The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington Paul A. Conger Interview Date: January 1990 2 Abstract: Fighter ace Paul A. Conger discusses his military service with the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He describes his wartime experiences as a fighter pilot and his time in Europe with the 61st and 63rd Fighter Squadrons of the 56th Fighter Group. Special focus on several of his combat missions in Germany and the Netherlands, including one in which he encountered a large group of German planes near Emden, Germany and scored several aerial victories. Biography: Paul A. Conger was born on May 3, 1918 in Los Angeles, California. He joined the United States Army Air Forces and graduated from flight school in July of 1942. He served two tours of duty with the 56th Fighter Group in Europe, flying with the 61st Fighter Squadron and 63rd Fighter Squadron from 1943 to 1945. Conger remained in the Air Force Reserves after the war and retired as a colonel in 1957. In his civilian life, he operated an air charter service and worked in the heavy equipment and truck leasing business until his retirement in 1980. He passed away in 1994. Biographical information courtesy of: Boyce, Ward J., ed., American fighter aces album. Mesa, Ariz: American Fighter Aces Association, 1996. Restrictions: Permission to publish material from the American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives. Transcript: Transcribed by Pioneer Transcription Services 3 Index: Deployment to England and early missions .................................................................................... 4 Pilots and leaders of the 56th Fighter Group .................................................................................. 5 Aerial victories near Emden (December 1943) .............................................................................. 5 Dogfight near Dümmer Lake (1944) .............................................................................................. 6 A decoy for Jerry Johnson .............................................................................................................. 8 Two more aerial victories ............................................................................................................... 8 Strafing missions ............................................................................................................................. 9 Shot down in the Netherlands ....................................................................................................... 10 Stories about other pilots .............................................................................................................. 11 Forgetting to switch fuel tanks ...................................................................................................... 12 4 Paul A. Conger [START OF INTERVIEW] 0:00:00 [Deployment to England and early missions] PAUL A CONGER: …now. We were all greenhorns when we went overseas, left there in 1940. Let’s see, we left at—we arrived on the first of January of ’43. I get this with this, Eric, now and get things started. People were on that ship, and it made it in three day—two-and-a-half days. And then we went to King’s Cliffe and stayed there a few months before we got airplanes. And then over to Norwich and we got airplanes at Norwich and King’s Cliffe and then on down to Boxted. But our main combat was out of Boxted and Halesworth. And of course, we all were—we're all green peas and we all worked up. Them Germans would get us 15 minutes out in the channel at the first. And then as we backed them up and as they became on the defense more and more and we became offensively, we went clear into—as far as Berlin, escorting and strafing and looking, just on a rhubarb even. And a lot of our stuff was escorting, though. And then after escort, we’d go down and strafe. But at the first part we would usually hit combat because the Germans were very aggressive. The Abbeville Boys were very aggressive. The Yellow Nose Boys with Luftwaffe 190s and—and extremely aggressive. And of course, we had learned only from the Eagle Squadron with the 4th Group and they had led us astray, told us we’d die in five missions and we’d never make it in the Thunderbolt and so forth, et cetera. And misled us in many, many ways. But we acquired ourselves and adapted ourselves rapidly. In turn, the—a few missions that I did, 168 missions, and that’s all across the North Sea. We were the first fighter group into England from America, and the last to leave in all blue Thunderbolts that continuously—the whole entire time, not being regretful one bit. The P-51 was limited on certain things and the 38 was a lost cause. And so the Thunderbolt was the backbone, I believe. Hold on a minute. Before we went into combat, we were