Interviewer: What was the role of the fighters on these missions?
Goebel: Essentially to guard the very heavy bombers that were going to industrial targets in Southern Europe, Munich, Vienna, etc.. Ploesti was a high priority target for us... the oil fields at Ploesti. I think I went to Ploesti 15 - 16 times escorting B-17’s and B-24’s. It was always heavily defended, so we would rendezvous with the bombers about half-way to the target or perhaps a little closer to the target, and then, take up stations above the B-17’s or B-24’s trying to prevent mass fighter attacks by enemy ME-109’s, sometimes FW-190’s on the bomber stream.
Interviewer: What fighters did the enemy use in these attacks?
A: Mostly ME-109G’s. They were flown principally by Luftwaffe pilots but also by the Hungarian Air Force which had two Gruppes at Budapest in and around where there were synthetic oil refineries. The Romanians had ME-109’s as well, and flew them very well. Their leading Ace had about 80 victories. But on a few occasions I did encounter FW- 190’s but relatively rarely. Nearly all of my combat was against the ME-109.
Interviewer: Can you describe a typical mission? Not the most exciting, but a typical mission.
Goebel: Yeah, I sure can. We would go out in Group strength, 3 squadrons, 16 aircraft in each squadron. That’s a sizable force, and that’s just one fighter group. The bombers would take off first, obviously they flew slower and it took them a while to climb up to altitude. They would take off early, we would never see them at take-off, they were some distance from our field. They would take off, head out on course and form up their “boxes” (formations) and whatever.
About an hour later we would take off, squadron by squadron, form up into a group of 48 airplanes, usually the lead squadron would fly the middle squadron position, and one of the other two squadrons would form up either above and to the right of the lead, or, depending on where the sun was, the other squadron was below. We would fly a predetermined course out to rendezvous with the bombers. Now, that sounds pretty straight-forward, but our navigation systems were so crude that sometimes rendezvousing with the bombers wasn’t all that easy.
After rendezvous, we would take up stations. Before take-off we were briefed on who was going to cover which wing and where. So, we would break up and move into 8-ship Sections and we would “scissor” across the top of the bombers about 2,000 feet above them because they flew slower than we did. We could have pulled throttles back and slowed down but this puts yourself in a very poor position to fight as we’d have to accelerate. So, we would keep our speed up, running on our drop tanks, and scissor across the top, watching that no enemy fighters formed up. Now, we’d see contrails sometimes very high or sometimes they’d come down. They’d hide up there and pass us up, or they’d come down. Now sometimes when they’d come they would get a first pass in. You couldn’t stop them from making a first pass, if they came down. But we’d engage them then and drive them off, or do whatever we could to keep the bombers safe.
When we’d get into an area that was heavily defended by flak, like Ploesti. The flak was extremely dense and accurate there. We would ... we couldn’t help them with the flak anyway and there was no point in our going through the flak, so we would pull off to the side and pick them up again on their way out. It was kind of .... it really hurt me to see this great mass of aircraft going into this black cloud of expended flak bursts, and then seeing them come out the bottom, spinning, or 3,4, or 5 chutes, burning or whatever, but there was nothing we could do to help them. Just hold position and watch. It must have taken a lot of courage on the part of those bomber pilots just to hold position and do that. Then we would pick them up again on the other side and take them out, looking for stragglers, trying to stay with stragglers, sometimes putting 4 aircraft back to protect someone who was falling back, out of formation. We would help as best we could. Then, after we got out say, on a mission to Ploesti, once we got over Yugoslavia, we were essentially out of range of the German fighters, we would leave the bombers then.
Interviewer: Can you describe one particular mission or flight that was more memorable:
Goebel: Yeah, on one mission to Ploesti, quite by accident I think, we stumbled into a flight of ME-109’s, we more or less collided without seeing each other... it was very unusual on both sides. We were kind of taken aback, and immediately engaged each other in a furious fight. I got on one ME-109, he came out , I looked down and saw another one heading for the deck. I got on him and closed very rapidly because I was very fast. I was in war emergency boost, closed on him, got strikes all over his aircraft, and I, perhaps I was a little slow in getting off the trigger because the canopy came off, and I saw him come hurtling out of the cockpit. But I think the rounds I had fired were still intransit and he may have been hit. I cocked up on one wing and watched him fall. His chute didn’t open and he fell to his death there in a plowed field in Roumania.
