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My grandfather is Major Ralph S. Gardner - the pilot of the P-51 Mustang 542 (some called "Fighting Lady" and others called "Broadway Gal" but had no name while my grandfather flew her).
I have a copy of pictures that my grandfather had of the plane. When asked about the lady, he SAYS, "It was painted that way the first time I saw it!!!!". No name was painted on it while he flew it. The starboard side of the plane did not have any pictures on it.
For the record, he was credited with shooting down a plane. He was flying #2 on a B-29 escort mission. The leader was Capt. Bill Lawrence. #3 was Capt. Benbow, the Operations Officer, and Lt. Winn was the 4th pilot. The following are his words:
We ended up at 33,000 ft. escorting a stream of B-29's. A Japanese aircraft came flying at us at 10 o'clock level. It turned away from us, and we turned after him. We lined up after the Japanese plane, and Capt. Lawrence gave a long burst. I looked through my gun sight and knew that the plane was way, way out of range (750 ft). He fired a second long burst, and then a third long burst. From practicing on that Electronic Trainer, I knew that in order to hit an airplane at that distance the aim would have to be way to the side. Suddenly the Japanese pilot rolled over and pulled into a dive straight down. We followed it, and I banked over and took an aim off to the right of the plane, held it for 3 seconds and fired a 3 or 4 second burst. I watched the bullets go out, the ones from the left guns right, the ones from the right guns bent left and left and left and finally could see them hitting the airplane. Within seconds the airplane rolled one complete turn left, then one landing gear came out and down. By that time we were going almost straight down. I fired one more short burst at the airplane. Then suddenly my control stick, which ordinarily had a movement of one inch, violently went forward and then back 6 or 8 inches each way. I glanced at the airspeed indicator. It was on the peg at 550 knots. I pulled the throttle back to idle and got both hands on the control stick and eased it back and regained control. I was able to pull out of that dive and follow Capt. Lawrence, and a minute later Lt. Winn pulled up and joined us. Capt. Benbow was with us as we went into that dive, but no one saw what happened to him. We never saw him again. Lt. Winn reported that during the dive he had to avoid parts of that Japanese plane that was falling apart and did not see Capt. Benbow again.
At the debriefing back on Iwo, Capt. Lawrence figured he had shot down the plane. He asked me if I wanted to make a statement. I told him I didn't want to because I had shot at the plane.
Two days later, in the evening, the Squadron Commander of another squadron, a Lt. Col., came in our quonset hut and wanted to know where Lt. Gardner was. I was on the other side of the hut, and he told me as he was walking across tome, "We have just completed three hours of analyzing your gun camera film, and we concluded you shot down that Japanese plane from 3000 yards at 90 degrees deflection. Congratulations on shooting it down." I said, "Thank you, but Bill got credit for that." The Colonel answered, "We checked his film, too. Congratulations on shooting it down."
Russell Hokanson
(Grandson of Major Ralph S. Gardner)
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