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Ok, folks, this post is a little bit different than most of my post lately. If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see something missing. Very good eyes if you notice no Medal of Honor ribbon on him. Nope, his highest medal was the Distinguished Service Cross. I'll add to this comment a bit later in the post.
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In any case, Major Leaverette was flying P-38's in the Mediterranean Theater in WWII. His mission on this day was to provide Air Cover for a Convoy sailing near Rhodes Greece. He had taken off with 9 airplanes, but two had engine problems and returned to base. He arrived overhead the convoy about noon and noticed that a formation of 25 Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers were approaching. The convoy had already been attacked before their arrival and there were some damaged ships.
Major Leaverette split his formation sending 4 of the aircraft to maintain air cover for the convoy while he attacked the bomber formation;.
In the space of 15 minutes of combat, Major Leaverette shot down 7 Stukas with a probable 8th. This site has an excellent set of drawings showing the flow of the battle. The picture below is just one of many.
Yes, Beans, I've spent a lot of time on that site.
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In any case, he got to paint several Nazi flags on the nose of his Lightning. Yes, Beans, he got an additional kill a couple of days later.
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A kill's a Kill! |
For the mission detailed above, he received the Distinguished Service Cross. In his career, he also received a Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leave cluster and an Air Medal with 19 oak leaf clusters. Interestingly, another pilot shortly afterward had a very similar mission with similar victories and received the Medal of Honor, more to follow on that one.
I thought that interesting.
Peace out all y'all!
** This guy was a REAL fighter pilot. How do I know. Look at his "official' photograph, look at the marks on the side of his mouth. Those are Oxygen Mask marks. He went to take his official photograph almost immediately after flying a mission wearing his Oxygen mask. Gotta' love him!
juvat
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._Leverette
https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-22923/
https://grokipedia.com/page/william_l_leverette
https://warhistory.org/article/william-leverette
Excellent air to air diagram: https://www.ww2wrecks.com/portfolio/dogfight-over-the-aegean-the-leverette-report-illustrated-p-38-lightnings-against-ju-87-stukas-on-9-october-1943/
Picture URL https://acceptance.historynet.com/slaughter-of-the-stukas-ace-in-a-day-p-38-pilot/standing by P-38
https://www.valka.czattachments/35946/2693339_9eb8a548f708f3ce1af26cbbdc562e10.jpg
8 victories https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PKgAAOSwvNhoCREx/s-l400.jpg
Geez.....using your own props to chew up the rudder of a Stuka? And having less than a full loadout of ammo per gun, first time I read of that practice juvat.
ReplyDeleteNylon,
DeleteOther than my initial flying training in a Cessna 150, every airplane I flew had two engines. I had a couple of emergency when I was very (VERY) glad I had a second engine. Makes it much easier to get back to the base. As to your second, logistics (AKA supplies) is the absolute must in combat. When the bad guys sink supply ships, that's a bad thing. So, running low on ammo but still having bad guy dive bombers in the vicinity of a supply convoy, well, losing a prop is better than losing a ship and her cargo. So...
juvat