One I
hadn't heard before:
Baggett’s [B-24] was badly hit, and the crew were ordered to bail out. The Japanese pilots then attacked U.S. airmen as they parachuted to earth.
Two of Baggett’s crew members were killed, and Baggett, though wounded, played dead, hoping the Japanese would ignore him. One Zero approaching within several feet of Baggett, then nose-up and in an almost-stall, the pilot opened his canopy. Baggett shot at the pilot with his .45 calibre pistol. The plane stalled and plunged to the earth, with Baggett becoming legendary as the only person to down a Japanese airplane with a M1911 pistol.
Field & Stream called it
one of the greatest feats ever accomplished with a .45. As for Baggett, he apparently survived the war and lived to a prosperous ripe old age.
Yikes!
ReplyDeletesomewhere I was reading about an listening outpost on the Cambodian border where a bunch of guys jumped into a chopper and used small arms to down some NVA planes on a bombing mission- maybe Antonov's?
Can't remember the details- ever hear of it?
Here you go-
ReplyDeletehttp://forum.milavia.net/warbirds/helicopter-shoots-down-a-north-vietnamese-an-2-bi-plane/
I had not heard that story either! It is a good tale. It is good to tell these stories, so they are made new in the hearts of a generation that has not heard them.
ReplyDeleteI came across a site dedicated to the SF in Vietnam,with a long list of astounding stories about operating behind the lines (as if there were any) in small teams. Hair raising indeed. Wish I could find it again.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think the war in Irag and Afghanistan is a bizarre inverse Vietnam- the wet is dry, the rice paddies are mountains, the visibility is 2000 yards instead of 20 feet, etc. At least the M4's seem toowork better than the early M16's used to.
Definitely significant improvement on that last, yes.
ReplyDelete