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Japanese fighter pilot1/3/2024 It was the first air-to-air kill by the C-46 in World War II. Gayda stuck the BAR out of his cockpit window and shot the enemy pilot, downing the plane immediately. The Browning Automatic Rifle was a compact light machine gun that could be used by just one soldier, as it was designed to be fired from the hip, while walking. The BAR in the cockpit of his C-46 was the same kind used by the Army infantry in small formations. Luckily, he had a Browning Automatic Rifle handy. Gayda saw a Japanese Nakajima Ki.43 Oscar fighter out the side of his cockpit window, he needed to do something about it in a hurry. At the time, it was the largest transport aircraft in the world and many pilots wanted nothing to do with it.Ĭurtiss’ behemoth transport plane also had a snag for wartime pilots: it was unarmed. The Curtiss C-46 was already a whale of a plane. His trip was already hazardous for the reasons mentioned above but the weather soon turned harsh, the winds picked up and his crew had trouble operating the aircraft. One of 157 delivered by air to Nationalist China. He had every right to be skeptical.Ĭurtiss C-46, just out of overhaul and painting in August 1948. Marshall hated the The Hump, claiming it bled the Army of its necessary transport planes and may have prolonged the war in the Pacific by nearly a year. One transport-pilot was so determined not to get shot down in the Himalayas that he shoved a machine gun out his cockpit window and shot an enemy fighter down. Search and rescue missions were described at worst as “spasmodic,” and at best, “negative.” The presence of Japanese fighters only made it more dangerous If a plane did go down in the Himalayas, rescue was uncertain at best. So many were lost flying over the top of the world, the Army Air Forces couldn’t count them all. More than a thousand airmen aboard more than 600 planes went down in the Himalayas during World War II, but that’s just an estimate. This was true for any aircraft of the era, whether it was a fighter, bomber or transport plane. One of the most dangerous missions for an Army Air Forces pilot during World War II was a trip flying over “The Hump” – a flight between India and China over the Himalayas.
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