Czechoslovakian airspace, November 2, 1944.
The P-51D Mustang is a machine built around a single screaming premise, energy.
It is a kinetic sculpture of aluminum and steel powered by a Packard Merlin V1657 engine that turns 1,720 horsepower into 440 mph of violence.
to first lieutenant Bruce Carr, a 20-year-old from New York who flies with the swagger of a man who believes he is immortal.
The Mustang is not just a plane.
It is an extension of his own nervous system.
He calls his ship Angel’s Playmate.
It is a silver dart with the black and white invasion stripes still visible on the fuselage.
Carr is an ace.
He has killed Germans in the air.
He has strafed them on the ground.
He understands the geometry of the kill, the lead, the lag, the deflection.
But today, the geometry is failing.
The mission is a rhubarb, a low-level strafing run.
It is the most dangerous game in the air.
At 25,000 ft, you are a god.
At 50 ft, you are a target.
Every soldier with a rifle, every flack tower, every tree branch is an enemy.
Carr is leading his flight deep into enemy territory, hunting for opportunity targets.
He spots a German airfield.
It is a hive of activity.
Mechanics are scrambling.
Engines are turning over.
We’re going down.
Car radios.
His voice is calm, detached.
The adrenaline is a cold hum in his veins.
He pushes the nose of Angel’s playmate over.
The Mustang accelerates.
The jungle green landscape of Czechoslovakia rushes up to meet him.
The airspeed indicator winds past 350 m.
The roar of the Merlin engine deepens.
A guttural snarl as the supercharger kicks into low blower for the thick air.
He lines up on a row of parked Hankle bombers.
He squeezes the trigger.
The 650 caliber machine guns in his wings erupt.
The vibration shutters through the airframe.
Tracers tear into the German planes, igniting fuel fumes.
Explosions blossom like angry red flowers in his peripheral vision.
The difference between a legend and a casualty report is often just one decision made in the silence of a dead cockpit.
We are about to follow one of the most unbelievable true survival stories of World War I II.
A pilot who refused to walk home when he could fly.
If you want to see the technical breakdown of the enemy plane he stole and how he flew it without a manual, hit that like button and subscribe.
The flight is just beginning.
Carr pulls up banking hard to avoid the flack that is now tracking him.
Black puffs of 20 men and 37 Michelle stain the sky.
He jinks.
He weaves.
He is untouchable.
Or so he thinks.
He spots a train.
A military transport steaming toward the front.
One more pass, he whispers.
He dives again.
He strafes the locomotive.
The boiler explodes in a massive cloud of white steam.
But as he pulls out of the dive, flying through the steam and debris, he feels a thud.
It is not a loud bang.
It is a dull, heavy impact, like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef.
The Mustang shutters, then silence.
The scream of the Merlin engine dies instantly.
The propeller, a four-bladed Hamilton standard, windmills lazily, then stops.
One of the blades is frozen at the position.
Mayday, mayday, car calls.
Engine failure.
I’m going in.
He checks his instruments.
Oil pressure zero.
Manifold pressure ambient.
The coolant temperature needle is pegged.
A piece of flack or perhaps debris from the train has severed the glycol lines or cracked the block.
The engine has seized.
He is too low to bail out.
200 f feet.
If he jumps now, the chute won’t open in time.
He has to ride it down.
Carr scans the terrain, trees, hills, rocks.
He spots a small clearing.
It is barely big enough for a Piper Cub, let alone a 5-tonon fighter plane coming in at 150 m.
He doesn’t have a choice.
He drops the flaps.
The drag hits the plane.
He holds the stick back, bleeding off speed.
He keeps the gear up.
A belly landing is safer on rough ground.
The wheels would just dig in and flip the plane.
The trees rush up.
He clips the tops.
Branches slam against the wings.
The sound of tearing metal replaces the engine noise.
Angel’s playmate hits the ground.
It slides.
It bounces.
Dirt and grass spray over the canopy.
The plane slew sideways, grinding to a halt in a cloud of dust and steam.
Carr sits in the cockpit for a second, checking his limbs.
He is bruised, shaken, but whole.
He pops the canopy release.
He scramles out.
He grabs his survival kit.
He runs.
He sprints for the tree line.
He knows the German patrols will be here in minutes.
A crashed plane is a magnet.
He dives into the underbrush.
He covers himself with leaves.
He waits.
