AIR COMBAT MUSEUM—HOME OF THE WORRYBIRD
The Air Combat Museum boasts an impressive and growing collection of old iron, including the P-51 Mustang “Worry Bird” featured in this story. This 1944 model saw combat service during WW II and is painted as one flown by Bob Frisch of the 339th Fighter Group based at Fowlmere, England.
The unique mission of the Air Combat Museum is to get you up close to the restoration process of vintage military aircraft. At any given time when you enter, you can expect the unexpected as it relates to the type of aircraft that are being restored and at what stage they may be in during the process. Wherever you look, there is quite an array of parts assembled on the floors and walls for current and future restorations.
According to president and founder Mike George, this is a “working museum,” and he wants you to be a part of history preservation. George has been passionate about warbirds since he was very young, and a matter of fact, he started saving for his first fighter at the age of 12! That dream was quickly realized in his twenties when he purchased a T-34 Mentor and by his 28th birthday, a P-51 Mustang!
Other aircraft of note include a Fleet Model 9, Ryan PT-22 Recruit, Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan, Taylorcraft L-2M Grasshopper, Vought F4U-5N Corsair, and Beechcraft T-34B Mentor. The museum also hosts several more neat restorations, including WW II armored vehicles.
The museum is located in Springfield, Illinois at 835 Airport Drive South, (217) 522-2181. It is definitely worth the trip if you want to be a part of history preservation and see these great airplanes up close and personal!
the Element and the others in the Flight to head home together, but if we didn’t see them, we looked for anybody else to join up with and otherwise flew home on our own. Sometimes, we came across targets of opportunity, like shooting up a locomotive. I remember shooting one locomotive on the way home. Likely, the whole Flight would take a shot at it, if we were together, though it may have just been our Element.
We took one pass and that was it. To show you what a jerk I was, while strafing Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin, I was flying with Capt. Owen Farmer. We made a pass, and I was shooting anything I could shoot. We pulled up. I said, “Owen, let’s swing down and do it again.” He said, right back, “Red 2, get up here!” He was Red Leader, an experienced pilot and I was an eager beaver. Owen would have wrung my neck right there if he could have. Nobody went back for seconds on airfields protected by antiaircraft. You took one pass and hoped you made it through. In later years, I went back to Berlin and landed at Templehof. I looked around and thought to myself, “Good God!”
One day, we encountered the enemy jet, an Me-262. Our plan was, our plan was to have two of our flights break away from bomber escort. Our job was to camp out and wait about 15,000 feet while the bombers were at 24,000 feet. Suddenly, a 262 came down through the bombers at very high speed. He was heading to base and didn’t see us. We went after him, pushed full forward. Steve Ananian took a long shot and hit him, which slowed him up, allowing Steve to get close enough to get him. After that we took off. The 262s were not really aerial combat aircraft. They had the speed to fly down in passes, firing through the bombers. They would fly back to base into an alley that had flak on both sides, so we couldn’t follow them there.
Another mission on March 24, 1945 was when we were covering the U.S. Army advance on the eastern side of the Rhine after they, fortunately, had captured the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen. They had built additional bridges to cross over the Rhine. We were assigned areas out to the east of Remagen to protect the Army push east. A photo of our Operations Chart for the day showed the 339th and seven other Fighter Groups assigned to individual areas forming a very large arc of defense. The 339th was split into two groups with staggered takeoff times, one covering early in the day and the other later. Train and road traffic and buildings were destroyed. They weren’t taking any chances.
We always wanted to have some ammunition in reserve for the way back. There is nothing more helpless than a Mustang with no ammo. We tried to fire in short bursts to conserve. Besides the danger of running out of ammo, firing long bursts resulted in having to have the gun barrels changed out.
For longer missions, we had drop tanks with about 200 gallons of extra fuel. Flying at high speed and high altitude, none of us had much gas left when we returned. If we were running short, we looked for any airfield to gas up in Allied controlled areas on the continent or in England.
Weather was often dangerous and could cause casualties because quite often we took off through the overcast with very limited navigation equipment. Some experienced vertigo, losing their bearings and not knowing up from down, and crashed. When returning from a mission on a good weather day, it was easy once we made it back to safe airspace, assuming the airplane was in good shape. On a bad weather day, we felt our way across the English Channel and let ourselves down under the weather until we could see the water. Some of the guys said the ceiling was so low, they were missing church steeples.
Victory in Europe
We heard the news on May 8, 1945 and the feeling was mixed. We had all wanted to be aces. By the time we got to the war, there weren’t many chances to become an ace because aerial combat became quite infrequent.
After VE Day, we had about a month when we could take a plane and go anywhere we wanted. One day, George “Shep” Shepard and I flew very low over my aunt’s house in Dorset in Southwest England. We flew so close that the chimney soot came down into the house. She was really mad at me and so
THERE IS NOTHING MORE HELPLESS THAN A MUSTANG WITH NO AMMO. WE TRIED TO FIRE IN SHORT BURSTS TO CONSERVE.