The brown machine cut through the thin air like a pencil on a draftsmen chart. At the end of that finely drawn line was a lanky 31 year old pilot, Major James Howell Howard (above).
The U.S. Navy had trained him to fly, but he became an combat ace, completing 56 missions over China with the Flying Tigers (above). After Pearl Harbor he became a Major in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
And, since shortly before 9:00 am, this Tuesday 11 January 1944, he had been squeezed into the 2 foot wide by 3 foot long cockpit of his Mustang fighter.
After four hours of cold tedium Howard's 356th fighter group finally caught up with the 401st bomb group they were assigned to protect. The 137 B-17 and B-24 bombers had just finished their runs over the Focke Wulf factory in Oschersleben, Germany, and were turning for home.
Having divided his command to cover the lead and tailing bomber boxes, Howard was now "jincking" back and forth at 250 miles per hour in the center of the 160 miles per hour bomber formations, Howard noticed the bombers nearest him “...seemed to be under pressed attack by six single and twin-engine enemy fighters.” Signaling to his wing man on his “six”, Howard released his two 62 gallon drop fuel tanks, pushed his throttle and stick forward, and dived to the attack.
The machine Major Howard was flying was conceived in March of 1940. That month, with German bombers expected any moment over London, British industry produced just 58 front line all metal Spitfire single seat fighters, capable of 370 miles per hour (above). Little could be done to quickly increase its production rates, so desperation drove the British to look to the United States.
They were disappointed to discover just one American fighter capable of speeds over 300 MPH, the Curtis Hawk P-40 (above), produced by North American Aviation in Inglewood, California. (The U.S. Army had to label their fighters as “Pursuit Aircraft” to placate isolationist politicians, thus the "P" in front of all fighter designations.) But North American's production lines were already running at full capacity with P-40's, B-25 bombers and trainers. A new order would require an entirely new plant, which meant added expense and delay.
Major Howard first fell in behind an Me 110 twin tailed night fighter (above). The enemy crew were concentrating on their target, and did not notice the small fighters on their tail. “I waited until his wingspan filled my gun sight and opened up with a four-second burst.” The enemy plane went into a steep dive, and then fell from the sky as the wings broke off.
With a flick of his control stick and kick at the rudder with his feet, Howard fell in behind an FW 190 single seat fighter (above). “He pulled up into the sun when he saw me,” remembered Howard. A two second burst put 26 rounds from each of the six wing mounted 50 caliber machine guns into the target. The impact was instantaneous. Said Howard, “I nearly ran into his canopy as he threw it off to bail out”. And lastly Howard shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter.
Legend has it that the 45 year old charismatic President of NAA, James Howard "Dutch" Kindelberger, approached his lead engineer, 41 year old German born Edgar Schmued (above), and asked him, “Ed, do we want to build P-40's here?” Schmeud replied, "We can design and build a better one." Relying on Schmued, North American assured the British they could deliver a better fighter than the P-40 no later than January of 1941. The contract for 320 of the as yet to be designed Mustang Mark 1a fighters was signed on 24 April, 1940.
Returning to his station, jinking again, and now heading for home, Howard realized he had lost his wing man. Now alone at 26,000 feet above central Germany, still 500 mile from the Dutch coastline, he spotted some 30 German fighters gathering like vultures to feast on the bombers. Howard, confident in himself and the P-51 machine (above) he piloted, decided, as he put it, to “stick around”.
Engineer Schmued had reason to be so confident about his ability to design a great fighter. In 1938 Federal researchers working in a wind tunnel in Langley, Virginia, discovered that softening the “hump” on the wing top kept the air flow closer to the surface of the wing, which reduced drag by 50% while not reducing lift. They called the design “laminar flow”. The same team also learned that the standard rounded wing tips might look smooth to designers, but they actually increased drag .
This new plane, with razor thin blunt squared-off wings, would be the first in the world to benefit from this research. And Schmued had a few ideas of his own. He insisted the aluminum skin on this new fighter be “entirely flush-riveted”, allowing the plane to smoothly slice through the air.
Diving again, Howard lined up behind another ME-110, this one throwing rockets into the bomber formations. A single burst sent the twin engine fighter spiraling down, trailing smoke. Then, remembered Howard, “It wasn’t long before I saw another Bf 109 (above) tooling up behind the formation.” But this time the German pilot saw the brown fighter, and headed for the deck. Howard followed. “He stood out very clearly, silhouetted against the snow that covered the ground...” After another pair of short bursts the 109 began to smoke, and at 3,000 feet Howard was forced to pull back on the stick. “ The fellow went down in a cloud of black smoke and fire and hit the ground.”
As the P-51 climbed at 4,000 feet per minute, Howard grunted while “G” forces drove him into the seat. But the same forces were pushing the bullets in the ammunition belts on three of Howard's machine guns out of their cloth sleeves. The next time he fired, those guns would jam.