10 minutes later, the trucks arrive.
German soldiers jump out.
They inspect the wreck.
They fan out looking for the pilot.
They walk past cars hiding spot so close he can see the mud on their boots.
He holds his breath.
He grips his 45 caliber pistol, knowing it is useless against a squad of riflemen.
They don’t find him.
Eventually, they leave towing the wreckage of his beautiful Mustang behind them.
Carr is alone.
He is hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.
He has no food, no water, and no map.
He starts walking for days.
He moves like a ghost.
He travels at night, sleeping in ditches during the day.
He eats raw vegetables stolen from gardens.
He drinks from cattle troughs.
He is cold, hungry, and exhausted.
He knows he cannot walk to France.
The front lines are too far.
The mountains are too high.
He needs a vehicle.
On the fifth day, he finds an airfield.
It is a Luftwaffa forward operating base.
It is hidden in the forest, a secret strip used to rearm and refuel fighters.
Carr watches from the tree line.
He sees the planes.
Messersmidt BF1009s and Faulwolf 190s.
The FW90 Wooer Shrike is a terrifying machine.
It is a radial engine beast powered by a BMW 8001 twin row engine producing 1,700 horsepower.
It is heavily armed, fast, and rugged.
To Allied pilots, it is the Butcher Bird.
Carr watches the mechanics working.
He sees them fueling a FW90.
They top off the tanks.
They load the ammo belts.
They run the engine up, checking the Magnetos.
Then they shut it down and walk away.
They head to the mess tent for dinner.
The sun is setting.
The airfield is quiet.
Carr looks at the German plane.
He looks at his worn out boots.
A crazy idea forms in his mind.
It is suicidal.
It is impossible.
It is the kind of idea that only a 20-year-old fighter pilot would entertain.
He is not going to walk home.
He is going to fly.
He waits for darkness.
The shadows lengthen.
The guard patrols are lazy.
They are deep in their own territory, expecting no trouble.
Carr crawls across the grass.
He keeps low.
He moves when the wind blows the trees, masking his sound.
He reaches the FW90.
It is a dark looming shape.
It smells of oil and high octane gasoline, a universal scent that comforts him.
He climbs up the wing route.
He slides the canopy back.
He slips into the cockpit.
It is tight.
The German cockpit is ergonomically different from the Mustang.
The instruments are in metric.
The labels are in German.
A tang craftto zunang.
Carr doesn’t speak German.
He doesn’t know the starting sequence, but he knows airplanes.
He studies the panel in the moonlight.
He finds the master switch.
He finds the magneto selector.
He finds the fuel [__] He knows he can’t start it yet.
If he starts the engine now, the noise will alert the whole base.
He will be shot in the cockpit before he can taxi.
He has to wait.
He has to wait for the Germans to help him.
He curls up in the small space behind the pilot seat.
It is cramped, cold, and smells of old leather.
He sleeps.
He sleeps in the belly of the enemy machine, waiting for the sun to rise.
Dawn, the German airfield.
Bruce Carr wakes up to the sound of voices, German voices.
He stiffens.
He is curled into a ball behind the armor plate of the pilot’s seat.
He can hear the heavy boots of mechanics on the wing.
He can hear the clank of tools.
They are prepping the plane.
If they look in the cockpit, he is dead.
If they check the seat harness, he is dead.
He holds his breath.
His heart is hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
A mechanic reaches into the cockpit.
Carr sees a greasy hand toggle a switch on the panel.
The mechanic is checking the electrical system.
He grunts, satisfied, and withdraws.
They don’t look behind the seat.
Why would they? who hides inside a fighter plane.
Carr listens.
He hears the fuel truck drive away.
He hears the starter cart, the external generator used to crank the massive radial engines being wheeled into position.
The Germans are making the plane ready for a patrol.
Carr realizes his window of opportunity is terrifyingly small.
He has to wait until the mechanics leave.
But before the pilot arrives, minutes pass like hours.
Finally, the voices fade.
The mechanics are walking away to get breakfast or coffee.
Carr uncoils his body.
His muscles are stiff and cramping.
He slides into the pilot’s seat.
It feels wrong.
The stick is in the right place, but the throttle is different.
The rudder pedals are adjusted for a shorter man.
He looks at the panel.
It is a puzzle of dials.
Altitude in meters, speed in kilometers per hour, pressure in atmospheres.
