By Barbara A. Schmitz
World War II triple ace fighter pilot Bud Anderson said he “was scared as hell” going into combat for the first time.
“I didn’t know what it was going to be like,” said Bud, the highest scoring living American fighter ace. “But after a couple of missions, you get used to seeing the enemy territory below you, and then it’s not so bad. And if you’re successful, that gives you confidence. It was almost like fun, but you can’t say that.”
Just 23 years old when he flew his last mission in World War II, Bud, now 101, told stories and answered questions during Tuesday’s Warbirds in Review on the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh grounds.
Bud said it took him almost a month to get his first victory, which worried him. But that changed in March 1944.
“I was promoted to operations officer shortly after I was in, and I didn’t yet have a kill, and I wondered what was the matter with me,” Bud recalled. “I was never in the right position.”
But that day in March, he was in a dogfight [with a Messerschmitt Bf 109] and flying fairly low. “This guy was giving me a hard time,” Bud said. “But I dug in, and we were just doing circles; neither of us were getting a good chance of shooting.”
Bud said when you’re flying down low and pulling high g’s, your plane is banked up and you can’t see underneath your wing. Plus when you’re pulling all of those g’s, you can’t see your target.
Even though he couldn’t see, he took a lucky shot, and immediately coolant came streaming out.
“Hot dog, I got him!” Bud said. “I was sitting in my cockpit patting myself on my back when all of a sudden I realized someone was on my wing.”
It was an American pilot from another squadron. That pilot already had a few kills, and Bud started questioning himself if he or the other pilot got the kill. “I thought, ‘Dang it, did he shoot that thing out from under me?’” Bud said. “I spent the rest of the flight home questioning if I had really shot that guy down.”
Back at home, he went through the squadron debrief and then reported to the intelligence officer that he had a kill … but asked him to hold onto it for a bit.
“I’m driving down the road to the officers club where we all used to go after my missions,” he said. “I knew John (the other pilot) would be there.” He planned to go to him and say: “Hey, you a******. Did you shoot that thing out from under me?”
But inside, the other pilot came running up to him as he entered, saying, “That was the greatest shot I have ever seen.”
Bud replied, “That was just a lucky shot,” and then he rushed to the telephone to claim his first kill. Altogether, Bud ended his career with 16-1/4 kills, one of the few fighter pilots to share a kill with three others in his squadron, which gave him a 1/4 kill.