To be an Ace, you had to shoot down five enemy airplanes in aerial combat.
At the very moment, I’m the highest-scoring living Ace.
Even from an early age, Clarence E. Anderson - known to most as “Bud” was obsessed
with becoming a pilot and joining the U.S. Army Air Corps.
But in September of 1939, just as Bud was enrolled in an Aeronautics Institution, Hitler’s
Germany invaded Poland, igniting the start of the Second World War.
We, here in the United States, could see that that was coming.
It looked like we were going to have to get involved sooner or later.
Adolf Hitler’s all out attack on Poland makes the long-dreaded European war a certainty.
By January of 1942, the United States was at war with Japan and Germany.
Eager to do his part, Bud wasted no time and enlisted the moment he was of age.
When I volunteered and got accepted for Aviation Cadets, I was so excited about it and couldn’t
sleep that night.
I got up and rushed out to my car, said goodbye.
About the time I got to the gate I said, “Oh my God, I forgot my orders!”
I went right in and busted in to the kitchen, and there was my mom, sitting in the chair
with her hands over her face, crying like a baby.
I grabbed my orders and got the hell out of there.
You know, “What’s wrong with her?”
Not really.
I knew.
There were so many losses.
What do you do when your family got the notice that Joe Blow is missing.
It’s quite a thing.
I was a good shot.
I’d been through three gunnery schools.
Two in the Army Air Corps, and a lucky break when the group commander said, “You go to
the Royal Air Force Central’s fighter gunnery school, and take the Mustang.”
And I got thirty-five hours in the Mustang.
By the end of 1943, Bud and the 363rd Fighter Squadron were in England, training in the
Army Air Forces latest advancement in air combat - the P-51 Mustang.
The plan was for the 363rd to provide air support for the inevitable invasion of Western
Europe, known as D-Day.
But before the invasion could be achieved, Germany’s air forces would need to be silenced.
D-Day was already pretty well set in June.
The Eighth Air Force was supposed to destroy the Luftwaffe, go to the factories, blow up
the airplanes, go after the gasoline, blow up all the airplanes on the ground and in
the hangars.
The Army Air Corps thought that the bombers could go in unescorted.
They could just do it all by themselves, go back into Germany, destroy their war-making
capability, and the troops could walk in.
Well, they forgot to tell the Luftwaffe about it.
It just didn’t work that way.
They’d go on these raids and the Germans would just eat them up.
And so they finally decided, “We gotta have fighter escort.”
And the Eight Air Force said, “Well, we’ve got these P-51’s over here.
Why don’t we try them?”
Bud Anderson and the 363rd were now assigned to the 8th Air Force.
The P-51’s escorted the vulnerable bombers on missions deep into Germany to wipe out
the Luftwaffe.
The Mustang was so great of an airplane.
It had so much fuel in it.
We could go into combat, deep into Germany and engage the enemy.
We could stay in the air longer than their interceptors could, and get home easily.
The Eighth Air Force, before, was run by bomber pilots.
They told us how to escort.
They said, “We want you close, and when the enemy comes in you drive them away and
you come back.”
So they had an altitude limit of 18,000 feet.
If you hadn’t shot them down yet, you had to come back up, close escort again.
It wasn’t exactly the way to do it, but that’s what we were told.
They said, “The mission of the mission of the Eight Fighter Command is to bring the
bombers home safely.”
General Doolittle came in and he says, “The mission of the Eight Fighter Command is to
destroy the Luftwaffe.”
And he released us.
He said, “Now, when you fighter pilots engage the enemy, you take them to the ground, follow
them and kill them.
Pursue and destroy.”
Wow!
Turning a bunch of eager bunch fighter pilots loose turned out to be the best thing he ever did.
Finally unleashed, the Fighter Squadrons of the 8th Air Force began to rain fury on the
German Luftwaffe, and Bud in particular began to show a knack for shooting down enemy aircraft.