He finds the starter switch.
In the FW90, the starter is an inertia system.
You have to energize the flywheel, then engage the clutch.
He has watched the mechanics do it from the woods.
He hopes he remembers the rhythm.
He checks the fuel valve.
Open magnetos on throttle cracked open 10%.
He presses the energizer switch.
The sound is loud.
It cuts through the morning silence.
The mechanics walking away stop.
They turn around.
They see the propeller of the FW90 starting to turn.
They are confused.
Who is in the cockpit? Is it the pilot? Hands fritz.
Car engages the clutch.
Coughbang roar.
The BMW 8001 engine catches.
A cloud of blue smoke erupts from the exhaust stacks.
The propeller blurs into a disc of power.
The vibration shakes the airframe.
Carr doesn’t wait for it to warm up.
He releases the brakes.
The FW 190 lurches forward.
The mechanics are running toward him now.
They are shouting.
One of them is waving a wrench.
They realize it’s not hands.
Carr pushes the throttle forward.
The plane gathers speed.
He taxis erratically, weaving to avoid a fuel truck.
He doesn’t know how sensitive the brakes are.
He nearly ground loops.
He swings onto the runway.
He doesn’t check for traffic.
He doesn’t check the wind.
He slams the throttle to the firewall.
The acceleration of the FW90 is brutal.
It pushes him back into the seat.
The torque of the radial engine tries to pull the plane to the left.
Car stomps on the right rudder to keep it straight.
The tail lifts.
The runway rushes by.
He sees a German officer running out of the command tent firing a pistol.
The bullets are lost in the roar of the engine.
Carr pulls back on the stick.
The FW 190 leaps into the air.
Gear up, car mutters.
Where is the gear handle? He scans the cockpit frantically.
He finds a button marked on /os.
He presses it.
Thump.
The wheels retract.
He is flying.
He is flying a Nazi fighter plane painted with swastikas and iron crosses deep inside Nazi territory.
He banks hard to the west.
He stays low, hugging the treetops.
He knows that German radar will pick him up if he climbs.
He checks the fuel gauges.
The tanks are full.
The mechanics did their job well.
He checks the guns.
The counters show they are loaded.
He laughs.
It is a manic, hysterical laugh.
Thanks for the ride, boys.
But the hard part is just beginning.
He has to fly 200 miles across enemy lines.
He has to cross the front where every gun on the ground, German and American, will shoot at him.
To the Germans, he is a thief.
To the Americans, he is a target.
He has no radio frequency card.
He can’t call Allied control.
He can’t tell them, “Don’t shoot.
It’s Bruce.” He is the enemy.
He flies by the sun west.
Just keep heading west.
He flies over German troop concentrations.
They wave at him.
They see the silhouette of the FW 190, the friendly markings.
They think he is air support.
Car waves back.
Suckers, he whispers.
He passes over a German airfield.
A flight of BF1009 is taking off.
They form up on his wing.
They think he is their leader.
Carr keeps his face hidden behind the oxygen mask.
He keeps flying straight.
The German pilots wave.
They signal for him to change frequency.
Carr ignores them.
He points down as if he has engine trouble.
He dives away.
The Germans let him go.
They assume he is aborting the mission.
He crosses the Ryan River.
The landscape changes.
More craters, more ruined towns.
He is approaching the front lines.
Now the waving stops.
The shooting starts.
Allied anti-aircraft guns open up.
Buffers 40 quad50 calibers.
Carr sees the black puffs of flack appearing around him.
He sees the tracers reaching up.
Friendly, friendly.
He screams into the dead air of the cockpit, knowing no one can hear him.
He drops lower.
He flies at 50 ft.
He is mowing the lawn.
He is flying so low that the gunners can’t track him.
He hops over hedges.
He flies under power lines.
He sees American tanks, Shermans.
The commanders pop the hatches and fire their50 cals at him.
He jinks.
He weaves.
He sweats.
He pushes the German engine to its limit.
The oil temperature rises.
The FW90 is a thoroughbred, but it doesn’t like the abuse.
He spots an airfield ahead.
It is France or maybe Belgium.
It is C47s parked on the ramp.
It has Mustangs.
It is home.
But to the people on the ground, it is an attack.
The base sirens wail.
Anti-aircraft crews sprint to their guns.
Pilots scramble to their planes.
Carr sees the tracers arcing toward him from the perimeter of the field.
