Watched that a few times before. Gives you a great idea of how destructive those old beasts really were.

Watching that footage look at the clip where the the guy is busting that locomotive. The last minute pull up to miss the telephone poles and wires really puts the danger of close air support into perspective for me.

I wonder who had a higher fatality rate. The escort air to air guys or the air to mud guys?

quote:

I wonder who had a higher fatality rate. The escort air to air guys or the air to mud guys?

Judging by their relatively heavy losses in A2A engagements according to the video Id guess the A2A guys faired a bit better.

THE Robert L Scott of "God is my Co-pilot" had a wing man that later flew P-47s in Europe.
There is photo of him on the wing of his plane.
Robert L Scott may have been a good pilot but his wing man was nuts...
The wing man had 19 swastikas on his plane for aircraft destroyed.....and he had 69 locomotives painted on it too....
The guy had a real hard on for trains.....