Good flying never killed an enemy yet.
A top World War II ace once said that fighter pilots fall into two broad categories: those who go out to kill and those who, secretly, desperately, know they are going to get killed-the hunters and the hunted.
You lived and died alone, especially in fighters. Fighters. Somehow, despite everything, that word had not become sterile. You slipped into the hollow cockpit and strapped and plugged yourself into the machine. The canopy ground shut and sealed you off. Your oxygen, your very breath, you carried into the chilled vacuum, in a steel bottle.
The more mechanical becomes the weapons with which we fight, the less mechanical must be the spirit which controls them.
I mean, I had fast motor cars and fast motor bikes, and when I wasn't crashing airplanes, I was crashing motor bikes. It's all part of the game.
To the aircraft I aim, not the man.
You don't think much of the individual, because you don't think you've hit him and you hope that he will bail out or something; it's the aeroplane you've hit . . . normally it was more of a game if you like, you were outwitting and shooting down another aircraft, you were simply hitting metal.
Of all my accomplishments I may have achieved during the war, I am proudest of the fact that I never lost a wingman.
It was my view that no kill was worth the life of a wingman. . . . Pilots in my unit who lost wingmen on this basis were prohibited from leading a [section]. The were made to fly as wingman, instead.
And I have yet to find one single individual who has attained conspicuous success in bringing down enemy aeroplanes who can be said to be spoiled either by his successes or by the generous congratulations of his comrades. If he were capable of being spoiled he would not have had the character to have won continuous victories, for the smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Self-distrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.
In every squadron there were, perhaps, four or five pilots who exuded confidence. They knew that they were going out to shoot. The rest knew sub-consciously, that they would make up the numbers, mill about, and get shot at.
Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death.
The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish.
The most important thing in fighting was shooting, next the various tactics in coming into a fight and last of all flying ability itself.
In nearly all cases where machines have been downed, it was during a fight which had been very short, and the successful burst of fire had occurred within the space of a minute after the beginning of actual hostilities.
I fly close to my man, aim well and then of course he falls down.
I had no system of shooting as such. It is definitely more in the feeling side of things that these skills develop. I was at the front five and a half years, and you just got a feeling for the right amount of lead.
When one has shot down one's first, second or third opponent, then one begins to find out how the trick is done.
I put my bullets into the target as if I placed them there by hand.
You can have computer sights of anything you like, but I think you have to go to the enemy on the shortest distance and knock him down from point-blank range. You'll get him from in close. At long distance, it's questionable.
I am not a good shot. Few of us are. To make up for this I hold my fire until I have a shot of less than 20 degrees deflection and until I'm within 300 yards. Good discipline on this score can make up for a great deal.
Go in close, and when you think you are too close, go in closer.
I opened fire when the whole windshield was black with the enemy . . . at minimum range . . . it doesn't matter what your angle is to him or whether you are in a turn or any other maneuver.
As long as I look into the muzzles, nothing can happen to me. Only if he pulls lead am I in danger.
Everything in the air that is beneath me, especially if it is a one seater . . . is lost, for it cannot shoot to the rear.
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