He has to land now.
He can’t circle.
He can’t approach normally.
If he does, they will blow him out of the sky.
He has to do something they won’t expect.
He pulls the FW 190 up into a steep climb.
He bleeds off his speed.
He drops the gear.
He drops the flaps.
He cuts the engine.
He is going to glide in.
He wants to show them he is helpless.
He wants to be silent.
The silence returns.
The same silence he heard when his Mustang engine died.
He glides over the fence.
The gunners track him.
Fingers on the triggers.
They see the gear down.
They see the prop windmilling.
Hold fire.
A sergeant screams on the ground.
He’s coming in.
He’s surrendering.
Car touches down.
The FW 190 bounces on the rough steel matting.
He stands on the brakes.
The plane skids to a halt.
He shuts down the systems.
He unbuckles the German harness.
He sees a Jeep racing toward him.
It is full of MPs with Thompson submachine guns.
They are screaming.
They look angry.
Carr slides the canopy back.
He stands up on the seat.
He raises his hands.
The MPs jump out.
They aim their weapons.
Get down.
Hands on your head, Schnell.
They think he is a German defector or a fanatic about to throw a grenade.
Carr steps onto the wing.
He looks at them.
He is dirty.
He has a week’s growth of beard.
His flight suit is torn.
Don’t shoot.
Carr yells.
Get on the ground, Kraut.
The MP yells.
Carr grins.
He points to his face.
I’m not a kraut, he says in his flat New York accent.
I’m Lieutenant Bruce Carr, fourth fighter group.
The MPs freeze.
They lower their guns.
Carr, the MP sergeant asks, “You’re dead.
You were shot down a week ago.” “I was,” Carr says, hopping down from the wing, but I found a better ride home.
Debbdon Airfield, England.
The news travels faster than a P-51.
Carr is back and he brought a souvenir.
When Bruce Carr lands the stolen Foxwolf 190 at his home base after refueling in France, the entire fourth fighter group turns out to see it.
General Tui spots commander of the strategic air forces comes to see it.
Carr stands by the plane.
He pats the cowling of the BMW engine.
She flies nice, car tells the general.
Rolls better than the Mustang, but the visibility over the nose is terrible on the ground.
The general looks at the swastikas.
He looks at car.
Lieutenant, the general says, do you have any idea how valuable this is? It got me home, sir.
This is an intact FW 19A88.
The general says, “We can test it.
We can find its weaknesses.
You didn’t just escape, son.
You brought us the blueprints to the enemy’s best fighter.” Carr shrugs.
I just didn’t want to walk.
The technical intelligence officers descend on the plane.
They are like kids in a candy store.
They examine the common dottical computer that controls the BMW engine’s fuel mixture and prop pitch automatically.
It is advanced technology years ahead of the manual systems in Allied planes.
They ask Carr how he started it.
I guessed Carr says they ask how he flew it without a manual.
It’s an airplane.
Carr says stick back.
Cows get smaller.
Stick forward.
Cows get bigger.
But the real story isn’t just the mechanics.
It’s the psychology.
Carr returns to duty.
He is given a new Mustang.
He names it Angel’s playmate.
I I changed.
He has seen the war from the other side.
He has sat in the enemy’s seat.
He has felt the vibration of their engines.
He realizes that the German pilots are not monsters.
They are technicians just like him.
They are flying machines that have quirks, strengths, and weaknesses.
He uses this knowledge.
He knows now that the FW90 has a blind spot.
The cockpit framing is heavy.
Rear visibility is poor.
He knows that the FW90 stalls violently if you pull too hard in a left turn because of the engine torque.
He uses these secrets.
December 1944, the battle of the bulge.
Carr is leading a flight over the Ardens.
The weather is brutal.
Snow and fog.
They spot a flight of FW90s attacking American tanks.
Car divies.
He picks out a German fighter.
He knows exactly what the German pilot is seeing.
He knows the German pilot is struggling with the automatic engine control in the cold air.
Car closes.
The German brakes left.
The FW90’s preferred brake.
Carr anticipates it.
He cuts the corner.
He knows the FW90 can roll faster than the Mustang.
If the German reverses, Carr will lose him.
So Carr doesn’t try to outroll him.
He uses the Mustang’s superior zoom climb.
He pulls up, trading speed for altitude.
He hangs on his prop.
The German pilot looks back.