To be an Ace, you had to shoot down five enemy airplanes in aerial combat.
To be a Triple Ace, you had to do that three times at least, and I shot down sixteen and
a quarter enemy airplanes.
I can remember this flight back to Posen, Poland.
We were already deep into Germany.
We were escorting this long, long column of bombers, and we heard that they were being
attacked up front.
And so, we swing around and push up the power to get up to the front of the column.
Here comes four ME-109’s flying line abreast.
They came right into the bombers, head on, firing.
They rolled over and came around like they’re going to go up ahead of it again and come
in for a second pass.
Well, we cut them off at the pass, and I picked out this one guy.
We got into a turning dogfight, right at the altitude where the B-17’s were.
And what were the bombers doing?
They were coming right as us, like this.
We kept turning and turning, and I could see features of the B-17’s… the windshields.
And I said, “Holy smokes!”
The first guy that breaks out of this turn is going to be at a disadvantage because the
other guy can get on him.
Sure enough, the 109 takes it down.
So this guy is gonna turn like this and come back and try to go head-on with me.
And head-on passes are not fun.
Not for me, anyway.
And I suddenly realized if I don’t do something, this guy is going to be able to get a shot
at me.
So he’s turning like this, so I got a sight picture on him and fired a burst and went
right by him, cause we were going like this.
My wingman comes up here, and he’s looking at him and he says, “Andy, you got that guy!"
He says, “You hit him all around the engine.
The propeller flew off of it, the cowling came off, and you hit the cockpit.”
But the guy pulled up and bailed out like that, right there on the spot.
But the missions over Europe were not always a success, and the 363rd was not immune to
casualties.
Our squadron, the one we deployed with and went overseas with, had exactly twenty-eight
pilots in it.
And when it was all over, exactly fifty percent of them were either killed or prisoners of war.
What do you do about combat losses?
You’re there.
You’re in the same hut.
You come home and there’s an empty bunk over there at night.
Each guy had to figure out how to cope with that.
Some guys could just pull the shade down and ignore it.
Some people would not make close friends because of it.
But for every one we lost, we shot down five.
Our claim to fame was we shot down more enemy airplanes quicker than anyone else had.
We destroyed their capability by May of 1944.
And this allowed the invasion of Europe, and then the final surrender of Germany.
I’m not saying the fighter pilots won the war by any means.
It took everybody to win the war in Europe, no question about it.
But, the Eight Air Force over Germany was probably one of the most dangerous places
to be.
We took a tremendous toll from the enemy.
My best friend got married one week before he went overseas.
He got killed on his fifth mission.
And Eleanor, she got notified by telegram.
It was such a cold way, but you know, there was just so many people that died, you couldn’t
send someone personally there to notify the widow.
When I went home on R and R between tours, I had to go see her.
I think in my thirty years in the Air Force, that’s the hardest thing I ever had to do
was jump in my staff car and drive up to her quarters and tell her her husband’s not
coming home tonight.
But anyway, I went to see her.
“Hey, that wasn’t so bad.”
So I went back to see her again, and maybe again.
And then we said, “Well, let’s write.”
So we kept in touch.
When I came home after my second tour, we were married on the twenty-third of February.
So it was a whirlwind romance.
Best thing that ever happened to me.
Following the war’s end, Bud Anderson raised a family and went on to a thirty-year career
in the United States Air Force, finally retiring as a highly decorated Colonel in 1972.
Still, one of the greatest honors of his life came in 2015 when the city of Auburn, California
commemorated a gift to Bud in recognition of his accomplishments and service to his
country.
The town has a great spirit, and they’re very good about veterans.
It was a tremendous thing.
It was very humbling.
And I never really had a hometown.
I lived and was raised on a farm.
I never lived in the city.
Now I feel like I have a hometown.
There are many Aces that outrank me.
But at the very moment, I’m the highest scoring living Ace.
Underline “living”.