Then I was alone, no wingman, no flight leader, no nothing. Couldn’t raise anybody on the radio. A rather lonely feeling. I was 40 miles on the Russian side of Ploesti so had to re-cross the target area to get home. I was jumped by two more 109’s as I was trying to climb up. My blood was up! A 21 year old doesn’t have very good sense! They didn’t seem very aggressive, I think they were low on fuel, I think they had the “Rote-Lampe” the red-light that tells them they have only ten minutes of flying time left. But, they broke off the engagement, fully expecting I would too, the sensible thing to do, short on fuel and ammunition and 500 miles from home. But like I said, my blood was up and sagacity is not readily found in 21 year old fighter pilots, so I took off after them. I did get one of them, but that was a long flight home, drenched with sweat. Keyed up, and
very low on fuel. I don’t think I had much more than fumes in the tank when I finally got home.
Well then, the next day you’re ready to go again! You had to be young, . . . you had to be young to be able to do that kind of thing!
Interviewer: The airplane itself, you must have had a lot of confidence in it?
Goebel: Yes, I did. I think the Mustang was a fighter pilots airplane. When I sat in that machine, after twenty or thirty missions, when I sat in that machine . . . I had all the confidence in the world. Perhaps misplaced, I don’t know. But, I felt I was in control of any situation that would come up in the air, I had that kind of confidence. And I would say, even though it might be misplaced, without that confidence, a pilot is probably better off in some other line of work, because you’ve got to have that feeling in yourself and in the airplane you’re fighting with. I Did not have the same feeling in the P-39 and the P-40. They were nice airplanes to fly around in the sky but to go up against the ME-109G- - - I felt really good about the ‘51.
Interviewer: In your estimation was there any fighter faster than the P-51 in W.W.II? Or any tactic or maneuver that lent itself better to the P-51?
Goebel: Well, I think part of my confidence came from the fact that it was very fast, accelerates very fast in a dive. Now, take-off power was 61 inches of mercury. You could go into War-Emergency-Boost, you’d push the throttle forward and go “through the gate”, go through a safety wire, and get 67 inches of mercury, but--- you were limited, you were presumably limited to 5 minutes at that power setting. I have run it far longer. I got engaged with some ME-109’s over Vienna, got one, and was turning with another one. It was something I didn’t like to do, because you’d leave the flaps down and I was actually turning with him in an old fashioned World War I “Luffberry” circle when I was bounced by two 190’s and that time I decided I’d better depart the scene. I dropped the nose, continued to roll, and essentially split-essed, went into a vertical dive and hit the deck from about twenty thousand feet, so I was really moving. I don’t know what airspeed I was holding, the two 190’s after me and the 109 bringing up a distant fourth, but I left that throttle set at 67 inches, got that ball dead smack in the middle, and it seemed like every time I looked back they fired, but I was slightly out of range. I finally outdistanced them but it seemed like it took, it seemed like a very long time but was probably six or seven minutes. But the engine, it held up very well, no trouble. It didn’t miss or anything. It blew some exhaust stacks off! I think I had three exhaust stacks missing, I don’t know whether they blew off, or burned off. But the engine was all right and it got me home fine.
Interviewer: What do you think made the P-51 characteristically greater?
Goebel Well, ah. . . , of course it had the legs. Now, no fighter up until that time could go the places, distances that the 109 could, (he meant to say ‘51) . and that was the significant difference but it was also fast, very much faster than any other airplane I ever flew. It had some drawbacks. In order to get all the fuel internally that it did, it had an 85 gallon fuselage tank which biased the C/G (center of gravity) aft . . . much too far. So, I didn’t mention this on a typical mission, but, even before going on external the tanks, which were slung underneath the wings, we would burn that fuselage tank down to about thirty to thirty-five gallons, because with all that weight aft, if you’d jettison the tanks with a full fuselage tank, which happened to me once, you were in trouble, you could not turn with the ME-109. With a full fuselage tank it just flew very badly. But, by and large, it was fast, it would turn adequately, it had adequate flying characteristics, it was just an all round nice, nice flying airplane. It was just a joy to fly. And when I look back, I’m thankful every day of my life that I was able to fly the Mustang in combat, and probably, in the early part of my combat career, I probably made enough mistakes to get myself killed if I hadn’t been in the ‘51.
Interviewer: How do you feel in the airplane ? Sit in the cockpit and describe the feeling.
