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Another WWII Warbird Found


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Reminds me of back when I was a Cub Scout leader...

 

Visiting a youngster and his mom one evening to go over some Cub project or 'tother. I noticed some family portraits on a wall and asked about one particular old picture of a dapper young man...

 

"And who is this?" I asked.

 

The mom replied "Oh! That's Grandpa... he was a pilot in World War Two!"

 

"Really?? Wha'd he fly?"

 

"Stukas!"

 

Shot down, then spent a goodly part of the war as a POW and decided to stay in the US afterward. ;)

 

For a good read check out Hans Ulrich Rudel's "Stuka Pilot". Amazing story... he was the single most highly decorated German of the war - from the Wikipedia article:

 

"Rudel flew 2,530 combat missions claiming a total of 2,000 targets destroyed; including 800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery pieces, a destroyer, two cruisers, one Soviet battleship, 70 landing craft, 4 armored trains, several bridges and nine aircraft which he shot down."

 

Dang! :huh:

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I read that book as a kid.

I wonder how much of the claimed targets are actually real.

you know how pilots exaggerate.

 

The Soviet battleship is the Marat and is more a dreadnought than a true battleship. Largest gun only 12 inches.

Was finished building after end of WW I. Wikipedia says Rudel scored one of two hits that sank the battleship.

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