircraft type they were just flying. A rookie flying the best fighter in the world was just a sitting duck. This could be seen clearly 1944 over Germany, when many German fighters flown by scared, green youngsters were just flying targets for American gunnery practice and made many US "aces". The Germans were not able to give a pilot sufficient training on an enemy type to make him as proficient as any so there was hardly any point in the whole business.

But can we entirely rule out that some eager German ace, probably owning a high rank, wanted to have a go and see what would happen? Possibly some of these pilots felt it would be very useful to test an enemy fighter in actual combat, which is always different from practice.

Something else : I'd rather suspect that so many US fighters made emergency landings on German-held territory, many being only slightly damaged, that the LW could afford to divert a few for such purposes. They'd got enough for testing anyway. What do you think?

Well Ruy, I think you're right!

Such stories were told already after the 1940 French Campaign (and possibly in Poland too). I read a book written by a former French tank crewman. He reported that their tanks were bombed by some (French) LeO 45 bombers used by German crews and he was very bitter about that. I consider this absolutely impossible because flying a modern bomber AC in combat is a very complex and very demanding task for which you need a lot of training. What's more, the LeO 45 was very tricky if you didn't know her, you simply had to be qualified on the type.

So there are two explanations : French crews flying LeOs were ordered to bomb some tanks near the frontline and so they did but unfortunately they attacked their own tanks. Such incidents did occur. Or the so-called "LeOs" were in fact Do 17s. Never ask an Army soldier to identify an aircraft! Even the French roundels sometimes were not enough to convince them that an AC was in fact French.

In his famous book Adolf Galland reported a bitter remark which was popular within the German Army (Heer) : "The Luftwaffe knows neither friend nor foe, they only know interesting targets".

[Ruy Horta]

My apologies Hawkeye, the message you've reacted to no longer exists. I didn't want to create the impression that I always want the last word, so I thought it better to delete my reply, not knowing that you were already in the process of reacting.

Sorry...

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

...... I didn't want to create the impression that I always want the last word......

Come on! I wouldn't think that in this instance, really not. Besides, everybody is entitled to express his view - "even" you!

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

Sorry...

- Never mind. No harm done.