Goebel: It was an honest airplane. It gave you an adequate warning for stalls, there was nothing viscous about it, ah, some airplanes like the ‘39 could stall with very little warning. The ‘51 would begin to shake and give you all kinds of warning. It was relatively light on the controls, not as nimble as the Spitfire obviously, but not very far behind it. You felt like you could do anything with the airplane once you were in it, had it strapped on, and were ready to go.
Interviewer: What was the field as far as being able to see?
Goebel: Bubble canopy. Well, the first ‘fifty-one’s we had were “B” models which had the “greenhouse” enclosure. It didn’t have the “bubble” canopy. It had other shortcomings. It had only four 50’s instead of six 50 caliber machine guns and you couldn’t see quite as well to the side with the obstructions, but even with the “D” you still had this blind spot aft and down which is for every aircraft their most vulnerable spot. You had to turn in order to clear that area. But as far as vision goes, it was just a joy to fly. On the shuttle run to Russia, one of the Russian Generals who greeted us was looking at this bubble canopy and finally he said something in Russian which the interpreter said was, “ with that kind of visibility I wouldn’t mind dying in such an aircraft” . . . which I thought was high praise indeed.
Interviewer: The P-51B ... did it have any other drawbacks in the “B” model as compared to the “D”?
Goebel: Yeah, I was going to say ----- of course it only had two 50 caliber’s in each wing. Now the 50 caliber was an excellent gun, very reliable, and with good hitting power with armor piercing, incendiary ammunition. But the P-51B 50’s had a disconcerting tendency toward jamming if you fired while you were pulling above four g’s. And the reason was, that the wing was so thin that the guns couldn’t be installed upright, they were cocked over, and the feed trays had to make a bend in order to feed the guns and the ammunition would just catch in the ammunition trays. I ... ash’, engaged a 109 over Wiener-Neustadt and taking all kind of ridiculous shots and all of a sudden . . . all four guns stopped! Now the reason this is bad is because you can’t charge the guns from the cockpit, you’re out of business until you land! So, you talk about a tiger turning into a rabbit in about the tenth of a second when all those guns quit firing I’m looking for a way to leave the scene. Actually, he went one way and I went the other, and there’s nothing like a little distance to calm your nerves in a situation like that. But, I’d been told beforehand that this would happen and, you know, you get excited and you’re pulling the right lead on him for a deflection shot, and.... Ploop! ... nothing! But they corrected it in the “D’s” plus running six 50’s instead of four, and the jamming problem went away.
Interviewer: If I told you the ‘51 was the best fighter ever made what would your reaction be?
Goebel: I would not be surprised. Of course I have not flown every fighter, obviously, I mean I as a young lad I read about World War One fighters and talked to a lot of people that have flown since World War II. But I would not be surprised if the ‘51 came along at a time when it was needed, when it restored pilots faith in the ability of the Americans to field a first-class fighter. Up until then, the fighter pilots of the Group that I joined that had been flying Spitfires all through Africa, Sicily and Italy, Most of them went home rather than fly an American fighter. The P-38 and P-47 were quite good but everyone else was flying P-40’s and P-39’s. this was no good. So, the 51’ came along at a time when I think that , and in such quantities, that, it kind’a made us all feel like, this is the way, we can do it with this machine. There have been some very nice airplanes over the period that you described, it would be very difficult for me to pick one, but if I had to, I would pick the P-51 Mustang.
Interviewer: Why? Why would you pick the P-51?
Goebel: Well, I’m ... for two reasons. Yes, it used, the designers used every bit of new technology, and we talked about high-tech, obviously it wasn’t a high-tech machine but they used the laminar flow wing, very clever scoop cooling arrangement where they actually picked up a little thrust off the heated air that went out the scoop in the back. It was a well thought out, well designed, and well built machine. Besides the fact that it came along at a time when it was desperately needed. No other fighter could go all the way to the target. It could go to Berlin, it could go to Ploesti, and the Germans knew that. Previously, they knew that the best tactic for them was to wait, until the fighters departed. And so, that went down the tube when the ‘51 showed up in quantity. So, on the basis of intrinsic value as a fighter airplane, and the fact that it came along when it was desperately needed, I think, together, that’s the reason why I would pick it as the best fighter of all time.
Interviewer: Can you tell us a little more about how you feel personally about the airplane?
