One way to down an enemy plane

The fighter was evidently out of ammunition, for its driver resorted to an unusual tactic. Down came his landing gear. Down went his airspeed. it looked to McEntee as if he was trying "to set his ship down on the bomber's broad back. And he did - again and again, and again, with sledgehammer impact. He literally was pounding the enemy into the sea with his wheels." The bomber pilot had no escape. If he tried to pull up, it only increased the force of the impacts. Any evasive turn was easily matched by the agile fighter. "The only course open led down. But before the Jap could make a decision, something snapped under the pounding and the bomber plunged beneath the waves of Savo Sound."

(from Neptune's Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer)


Wildcat fighter