Falling Out of the Sky: COL Francis “Gabby” Gabreski

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today we’ll hear from Colonel Francis “Gabby” Gabreski. Gabreski served as a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter pilot in World War II. He flew bomber escort missions, and by the end of the war, he was the top U.S. fighter ace in the European theater with 34 ½ kills. He also served in the Korean War, and is one of only seven American pilots to become an ace in two wars.

In this interview, Gabreski recounts some of his closest calls during World War II.

COL Francis Gabreski:

The most important thing that a pilot has to think about is as you're going into combat, respect your adversary. The Germans in the early days, they were the pros. We, in the early days, were the amateurs. We knew nothing. We started out to become a pro. In other words, but you only become a pro with experience. And if you're shot down before you get that experience, you never get to be a pro. So that was the advantage. The disadvantage that we had, not knowing what the enemy was. And he was pretty sure because he was pro. He was calm, cool, and collected, and we were nervous. There's no question. Maybe nervous is not the real word for it. I could call it scared. Everybody was scared, but it was controlled fear. It was controlled fear. We were trained to fly the airplane. We were trained to be fighter pilots. And with experience in combat, we got to be pretty good after a certain period of time.

Well, fighter pilots or anything else that you undertake, you're not born into it. You're trained into it. The more training that you can get, the longer you do it, the better you become. So that was my case. I flew the P-36 and the P-40 in Hawaii, and after the war broke out, I was transferred to European Theater of Operations. But I had 500 hours. I had 500 hours flying time versus the new lieutenants that the 56th Fighter Group came over, they had 150 hours. They finished flying school and they barely checked out in their own airplane and they were in combat. So that made a lot of difference.

And then, of course, I had very good leadership. I had good leadership in my group commander, which was Colonel Hub Zemke is probably one of the finest group commanders we had in the European Theater of Operation. So it's a combination of everything. And then we had a group of youngsters that were very energetic and eager. In other words, they weren't looking for an excuse to abort the mission. They wanted to get at the enemy. So we had exceptions to rule that some of them weren't too eager and they went by the wayside. But we sifted it down in time where we had a fighting competitive group.

There are many emotions that run through many people's mind with whatever you do for the first time. For the first time, when I was flying with the Polish Air Force flying the Spit-Nines, my flight leader or group leader pointed out a 190s. He pointed at me, he said, in Polish, he told me that there was one right in front of you. Of course, I was all excited and so forth thinking that “Boy, this is the first time, first combat.” And so, my adrenaline must've gone way up. And I was looking. I looked and I saw a spot in the sky there. Again, I had no idea how big the airplane is to appear or how small. So I saw that spot and I pressed a trigger and start firing it at the airplane.

Well, naturally, whatever it was, it was way out of range. You'd never get to it because your guns are synchronized. First of all, you have the drop, the bullet drop, and then you have your guns pointed to a synchronized center. So normally it's about 300 feet, maybe 400 feet. So once you get beyond that point, they spread all over the sky. So you're just spraying the sky. So that's what happened to me. But that's not the entire story. The true story is after the film that we have from the edge of the wing was developed from the little squirt that I fired at that little spot in the sky.

I noticed a 190 that the group commander was pointing out to me right below me. And I couldn't see it because of my excitement, and I couldn't see it because the Spitfire with its long nose, and so forth. And I was sitting down low. So I didn't see that airplane, but that airplane should've been my first victory because all I had to do is just bring my nose down and pull the trigger, and I would've had a 190 for my first airplane.

Well, what I'm trying to bring out is the heat of excitement. That goes on for a period of time until you become a little bit better. Not an amateur anymore, but you're approaching the pro group. So when you get to be a pro, just like boxing or anything else, in other words, the pro is calm, collected, he knows what his next move is going to be, and so forth. He normalizes the enemy. Well, there are no miracles. There are no born fighter pilots. Some are a little better than others, and that's about it. But I would say time, training, training, training, and more training is the key to any success. I don't care what you do in life.

You set down certain principles of combat. And our number one principle was, again, hit-and-miss. In other words, it was advantage in altitude. Come down and make your move and don't throttle back. Don't slow up. Turn that speed into altitude. There are certain principles that you have to live by. And some people have done pretty well with a lot of airplanes destroyed to their credit, but they were eventually destroyed because they slowed down for some obvious reason, so forth, in order to not only shoot that airplane down, but the one next to it. Well, I never did. In other words, if there were five airplanes all on side by side and I picked out my target. I didn't slow down for that airplane. My throttle was all the way forward, and I came and picked off that target. But I closed into a very, not what you call foot advantage. So I practically flew through the airplane. So then I came back and changed that out, changed my speed, converted the speed into altitude again, and converted that altitude again into speed as I picked out my next target.