Goebel: Well, I would liken it to the warm feeling that you get when you get up in the morning and put on an old pair of shoes or something. You just feel.... it’s an old friend. There was a personal attachment, for me. Not only to the P-51D, but to my P-51 D. I didn’t even like to fly another airplane, because, as you gained seniority in the Group you’d have an airplane assigned. Now sometimes it was out for maintenance, but, every chance I got I wanted to fly “that” airplane. It was “my” airplane. I knew where everything was set, where I left it, I didn’t want anyone else flying it. I couldn’t always control it but it was a personal relationship with that airplane that I’ve never felt before or since.
Interviewer: Could you tell me, in your vast military career, any specific accomplishment that you’re most proud of?
Goebel: I think the fact that, after I got in the Group, it was MY wartime experience. After I got in the Group, starting as dumb-john number four in the flight, so excited you didn’t know what the hell was going on, if I ever knew in the first place, that, over the period of six months I gained experience, was recognized by the powers that be in the Group and the Wing and the numbered Air Force, and was trusted to lead the Squadron seven times. Now, here’s a twenty-one-year-old-kid leading sixteen airplanes, and had two Group Leads, leading forty-eight airplanes over five hundred miles over Europe, leading them into battle, twenty-one years old? When I think back, and I see twenty-one-year-olds today, I think they’re very nice young men, but I can’t believe I was ever that young! Or that I was leading forty-eight airplanes into combat at that age! I think we shaved once a week, was one hundred-fifty pounds, not an ounce of fat on our body, but . . . you do what you have to. But anyway, I think that’s what I’m most proud of , and I had no qualms about doing this, I felt very comfortable leading the lead squadron of the Group. Ash! . . . Different times!
Interviewer: Anything else you’d like to add?
Goebel: Yeah, I think I would like to point out, to give tribute to the maintenance people .... are you running? OK! An airplane is only good when its in the air ... flying. The maintenance crews that we had in our Group, and I think they were probably typical of most Groups over there. No glory. They’d been over there three or four years and seen pilots come and go, but they were stuck there. Abominable living and working conditions, in the Mediterranean at least, working out in the open, dusty fields, trying to change engines, do precision work on the airplanes. Those people did anything and everything necessary to assure that that machine and those guns and equipment were in the best possible condition, and gave the pilots the best possible chance of surviving and winning an air fight. They would do anything! They would work until ten, eleven, twelve o’clock at night. Be up at five o’clock AM to report to the aircraft. They would do anything and I think they are a neglected part of the story of World War II. Personally, ah ..., I’m sure that I owe my survival to the efforts they put in. I saw some statistics on ..., we made a shuttle run to Russia form Italy. We went to Ploesti and then, instead of turning around, continued on to Russia and landed at a little field, Pyratin, a little grass PSP strip. In the course of that mission, we flew one mission from there to the Polish front and then back , and then came back again the next day. In the course of that week, there was some thirty-three thousand rounds fired with, I think, six stoppages. You expect more defective ammunition than that! And I think that’s a tribute to the care the armorers gave those guns. Every time they were fired they dis-assembled those guns completely and cleaned them up. They were just devoted to their job and to giving you the best chance of surviving, and I’ve never forgotten them either. I met with my old Crew Chief year before last. Same old guy. We talked about the old days and he reminded me of a story about an engagement that I’d forgotten.
Coming back from Munich I was leading a flight of four, and stumbled on an ME-109 flying
between layers of clouds, but he was alone. I don’t know what he was thinking of, probably his Fraulein, but whatever it was, it wasn’t business and it wasn’t flying, because it didn’t take any great shakes for me to slip in behind him and close to very short range. I thought I was in range so I squeezed the trigger and nothing happened! So I looked down and saw that I was in “Camera only” instead of “Guns and Camera”. By the time I knocked it into “guns & camera” and looked up, I suppose I’m down to 150 yards, or something like that. So I immediately opened fire and I was closing very rapidly on him and got strikes all over his aircraft. And as I over ran I sort of half-rolled and looked down at him and I could see him slumped in the cockpit, but what really shocked me is, you know, in Hollywood movies you’d have a nice row of holes, well, that’s not what happened at all. I’m putting 80 rounds a second into this fairly small area and big chunks were torn off the airplane, the left elevator was completely gone, and in the picture that the gun camera film showed (we saw those before the movie each night), the picture begins to dim as the coolant and oil from the aircraft begins to coat the lens of the camera. And what he reminded me of was, it took him about 3-4 hours to completely wipe that airplane down because it was completely covered... the leading edge of the wing and the windshield too, were completely covered with coolant and oil.