He expects the Mustang to be turning with him.
He doesn’t see it.
He thinks he is clear.
He levels out.
Car drops from the clouds above.
He drops right into the FW90s blind spot.
The high blocked by the armor plate.
Car fires.
The FW 190 disintegrates.
Splash one.
Car says.
He fights with a cold precision.
He is no longer guessing.
He knows the machine he is fighting against.
He knows how the throttle feels in the Germans hand.
His kill count rises 10 12 14.
He becomes one of the top aces of the group.
But he never forgets the walk, the five days in the woods, the hunger.
He keeps a piece of the FW 190 in his pocket.
a small metal data plate he pried off the instrument panel.
It reminds him that survival is not about being the strongest.
It is about being the most adaptable.
One evening in the officer’s club, a new pilot asks him about the eight planes story.
I heard you shot down eight Germans with their own plane.
The rookie says, eyes wide.
Carr laughs.
He shakes his head.
That’s a tall tale, kid.
Carr says, “I didn’t shoot anybody down in that fuckwolf.
I didn’t have any ammo, and if I did, the American AA gunners would have shot me down before I could pull the trigger.” “But you’re an ace,” the kid says.
“I’m an ace because I fly a Mustang,” Carr says.
I’m alive because I flew a [__] wolf.
What’s the difference? The Mustang is for killing.
Carr says the fuckwolf was for living.
April 1945, the end of the Reich.
The war is winding down.
The Luftwaffa is a broken force.
They have jets now.
The Mi262, but they have no fuel.
Bruce Carr flies his final missions.
He strafs airfields where hundreds of German planes sit idle, grounded by a lack of gas.
He sees FW90s parked in rows.
He destroys them.
He feels a strange pang of regret.
He knows what a beautiful machine the FW90 is.
He knows how it sings when you open the throttle.
destroying them on the ground field like shooting a racehorse in the stable.
But it is war.
On his last mission, he spots a German staff car speeding down a road.
He lines up.
He fires.
The car flips.
Car pulls up.
He looks back.
He realizes he is done.
The anger is gone.
The adrenaline is gone.
He wants to go home.
The war ends.
Carr returns to America.
He stays in the Air Force.
He flies jets in Korea.
He flies in Vietnam.
He retires as a colonel.
But the story of the stolen plane follows him.
It becomes a legend.
It grows.
People add details.
They say he shot down bombers on the way back.
They say he landed with the engine on fire.
Carr corrects them when he can, but eventually he stops.
He realizes that the story belongs to the Air Force now.
It is part of the mythology of the greatest generation.
But the technical truth remains the most impressive part.
The fact that a 20-year-old kid, starving and exhausted, could figure out how to start a complex foreign higherformance fighter plane by watching from a bush.
That is the miracle.
It speaks to the training of the American pilot.
They were taught systems.
They were taught mechanics.
They weren’t just stickandudder men.
They were engineers of their own survival.
Decades later, Bruce Carr visits a museum in Florida.
There is a foxwolf 190 on display.
He walks up to it.
He smells the oil.
It smells the same.
He climbs onto the wing.
The curator tries to stop him.
“Sir, you can’t touch the artifacts.” Carr looks at the curator.
He smiles.
“I stole this artifact,” Carr says.
“I think I can touch it.” He sits in the cockpit.
He closes his eyes.
He remembers the morning mist in Czechoslovakia.
He remembers the sound of the inertia starter.
He remembers the terror of the takeoff, the joy of the flight.
He remembers the face of the MP who almost shot him.
“I’m Bruce Carr,” he whispers to the ghosts.
“And I’m going home.” The legacy Bruce Carr passed away in 1998, but his story is cited in Air Force survival training to this day.
It is lesson one in the seir survival, evasion, resistance, and escape school.
Never give up.
Use the enemy’s resources.
Use their food.
Use their water.
And if you can, use their planes.
The eight planes in the title of the legend refers to the confusion of war, the way stories inflate.
But the reality was simpler and more profound.
He didn’t destroy eight planes in that flight.
He saved one pilot.
And that pilot went on to shoot down 15 enemy aircraft and destroy dozens more on the ground.
By stealing one [__] wolf, he denied the enemy a weapon and returned a weapon himself to the fight.
That is a trade any general would take.
The fact is that he stole it.
The truth is that he owned the sky, no matter what language the gauges were in.
