| Carr had problems more immediate than a bunch of confused Germans. He had just pulled off the perfect plane-jacking; but he knew nothing about the airplane, couldn't read the placards and had 200 miles of enemy territory to cross. |
FW190
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| At home, there would be hundreds of his friends and fellow warriors, all of whom were, at that moment, preparing their guns to shoot at airplanes marked with swastikas and crosses — airplanes identical to the one Bruce Carr was at that moment flying. But Carr wasn't thinking that far ahead. First, he had to get there, and that meant learning how to fly the airplane.
“There were two buttons behind the throttle and three buttons behind those two. I wasn't sure what to push, So I pushed one button and nothing happened. I pushed the other and the gear started up. As soon as I felt it coming up and I cleared the fence at the edge of the German field, I took it down a little lower and headed for home. All I wanted to do was clear the ground by about six inches, and there was only one throttle position for me: full forward.”
“As I headed for home, I pushed one of the other three buttons, and the flaps came part way down. I pushed the button next to it, and they came up again. So I knew how to get the flaps down. But that was all I knew. I can't make heads or tails out of any of the instruments. None. I can't even figure how to change the prop pitch. But I don't sweat that, because props are full forward when you shut down anyway, and it was running fine.”
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This time, it was German cows that were buzzed, although, as he streaked cross fields and through the trees only a few feet off the ground, that was not the intent. At something over 350 miles an hour below tree-top level, he was trying to be a difficult target, but as he crossed the lines, he wasn't difficult enough.
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Mustang Group 1
Drawing Ctsy. Philip Alexander
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“There was no doubt when I crossed the lines because every SOB and his brother who had a .50-caliber machine gun shot at me. It was all over the place, and I had no idea which way to go. I didn't do much dodging because I was just as likely to fly into bullets as around them.” When he hopped over the last row of trees and found himself crossing his own airfield, he pulled up hard to set up for landing. His mind was on flying the airplane. “I pitched up, pulled the throttle back and punched the buttons I knew would put the gear and flaps down. I felt the flaps come down, but the gear wasn't doing anything. I came around and pitched up again, still punching the button. Nothing was happening and I was really frustrated.“
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He had been so intent on figuring out his airplane problems, he forgot he was putting on a very tempting show for the ground crew. “As I started up the last time, I saw the air defense guys ripping the tarps off the quad .50s that ringed the field. I hadn't noticed the machine guns before, but I was sure noticing them right then.”
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Mustang Patrol
Drawing Ctsy. Philip Alexander
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| “I roared around in as tight a pattern as I could fly and chopped the throttle. I slid to a halt on the runway and it was a nice belly job, if I say so myself.”
His antics over the runway had drawn quite a crowd, and the airplane had barely stopped sliding before there were MPs up on the wings trying to drag him out of the airplane by his arms. They didn't realize he was still strapped in. “I started throwing some good Anglo-Saxon swear words at them, and they let loose while I tried to get the seat belt undone, but my hands wouldn't work and I couldn't do it. Then they started pulling on me again because they still weren't convinced I was an American. I was yelling and hollering; then, suddenly, they let go, and a face drops down into the cockpit in front of mine. It was my Group Commander, George R. Bickel. ‘Bickel said, Carr, where in the hell have you been , and what have you been doing now?” Bruce Carr was home and entered the record books as the only pilot known to leave on a mission flying a Mustang and return flying a Focke-Wulf.
End of Chapter 5 — Go to Chapter 6
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