Interviewer: In a typical fight, in Korea or Viet Nam for that matter, it was very rare to actually face an enemy aircraft. You faced them on a daily basis. Can you describe what a fight was like?
Goebel: Well, as you neared the target area, and the activity on the radio began to, we’re all standing by on the same, 48 airplanes on one channel, we only had a four channel radio. You’d begin to pick up “OK, there’s contrails at one o’clock high”, and somebody else, “Well, there’s fifteen of ‘em out there a nine o’clock level,” the pitch of the voices begins to go up a little higher, and a little higher, and everybody’s kind of looking around. Then, when the fight becomes imminent, or they’re coming down, or somebody calls a “break”. Now, once the enemy fighters start an attack on you, someone would call a “break”, that’s a maximum turn, as hard as you can reef it in, into the attack. It gives them their most difficult shot and usually begins the fight. So, its “tanks off”, mixture control - full rich, RPM - full, throttle - full forward. I always went full power as the fight began. You can always bleed energy off, speed or altitude, but it’s kind of slow to get it back, so I would immediately go to full power, straight away.
And then usually you pick a, pick someone, and all the while in your earphones you’re hearing these high pitched, panicky voices, (usually new guys who’ve been told to stay off the air), but they get so excited and they’re screaming, “He’s, “break, break”, ”he’s coming at you”. and they don’t give a call sign or anything and every aircraft in the air is breaking, “He’s coming after you!”, “look out, he’s passing underneath you”. And its enough to drive you wacko. You’re trying to concentrate on what you’re doing and you’re trying to position yourself for a shot, get in close, closer and closer, and you’re trying to get a low deflection shot.
Now, let me digress a minute. Every aircraft that has some angle off to you has to be “led” in order to hit him, like pheasant hunting, or something, and the pilot has to estimate this amount of “lead” by estimating the speed of the aircraft and his angle off. 90 degrees was probably the most difficult shot and he’s probably underneath your nose you’re giving him so much lead, but at 30 degrees, that’s half of what it would be a 90. I tried to limit my shots to 20 degrees or less. More than that, I thought, was a low percentage shot. But, you’re trying to maneuver, and you’re pulling “G’s”, and you’re turning hard, and you’re blacked out half the time. You’re sweating, it’s physically demanding, pulling that hard on the aircraft even though the aircraft is light on the controls in normal work, when you’re flying an airplane at its maximum performance envelope, you’re working hard physically. Physically working hard! You’re firing and you’re trying to see if your wing man’s still with you. If he’s not you’re trying to clear your tail. I tried not to turn with somebody, but to make a pass, then pull off to the side and clear my tail, still keeping track of him, what he’s doing, so that you can get into a second pass. But then, the air seems to be filled with aircraft one second, and you look around, and there isn’t a soul in the sky. It’s the damnedest thing you ever saw. It’s because, I guess, in three dimension it’s exploding and everybody’s going a different direction. All of a sudden you look around and there isn’t anyone there any more!
But then comes the slight nausea, the twichiness, the drenched with sweat, any little crackle on the radio you jump three feet in the cockpit, and in spite of how much experience you had, it was still a period of high tension and excitement. It wasn’t fear, though there were elements of fear there, but it was more “keyed up” excitement. I look back at those times and I think my reflexes and senses were so keen and so sharp, that I could do almost anything. It’s the damnedest feeling you ever - - - , and I’ve never felt it since. Obviously, it’s a helluva’ thing for a 21 year old to be in anti-climax the rest of his life, but at least in that arena . . . individual combat . . . fighting for your life . . . it only happens under those circumstances.
Interviewer: Let me ask you again if you agree the P-51 was the greatest airplane, greatest fighter of all time?
Goebel: I certainly do, as I mentioned earlier, and for the reasons I gave. I suppose it’s presumptuous of me and perhaps I have some bias, obviously because I had such good success with it, and felt as keenly and personally toward it as I do; but I would like to think that, objectively, that’s a good choice, that’s a proper choice. I firmly believe the P-51 Mustang was a “one-in-a-lifetime” occurrence, and was indeed the best fighter that came along - - - in it’s day, in it’s own day, had the greatest impact and was the best machine around.
I certify this is a true
transcription of the videotape audio.
Friday, May 23, 1997
Signed: Elmer J. Howell
Elmer J. Howell, SMSGT, USAF, (Ret)