At the end of World War II, in order to weaken Germany's war strength, Britain and the United States carried out an unprecedented strategic bombing of the German mainland, and the Luftwaffe invested the latest and first jet fighter in human history to participate in actual combat- the Me-262 "Swallow" in the interception operation, which pulled the history of world air warfare into a new chapter.
In this epoch-making air duel, many Allied pilots achieved the impressive record of piston fighters shooting down jet fighters, and fighter pilots of the 8th Air Force of the US Army Air Force alone claimed to have shot down more than 100 me-262s. Only two of the pilots shot down 2 Swallows in a single mission, and today's protagonist is one of them, but his two extremely gold-rich crashes were not confirmed by accident, and he did not become an officially recognized trump card until the end of World War II. Until nearly 40 years later, the once hostile sides worked together to break through the fog of history and present this legend to the eyes of the world.
■ Urban Drew frontal photo.
Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1924, Urban L. Drew lost his father at the age of 3 and his mother raised him and his brother alone. Drew was educated at Wayne University and the University of Michigan and earned a degree in political science after graduation. Shortly after pearl harbor, the 18-year-old Drew joined the army, joining the army like many young Americans, entering the U.S. Army Air Corps, beginning flight training, and earning the rank of second lieutenant and pilot qualification in October 1943. Due to his excellent flying skills, he subsequently completed instructor training for the P-51 Mustang fighter and served as an instructor in the 56th Squadron of the 54th Fighter Group. In May 1944, Drew, already a lieutenant, was assigned to the 375th Squadron of the 361st Brigade and fought against Germany.
■ P-51 fighter of the 361st Group, which is known for its brightly colored yellow nose.
Drew's first fighter was a P-51B, for which little information and photographs remain, and he piloted the aircraft to shoot down a BF-109 over France on 25 June 1944. Drew was then assigned a P-51D, Ground Air Serial Number 44-13926, with the side number e2·s, but he did not achieve any success on the plane, because before he could even paint it properly, the "Mustang" was lost - on August 9, Donald Dellinger, who was flying the aircraft for training, crashed and died. Lieutenant Drew was only able to drive back the P-51B and shoot down another BF-109 over Germany on August 25.
■ Drew's second "Mustang", note that its vertical tail front is equipped with a dorsal fin-style modification kit, which is not standard in this batch.
In September 1944, Drew welcomed his third Mustang, and most famous, the p-51d-10-na of the Lu Aviation Serial Number 44-14164, with the side number e2·d. Drew personalized the aircraft, not only with the brigade's iconic yellow nose, but also with a conspicuous red bomb under the engine exhaust pipe. Drew from Detroit wrote the machine's nickname on it— "Miss Detroit."
■ "Miss Detroit" side-view color drawing.
On September 11, 1944, Drew piloted Miss Detroit to make his debut, shooting down a BF-109 while escorting a bomber. On 18 September, he and his wingman received an extremely rare result- after escorting the bombers in the middle of the way for shuttle bombing, Drew led the squad back to strafe the German targets along the way. On the lake east of Hamburg, they found a huge figure that Drew thought was the Blom-Fox bv222 giant seaplane. After the war, he learned that this was the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world at that time, the BV238. Drew's squad strafed the BV238 and sank most of it, with only one wing floating on the surface. It was also the only BV238 to be built and test flown, but the prototype did not have the planned self-defense weapons installed.
■ The bv238 was the largest and heaviest aircraft completed at that time, and its ability to fly and swim was reminiscent of the Kunpeng in "The Getaway".
■ Aerial oil painting depicting Drew sinking bv238.
Since BV238 did not take off at that time, the U.S. military defined it as a water kill, not classified as an aerial crash. However, this unique experience can also make Drew blow for a lifetime, but his legendary killing does not stop there.
Drew's most talked-about battle took place on October 7, 1944. On the same day, the "Mustang" of the 375th Squadron of the 361st Brigade escorted the B-17 fleet. On the way back, Drew found that another formation behind the box formation of the bomber he was escorting had been attacked by German aircraft, and he immediately led the attack.
When they arrived, the German aircraft had already scattered, Drew pounced, and what was worse, he was separated from his squadron, and he could not find the B-17 he escorted, only his 4-plane squad teammates were with him. He noticed that there was a red-tailed B-17 formation next to them without fighter escorts, so he temporarily joined them.
■ Drew's photo in front of the "Miss Detroit" nose logo.
As the formation passed through the German Achmer airfield, Drew spotted two me-262 fighter jets parked on the ground and watched them start, taxi, and then take off in formation. After both jets were lifted off, Drew immediately led the squad to dive down from an altitude of 4500 meters. When the second Me-262 climbed to around 300 meters, Drew caught up with it. By this time Drew's Mustang had reached a speed of 720 km/h, while the poor me-262 was less than 320 km/h.
Approaching 360 meters, Drew began firing at a 30-degree deflection angle, and a large number of 12.7mm machine gun bullets hit the wings and fuselage of the me-262 without suspense, and flames burst out of the fuselage fuel tank. When Miss Detroit flew past the me-262, the Swallow exploded in the air, and along with its pilot, Lieutenant Gerhard Kobert, it exploded.
At this time, another me-262 of the jet formation was trying to accelerate and escape 450 meters in front of Drew, but the speed gap between the two planes was too large, and it could only be slaughtered by the US plane. Drew's watch speed was still 640 km/h, and he could only close the throttle to avoid premature advance, he fired at a large deflection angle of 60 degrees at a distance of 270 meters, the bullets continued to hit the fuselage and cockpit of the me-262, and the pilot, Sergeant Heinz Arnold, threw the fragmented cockpit cap in two and parachuted, but due to the very short duration of the engagement, Drew reported in the combat records that he did not see the me-262 pilot escape.