I can say that some people are blessed, really in many ways. They had certain faculties that the good Lord must have given them because my wingman was Robert Johnson. Bob Johnson, who was the second top ace in the European Theater. His eyes were the best that I have ever seen. He could pick out a spot out there when I was squinting and wondering where he sees that spot. He'd pick up that spot way off in the distance, and he'd call it out to me since he was my wingman, and so forth. It would take me a little while to get oriented since I was a leader. Get oriented and see that particular spot. Well, we lost many advantages in that because when you see the enemy or that spot, you convert your whatever it is, the altitude, to speed, you run that throttle all the way forward and try to get a little altitude over and above your enemy.

Well, after a few unsuccessful runs with me looking for the enemy, and so forth, after Johnson called them in, I says, "Bob," I says, "why don't you, when you see the airplane, you see that spot there," or the bogeys, what we call them, or the bandit, "call them in and you take over the lead and I'll be a wingman?" And boy, I'll tell you, from then on in, why we shot down quite a few airplanes because of his eyes. He was just uncanny. Just those few seconds make a lot of difference, whether it's four or four or eight or 10 seconds, makes a lot of difference. You convert that to what you have to do in order to get that initial advantage over the enemy. So, Bob ended up with 27 airplanes to his credit, and I ended up with 28.

We had something like 40-some, 44 ACEs in the 56th Fighter Group. And it's a team again. It's not one individual, it's not me, it's not Bob Johnson, it's everybody. We had something like 15 pilots that shot down 10 or more airplanes. And a group shot down over 1,000 German airplanes.

Well, I shot down 28 in the air and three on the ground in the European Theater. But really, that was not our mission. Our mission was to escort the bombers, to keep the bombers, to prevent the bombers from being shot down. And I think we did an outstanding job in that particular field. It wasn't just shooting down the airplane. In other words, if a fighter was coming in, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot was coming in on a bomber, and we went out and fired at him head-on, and he turned over on his back and got away from the bombers. Our job was complete. In other words, we'd pull right back up with the bombers and continue our escort.

The most excessive loss that we had was the Schweinfurt raid and Regensburg raid where we lost 60 airplanes. And when I say 60, that means 60 destroyed that didn't return. But those that were damaged that returned, I mean I'd hate to even guess at the number of those. But nevertheless, the mission kept going on and we made it because of the complete support and backing that we had of everybody.

Well, our number one mission in the Eighth Air Force, Ninth Air Force took care of all the close support to the troops. But the Eighth Air Force after General Jimmy Doolittle took over and we had sufficient number of fighters, 33 groups, and we were running 1,000 plane raids. Then the commanding general says, "Hey, follow the enemy right down to the ground and hit any ground target that you can see." So that's exactly what we did from then on in. It was at a time, that was a timeframe, was January, February of 1944. That's after we had quite a bit of experience, and technology has improved some of our airplanes. We had the [inaudible] coming in at a pretty good pace. So it gave us that added power.

I'd like to talk about that little added power. That added power meant so much. It meant that I could do combat with the enemy over his territory at all altitudes, and I could break off at will because I had more power than he had, and I could corkscrew, go up the altitude, and he couldn't follow me. So that made a difference.

I can talk about one mission, [inaudible], which was deep in Germany, north of the Ruhr. When I had a few elements go down to strafe a train that was moving along and in their territory. They went down and did their work, and so forth. Of course, I said I would give them top cover. I came down from 28,000 feet down to 15,000. When you come down to 15,000, you see so much more detail on the ground. And when I came down to 15,000, I looked at the ground and there was a airdrome, well camouflaged, but I could see little airplanes. There was movement on the ground, and there were 190s that were taken off from that airdrome.

After they destroyed the train, they joined the group or the squadron and I went down with them, picked out my target. We let down way below out of what you call periphery of the field, and came in at treetop level. Right before we had Focke-Wulf 190s that were taken off like bees and I came in right behind. They had a wheel up, and they knew we were there. As the wheels were coming up, they accelerated very rapidly. Our rate of closure was, of course, very rapid. So I came in and shot down one right on as he was taking off as he was airborne. I shot down two at that time. And then I pulled up. And from that time on, I mean, it was combat right over the field.