down at Biggin Hill two weeks, sets outside of London. RAF was pretty pooped because of the Battle of Britain. So we stood at some alert there. We were in Spitfire Vs. And a couple of guys made a couple of rhubarbs with the RAF early in the morning and I believe Gabreski was one of them. We had attacks on a couple Dornier 217s, but that was about all. 0:03:00 Our first mission that I went on was about the second mission the group did. Was a high altitude mission at 32,000 feet, at 50 inches of manifold pressure. And we went into the Frisian Islands 5 and broke left and two Focke-Wulfs went down between us and everybody went scrambling around and didn’t know quite what happened and back home we were. About like that. That was no good. [Pilots and leaders of the 56th Fighter Group] The third mission, I always thought the captain would get—I mean, I always thought the second lieutenant would get it before the captain. We had two fine pilots, Captain Wetherbee [Robert H. Weatherbee] and Captain Eby [Merle C. Eby] in my squadron, 61st. They got it in the third mission, and I was quite surprised. The second mission I had called Eby on coming back that there were some bandits up above us and Eby didn’t turn and these guys attacked, but they were Spitfires, fortunately. I figured I was so dumb I was—when I saw the smoke come out of their— I was—with the guns. If I hadn’t—if Eby hadn’t broke by then, I was going to break and split— do a split S if it hadn’t been too late. See how dumb we—we were awful dumb, awful dumb. But we learned and we learned fast and we learned completely fast. 0:04:26 So as the mission proceeded, we got warmer and warmer and warmer and then dropped down a little bit instead of going in at 32,000, coming about 28,000 and down in there, feeling our way along. And as I say again, Zemke [Hubert Zemke] was flying great, the leader, and then as the group leader. And then when we were—and then of course McCollom [Loren G. McCollom] was too slow, too—I—he was not aggressive at all. Gabreski [Francis S. Gabreski] came into the squadron extremely aggressive—helpful and, in fact, a good combat leader. That’s all I can say. The other guys could be good fliers, good pilots, but not good combat leaders. Gabreski, Schilling [David C. Schilling], outstanding combat leaders. Tukey of the 63rd was a lost cause. They took him off of combat in 30 missions. [Aerial victories near Emden (December 1943)] So as I say, at this particular time, which was the latter part of ’43, called—they made some movies on it, for the Pictorial Review of the Air Force, Ramrod to Emden. I was on Gabreski’s flight—Gabreski’s squadron that day. And I was on the far north flight, that was 61st. And 63rd was the middle and the 62nd was down sun. Actually, the sun was coming out from the northeast. So anyway, this gaggle of Messerschmitts. I called into Gabreski, Gabreski called in immediate—had called us ten minutes before we were above the Frisian Islands, pushing about 40 inches. No, we were pushing about 30—29 inches. And autolean saving our fuel, carrying a load. We're at 30,000 feet. And I had two greenhorns with me on my wingmen and one Robill Roberts was my element leader. And we started pushing 42, 45 inches, 50 inches and start to 6 move. We had been indicating about 180 miles an hour, indicated about 290, close to 300, then start to dive a little bit to 320. And I saw these Messerschmitts, so 50-plus—100—50-plus on the one element and 50-plus on the other element. Ju 88s in there going north. Our B-17s were coming from the north—coming down south on a diversion raid, diversion vector, and then coming south. But these Messerschmitts were coming in and going to lob rockets into them. 0:07:13 Call the man again and said, “Go to the opposite and attack” And I made a quick turn left, down, and then dive before they attacked. My two wingmen hit. We had taught them to crossover and watch each other when they cross over, but the—you see, the OTU back in the States would send these pilots over just for numbers and not training them enough. Didn’t know themselves, really, how to train. Anyway, Gabreski saw this action, explosion, and pulled back up again. He was really my top cover coming in. And I got one 110 and another 110 and then as I’m coming down now, within a few minutes now I’m down about 15,000—15,000 to 10,000, in there some place—and I got a Ju 88, a long shot, 500 yards. But I got hits and then he slowed down and then I got real good hits on him. And by that time I was over Heligoland about 5,000 feet and in the fog, quite a bit of fog. Of course, had a wild ride back home because I had forgotten about a few of my instruments that—controls that I had not shoved to full rich and not shoved all the way forward and when I was on autolean up above and several other things that I was into.