Any Truth Here Or A Big Fishing Story

[JACK COOK]

I'm leaning towards the later although he did fly in the 318th FG PTO.
Lt John "Jack" Payne 19th FS 318th FG 7th AF

Before he was assigned to a combat squadron, Dad volunteered to go to England for a month to chase buzz bombs. Flying a P-47D-30 that had been stripped down to four guns, with no armor, for extra speed, he destroyed two V-1 flying bombs, one by gunfire, and one by flying up next to it and tapping its wingtip with his own, sending it into a spin. While on buzz bomb patrol one day a lone Focke-Wulf Fw-190 took a shot at him, turned and ran for home. Dad chased the 190 (don't piss Dad off!), caught up to it and shot it down. The German pilot managed to land his plane normally in France before dying of his wounds. As this was Dad's first victory, he wanted a souvenir, so he landed his screaming 2000 horsepower fighter in a French field next to the Fw, hopped out, and removed the control stick from the German fighter!

and...............

On another volunteer mission, Dad was part of a flight of Bell P-39 Airacobras being ferried to Russia. The route went from Richmond, VA, to Goose Bay, Iceland (or Greenland?), then to England, Lion, France, where the planes were armed up, and then to Rome, where Dad and his fellows were to turn over the planes and come home while someone else flew them on to Russia. While over Italy, a single Macchi 200 Italian fighter attacked the formation of Americans. Dad shot him down (kill number 2), and watched where he crashed. Later, Dad got a jeep and went to find the wreckage. From it, he took the top section of the engine cowling. He brought it home with him in the C-54 that flew everyone back. It hung in our leaky garage for 40 years, so it's not in the best shape. Some of the original paint is still on it, but I can't be sure it's retained it's original color. Here you see it with the box from a model of a Macchi 200 sitting on it. Dad hastens to point out that the bullet holes are NOT from the shoot-down, but from a bunch of GIs using the piece for target practice with their Garands afterwards.

and.................

the 318th moved to Ie Shima, a tiny island off the northeast edge of Okinawa. They also upgraded their equipment to the long range P-47N Thunderbolt. Their mission was to fly Very Long Range (VLR) strike missions against the southern islands of the Japanese homeland itself. It was on one of these mission that Dad's P-47N, "Icky and Me," was shot up so badly that he had to bail out half way home, and he spent 8 days floating in the Pacific in a one-man liferaft. When he was finally rescued and got back into action, he named his new plane the same as the last.

and finally.......

Dad finished the war with 9 Japanese planes shot down. Before going to the Pacific he had volunteered for two European missions - in England, where he shot down a Focke-Wulf 190. And to the Mediterranian, where he shot down a Macchi MC-200 for 11 kills in all.

Anyone-anyone?
Bueller......Ferris Bueller....................?