The only thing I can remember is coming back again on another airplane, the third airplane, and I was ready to pull my trigger. I looked to my left and there was a Focke-Wulf 190 coming down at me. So I had to break off my attack and pulled into that airplane coming down at me, and I turned into him. Fortunately, he didn't hit me. I corkscrewed the airplane up to about eight, 9,000 feet. As I corkscrewed the airplane up, I get the altitude and looked around, surveyed the situation again, and there was nobody behind me. Nobody could stay up with me. So I could break combat at will. That's what I mean by breaking off combat at will. So, I did. And that gave me all the confidence in the world with that new technology we had in the P-47.

Now, I rendezvoused over the field again at about 10,000 feet, and there were few stragglers, my stragglers that came up and joined me. I called in to have the individuals join me, and we were about ready to go home. All of a sudden, why we see a green flare. A green flare went off, and that meant that the anti-aircraft fire stopped firing, and so forth, and it must be friendly airplane, their friendly airplane coming in for a landing. So we went in and made another pass, and so forth, and I shot down another airplane in that particular belay plus the other pilots, they got about one or two a piece there. We broke off, went up to altitude, and went home.

That one lasted, it felt like hours, but it must've been about, oh, I'd say the whole thing, the whole operation, I'd say two, three minutes.

Interviewer:

That fast and so many things. Yeah.

Francis Gabreski:

Oh, it's very, very, very fast. Well, I'll tell you another one. After you get to be a seasoned pilot, you think you're a pro. And you are, because you've had a lot of experience, and so forth, and now you're calm and collected, and so forth. So after one pretty successful combat, why I found myself all alone, and when you find yourself all alone deep in Germany, it's pretty lonesome, pretty lonely. You're looking for companionship. I saw six airplanes. I says, "Well, I'm going to join the six airplanes because it must be P-47s." And they did look like P-47, but they were heading east, and I didn't look at my compass to determine what direction they were going in.

But anyway, I went and pulled the throttle wide open. I was closing in on them, and then I pulled out to the side and they were Focke-Wulf 190s. I saw the big cross on the fuselage, and boy, I made a quick 180 and I start heading 270 degrees instead of the 90. Well, those airplanes kept going. But now I saw another little airplane, a loner. He was coming in the opposite direction from what I was going. He was going deep in Germany, and he had about, I'd say he had about a thousand-foot advantage over me in altitude. So I watched him and I knew it was a German of either 190 or 109. So I was hoping that he wouldn't see me, but he did. As he went on by me and I kept looking back and all of a sudden he changed his course of direction. He turned into me 180 degrees, and I says, "Uh-oh." And my fuel was running low. So I says, "Oh, boy."

I made up my mind then that I'm going to run him out of fuel. So I left my throttle setting at about 42 degrees to give me enough power, but not excessive power so I don't burn up too much fuel. So I went down. As he came in on me, I nosed my airplane down, picked up the speed, came up in a chandelle, and came over and gave him a 90-degree deflection shot. When I saw his guns, the muzzles spitting fire. It worked. It got me that 90-degree deflection shot. That's practically impossible target to hit. But I got on by as I lost my altitude with my chandelle. I nosed down again, and he went on by, did the same thing. Came down and started closing in on me, and I start pulling up again. The speed and so forth I picked up. And another chandelle that's identical to the first one, and gave him a 90-degree deflection shot as he was firing on me. Everything worked because I was running him out of ammunition. He's going to run an ammunition, go home, and then he'll let me go home.

The third time he did that, everything was about the same as the first two times, and I pulled up and I made that 90-degree turn, gave him a 90-degree deflection shot, and his same distance. He was still way back there, but boy, all of a sudden I hear a big explosion in the cockpit and I lost power and the airplane start falling out of the sky.