Basing the design on the P-40 saved time and retooling, as did using the liquid cooled Allison V-1710 engine from the P-40. This first new prototype, labeled the NA-73X , rolled off the production line just 102 days after design work had started, on 9 September 1940. And it displayed yet another major innovation.
The radiator on P-40 sat behind and below the engine, which gave the "Tomahawkl" it's squared off nose. But the Mustang carried it's heat exchange below and behind the cockpit, where it could be fed fresh air via a ventral scoop. To the engineer's amazement, a minor alteration compressed the hot air escaping at the rear of the scoop, so it would function as a rudimentary ramjet, boosting speed even further.
“I climbed once more to the port side of the bomber formation,” remembered Howard. “I saw an
ME 109 over on the starboard side getting into position...just underneath and a few hundred yards ahead of me. He saw me at the same time and chopped his throttle...It's an old trick. He started scissoring underneath me but I cut my throttle...Then we went into a circle dogfight...I dumped twenty-degree flaps and began cutting inside him, so he quit and went into a forty-five degree dive...I got on his tail and got in some long distance squirts from 300 or 400 yards.... I got some strikes on him but I didn't see him hit the ground.”
The first 95 of the new Mustangs arrived in October of 1941, but the Brits were not impressed. The Allison engines had no supercharger, which emasculated the planes at anything over 15,000 feet. So the British allocated the disappointing Mustangs to reconnaissance and ground attack. It was not until six months later, in April of 1942, that Ronnie Harker, chief test pilot for Rolls-Royce, spent 30 minutes flying the Mustang. It was Harker who pointed out to the Air Ministry that “...with a good engine, like the Merlin 61, it's performance could be outstanding, as it is 35 mph faster than the Spitfire V at roughly the same power.” But it was August before Harker was allowed to install 5 Rolls-Royce engines in the Mustangs, as an experiment.
“On the next trip up,” Major Howard explained, “I saw a Dornier 217 (above), I think it was coming alongside the big Friends (the bombers), probably to throw rockets. I had to work fast but when I dived on him he just left and I never did fire a shot at him.”
The high altitude performance of the Rolls Royce Mustang was now described as “spectacular”. The Mustang could now operate at up to 40,000 feet, at up to 432 miles per hour, making it the fastest propeller driven fighter plane in the world. It's aerodynamics gave the plane an amazing 3.3 miles per gallon, increasing its range to 1,650 miles with a pair of 62 gallon external drop tanks. This meant it could fly all the way from British airfields to Berlin and back.
North American now installed the 1,450-horsepower Packard V-1650-3 Merlin engines, being built under contract by the Packard Motor Car Company out of Detroit. The P-51 was now lacking only one minor modification, which would make it the best fighter in the world.
For another 10 minutes Major James Howard made repeated feint attacks on a Junker 88 bomber, forcing the blitz bomber to break off and dive away again and again. By now Howard's P-51 had only one working machine gun, the other 5 having jammed. Eventually the frustrated German pilot gave up and banked away. Seeing no more fighters, and being dangerously low on fuel, Howard gave a farewell waggle of his wings, collected three stray P-51s, and headed for his home base at Boxted, England. When he landed it was discovered Howard's plane had a single bullet hole in his left wing. Said Howard, “I don't know where I got it, or when.”
After the raid, the commander of the 401st Bomber Group called Howard's defense “...the greatest exhibition I've ever seen. It was a case of one lone American against what seemed to be the entire Luftwaffe. He was all over the wing, across and around it. They can't give that boy a big enough award." Howard was dubbed a “"One-man Air Force". Andy Rooney, correspondent for the Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper called his feat “the greatest fighter pilot story of World War II.”
John Howard's Medal of Honor Citation reads, in part, “For conspicuous gallantry...above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Oschersleben, Germany, on 11 January 1944....he chose...to attack single-handed a formation of more than 30 German airplanes. With utter disregard for his own safety he immediately pressed determined attacks for some 30 minutes, during which time he destroyed 3 enemy airplanes and probably destroyed and damaged others...Major Howard continued his aggressive action in an attempt to protect the bombers from the numerous fighters. His skill, courage, and intrepidity on this occasion set an example of heroism which will be an inspiration to the U.S. Armed Forces.”
Lieutenant Colonel Tommy Hitckcock , the U.S. Army Air Force attache in London, described the new Mustang as “Sired by the English out of an American mother...” In common parlance the new fighters would come to be labeled, “The Cadillac of the skies”. Newly promoted Colonel Howard himself had one suggestion - improve the canopy of the P-51, to give the pilot a better view of the sky. Thus was born the final classic outline of the P-51 with the famous bubble canopy.
Between 1942 and 1945 15,469 Mustangs were built by North American Aviation. They destroyed 4,950 German fighters in air to air combat, against 2,520 Mustangs lost. Born out of desperation, inspired by genius and technical innovation, the Mustang was the greatest, and the last front line, piston engine, propeller powered fighter aircraft ever built. But the human pilots continued being human long after the plane was retired.
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