Aerial painting depicting Drew shooting down Sergeant Major Heinz Arnold on October 7, 1944.
The me-262 flipped upside down and swung its tail to the ground. Behind "Miss Detroit," two columns of smoke rose in the air. Reacting German anti-aircraft guns immediately opened fire on Drew and his wingman, but the wingman pilot, Lieutenant Robert Mccandliss, despite Drew's order to leave the airfield, turned back to engage the anti-aircraft guns, and was eventually shot down.
■ Lieutenant Drew's operational report on the battle of October 7, 1944.
October 7 was undoubtedly a lucky day for Lieutenant Drew, who created a brilliant record that is difficult to replicate. But the day wasn't entirely lucky, and when he returned home, he found that Miss Detroit's camera gun didn't record the day's engagement. It turned out that the 375th Squadron used color film for the first time on the camera gun that day, which was also the first time for the 8th Air Force, because the film and the film box size of the Mustang camera gun did not match exactly, so the "Miss Detroit" camera gun was stuck.
The other 2 Mustangs in Drew's squad were not with him to avoid airfield anti-aircraft guns, and the wingman McCandris was shot down again, because due to the lack of human and physical evidence, the two me-262 records could not be confirmed, but could only be regarded as claims. By Oct. 7, Drew had already made four records, counting the two that would have put him in the ace line-up at the age of 20. More importantly, he should be the first and only two U.S. pilots in World War II to shoot down 2 jets on a mission. Drew applied for the Distinguished Service Cross for the battle of October 7, but it was not approved because the results could not be confirmed.
■ The small window of the p-51d left wing root in the photo is the camera gun framing window of the machine, compared with some models that arrange the camera gun and weapons relatively closely (such as the P-38 and me-262), the "Mustang" camera gun is not easy to fail or blur because of the vibration of the weapon fire, and it can only be said that Drew's luck that day was very poor.
■ N-4 camera gun used in the P-51D.
After 75 combat missions in Europe, Lieutenant Drew returned home as an instructor to train more pilots. But he was not reconciled to this and was eager to join the fight again. In 1945, Drew was reassigned to the 413th Squadron of the 414th Fighter Group in the Pacific, stationed on the newly captured Iwo Jima, equipped with the latest P-47n to escort the B-29s bombing the Japanese mainland. Unfortunately, Drew was not able to shoot down another enemy plane until the end of the war, and only strafed some ground targets, which prevented him from becoming an officially recognized ace of air combat.
■ Drew's landplane in the 413th Squadron, Miss Detroit II, Ground Air Serial Number 44-88492, which was a P-47n-5-re
After the war, Drew joined the Michigan Air National Guard, where he participated in the formation of the 127th Fighter Group and later became adjutant of the brigade until his retirement in 1950. After retiring from the military, he founded airlines in the United Kingdom and South Africa and became a businessman.
Nearly 40 years later, the determination of Drew's record suddenly took a turn for the better. A female archivist working in the U.S. Air Force saw Drew's story and helped him connect with a German aviation writer, Hans Ring. The latter helped Drew find one of the German ace pilots, Georg-Peter Eder, who in World War II claimed to have shot down 78 enemy aircraft, 56 of which were Americans, the German pilot who claimed to have shot down the most American planes. On 8 November 1944, Ed took over command of the Novotney Task Force after the death of Novotney, which was later incorporated into the 3rd Group of the 7th Fighter Wing, of which he became the commander of the 9th Squadron, claiming to have shot down more than 25 enemy aircraft aboard the Me-262.
Captain Olge-Peter Eder in World War II.
On October 7, 1944, he was supposed to be led by Captain Ed on a mission, but his landline failed and could not take off, and he could only be led by two other unfortunate pilots, so he witnessed the whole process on the ground. He saw a yellow-nosed Mustang swoop down on Lieutenant Gerhard Cobert and Sergeant Major Heinz Arnold, and although he did not see the bomb mark on the nose and the words "Miss Detroit," only one Of Drew pilots claimed to have shot down the Swallow that day, and the whole process matched.
Drew's downed Sergeant Major Arnold was also an ace, claiming to have shot down 49 aircraft, all of which were taken by me-262 on the Western Front. Arnold managed to escape on October 7, but was shot down again by a P-51 on April 17, 1945, when his yellow 7 malfunctioned and temporarily replaced the landline, which survived and is still on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. today.
■ Displayed at the National Air and Space Museum of the United States Yellow 7, Sergeant Major Heinz Arnold landline.
With Ed's testimony, Drew's two me-262 gains were confirmed. After receiving official recognition, in 1983, Drew and his wife, who were in South Africa, returned to China in the Air Force's C-141 to attend the ceremony and received the Cross of Merit for nearly 40 years. Drew and Ed also became close friends, and the two ace pilots who were once rival camps became close friends in their later years, and in 1986, Ed's cancer worsened, and Drew flew to Germany to accompany him through the last weeks of his life.
Drew died in California on April 3, 2013, at the age of 89, buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where the story of him and "Miss Detroit" will continue to be talked about by military enthusiasts.
■ Drew boarded the plane Miss Detroit with the help of the ground crew, and the 7 record marks on the canopy represented that he shot down 6 German aircraft (including the 2 unrecognized Me-262s) in the air, and 1 German aircraft parked on the ground (water surface).