"George Preddy's Last Chase" George Preddy's combat
career was brief, but brilliant. He had a history of health problems as a
kid, and when he tried to enlist in the Army Air Corps he was told that
he was too small and scrawny to be a fighter pilot. Through his sheer
determination and unfaltering belief in his own abilities, he made it
through flight training and finally to combat where he became one of the
shining stars of WWII. The quintessential fighter pilot, he was
aggressive, cool, and precise in the air. Sometimes his aggressiveness
spilled over onto the events on the ground which earned him a reputation
as a scrapper. After completing the required amount of combat hours and
achieving an impressive tally of aerial victories, George was asked to go
on a war bond tour in the States. He received a hero's welcome home and
enjoyed visiting his family and friends, but he longed to be back in the
air. He loved flying so much, he begged to return to air combat and was
granted an extension of combat flight time. On Christmas Day, 1944,
the weather had finally cleared up enough for the Allies to launch air
support and Ramrod missions. George was up that day in his P-51 Mustang
"Cripes 'A' Mighty" and had just destroyed two Messerschmitt 109's, his
27th and 28th victories, when he and his wingman were vectored towards
low flying "bandits". George dove down low and was gaining on a
Focke-Wulf 190 making a run for it as the aircraft flew very low over the
Hurtgen Forest. As they over flew a field where U.S. anti-aircraft trucks
were waiting for German planes, trigger happy gunners, a little nervous
from previous German attacks, opened up with "quad fifties" on all the
planes. In a tragic "friendly fire" incident, George received mortal
wounds and crashed in a field a just few hundred yards away from where
the AAA gunners were positioned, cutting short the life of America's top
Mustang Ace.
|
