Legendary...foes wrote:
Dean “Diz” Laird is a legend, the only known U.S. Navy ace to shoot down both German and Japanese planes during World War II.
I read a story not too long ago of an American fighter pilot who shot down German, Italian, Japanese aircraft
as well as a C-47! Seems the Gooney Bird was trying to put down at an airfield
There's a great picture of him sitting in a cockpit with Swastikas, Fasces, Hinomarus and one Star Spangled Banner painted as kill markings on the fuselage below him.
Found this in the process of writing the post: http://www.acesofww2.com/USA/aces/curdes/His name was Lou Curdes. It also reminded me that, as the above page puts it:
AcesofWW2.com wrote:
He is the only person that has ever been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after shooting down his girl friend.
Technically, Mr. Laird's claim could still be true if there were no other
Navy pilots to do it. (Apparently, according to the link, two other American flyer matched Lou's feat, but I have no idea if they were Navy pilots.)
EDIT: I also don't know if either of the other two pilots were aces. Again, this might make the claim more or less correct on a technical level.
EDIT: I never finished one of the sentences above. (That's what I get for trying to write a post at 12 midnight.
) Anyway, to finish my thought (lest I leave anyone hanging)...that it was unaware was controlled by the Japanese.
...or you could just check out one of the links below, generously provided by JDK, if you're not too lazy.
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