So my foot was numb, and I says, "Oh, my God [inaudible]." So first thing I thought about is bailing out, but then in addition to bailing out because of my power, I lost power immediately. I had my right foot that was numb. So I had no idea what happened there, but I hated to look because if it was shot up, and so forth, that sudden shock would kind of put you out of misery. But anyway, I looked and everything was normal. I started heading down a little bit to maintain my speed, flying speed, since my power was lost. And as I was losing a little altitude, I opened up the canopy. I was going to bail out. So I opened up the canopy. And so, I had the canopy open, and I looked at my manifold pressure, and as I was losing altitude, my manifold pressure was building up a little bit. And as I looked at my RPM, my RPM was coming up pretty well too. So then I had to conclude that I had an engine, at least I had some power. I decided to close the canopy and go down as fast as I could. There was a layer of clouds beneath me, and it was up to me to get to the layer clouds before he could finish me up because the individual, the liftoff pilot, was looking for me after he saw me go through my gyrations, and so forth, and started heading down. He started heading down after me again to finish me off before I could get to the clouds. But I got to the clouds before he had a chance to close in on me, and I leveled off and stayed there for a short period of time. And then I'd pull out of the clouds, looked back, and he was still back there looking for me.

As I approached the English Channel, I called May Day, and so forth, because I didn't think I was going to make it home because a shortage of fuel, and so forth. So I managed to have Air-Sea rescue alerted, and so forth. I was coming in and I saw Manston off in the distance, and there's what you call a recovery base, just a big recovery strip for all damaged airplanes coming in at Manston. And I went in on that strip, and as I settled down my hands and everything was pretty well shaken by then.

But I failed to mention one thing. The reason my foot was so numb, it was a 20-millimeter high-explosive that hit my rudder pedal and exploded underneath the rudder pedal. The rudder pedal was shattered, and I had heavy boots on, and it penetrated the bottom of my boot, but it didn't penetrate my foot.

And then I found out after I had came to a stop and we looked the airplane over, my turbine supercharger was shot out. And I had one 20-millimeter went through my oil tank, and I was just about out of oil. Well, no need to say I didn't sleep very well that night.

There were other close calls, but that one kind of shook me. Another close call I've had is when I decided that since I wasn't as good of a shot as many of the other people are, I had to come in close before I fired at somebody. And this one day, it was a 110 that was coming in behind the B-17s, and I had plenty of altitude, and the squadron came in. There were 12 of them, and they came in and I picked up one of the airplanes. One of those airplanes, as I picked up, I was going to go real close before I started firing, and I did. I came in so close firing that the pieces of the airplane start coming off. Just as I was about ready to pull off, why the airplane exploded. It exploded and well, that meant that I couldn't go up. I went down, I shoved a stick down and practically closed my eyes then, and I didn't hit anything solid. I went underneath the airplane. Well, that's another time where I had 20 millimeters that was lodged in the cylinder head, his 20 millimeters that were blown out and flew into the cylinder edge, and my leading edge of wing was crushed, and so forth. I had particles of his burnt airplane as it exploded because we didn't have pressurization. So it came through the vents, and I had my vents open. It came through the vents of the cockpit.

Well, of course, I never got that close again to any other, to try to shoot anybody else down because I didn't think that it was the right maneuver to hold onto.

A war is a young person's what you call domain, if you want to call it the domain. But if I use my judgment today as I see it, well, I wouldn't be involved in war. I mean, war is hell. And when you're young, I would say you have appreciation for what can happen to you, but you have still that unknown quantity because you haven't lived long enough. Not enough experience to go back to and analyze a situation as you would when you're 50, as you would if you're 40. You're a young man. You're reckless to a certain degree. That's why you're educated. You're trained to do whatever your job may be.

The bomber pilots had a specific job, and their job was about the most difficult job of them all because they had to drop bombs at a certain particular point, and they couldn't take evasive action. Once they got to their IP point, they had to stay right on course, and they had all the fighters, the Luftwaffe of fighters coming in head-on, and so forth. It takes iron guts, but it also takes dedication. You had sense of responsibility then. You were dedicated to your fellow man. You worked as a team. It wasn't an individual sort of a thing. We talked about how do you get to be... And that never comes to your mind. In other words, you're not working to be an ace. You have a job to perform. You have a real serious responsibility to see that those bombers could come back for another day and drop the bombs on the industrial complex, on the Nazi industrial complex.

You've heard a lot of people say that they did daring things, and so forth. Yes, they do daring things, but they don't think in terms of those things as daring. They feel that it's the thing to do. They have the feeling. In their mind and their heart, and the capability is there. I mean, it just like somebody drowning and you're a great swimmer, and so forth. Naturally, you're going to go out there and do everything that you can in order to save that man. You become a part of him, and he could turn or pull you down under where maybe he's going to take you with him, but you don't think about that.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was Colonel Francis “Gabby” Gabreski.

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