He managed to disable one, which crashed into the sea near to the pier. He spotted four Focke-Wulf Fw 190s bombing Brighton and engaged them. Like Bader, Flt Lt Hodgkinson's Spitfire was not modified in any way so he had to swing his hips to use the rudders.įlt Lt Hodgkinson's first aerial victory was claimed in April 1943 when on combat patrol over the south-east coast of England. 'Now, you b*****d,' I muttered, 'we'll see who's going to be the master round here'.' DE197 like an ex-alcoholic taking his first whisky after a successful cure. In September 1942 he successfully requested to transfer to the RAF as a Pilot Officer and took control of his first Spitfire since his accident. He subsequently joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and went on numerous flights, including as a rear gunner on a bomber. It was there that Colin made the decision to have his damaged left foot amputated to give him a chance of getting into opera tional flyingīy Christmas 1940 Flt Lt Hodgkinson was walking on artificial limbs to such a standard that he was allowed back into the air. Unlike most pilots, he eventually retired and lived a long life, dying at age 96 in 1993.When war broke out Flt Lt Hodgkinson was in hospital at Dartford and as many cases as possible were moved imme diately away from the Metro polis, he was among those who went to a converted lunatic asylum at Barrow Gurney, near Bristol, where this photograph was taken some months later.
He was immediately promoted to Brigadier General and fought the rest of the war as a high-ranking officer. Doolittle initially thought the raid would be considered a failure, but it damaged the Japanese morale significantly and therefore he was greeted enthusiastically upon his return to the allied forces. The survivors parachuted into China where the Chinese helped them to reach safety. Doolittle planned and personally executed the raid, and many of his men and planes were lost. It was the first air strike to ever hit the islands of Japan. The Doolittle Raid took place on April 18 th, 1942, and was a bombing raid on the Japanese capital Tokyo. He served in WWI as a pilot instructor and later moved up the ranks in between the first and second World Wars. He was born in California in 1896 and enlisted in the military in 1917. James Doolittle is an American Medal of Honor recipient mostly known for his success in what was later named the ‘Doolittle Raid’. These are some of those men, the ace pilots of early military aviation. Legends were carved out in the skies as distinguished pilots made names for themselves by taking off into suicide missions and coming back alive, over and over again. Inexplicably, while some men wilted in the air, others bloomed. The casualty rate for WWI and WWII fighter pilots was insanely high, which is really not that surprising when you stop and consider what they were doing with the equipment they had.
Many men were terrified to go up in the air and come face-to-face with enemy planes and artillery, but they did it anyway. These rickety, propeller-driven wooden planes were built with virtually no equipment compared to the modern flying experience, and the pilots lived or died based on the all too human qualities of intuition and reflexes. If the idea of flying a modern fighter jet is unappealing, then the thought of setting foot in a fighter plane built pre-1945 is probably horrifying. This isn’t ‘Top Gun’, there’s a very real chance that when you step in the cockpit you won’t come back – but maybe that’s part of the appeal. Bold, adrenaline-junkie men and women who find the idea of living life as close to the edge as possible to be the only way to exist. Still, it’s testament to the various forms of the human experience that we as a species do have members who want in. The risk of a fiery death tends to put off the majority of people. True, the average person probably wants nothing to do with it. There are no recruiters hanging out at job fairs trying to convince people that getting into the cockpit of a jet and flying around the world is a satisfying experience.
Being a fighter pilot is one career that needs absolutely no advertising or PR management the job is intrinsically cool.