Serenade To The Big Bird

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:32 pm

One of my favorite books!! If you haven't read it do so!!

Bert Stiles (bottom 2nd from right) and his first crew lead by Sam Newton (botton left)
BTW Stiles was KIA while flying P-51D "Tar Heel" with the 339th FG. After downing a ME-109
in a near vertical dive he followed it into the ground because of either compressibility or target fixation :cry:

lmritger · **Posted:** Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:27 pm

Actually, Stiles had shot down the Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 301 in his Fw 190A-9 in his borrowed P-51D "Tar Heel", which formerly belonged to Jim Starnes (he got a new one)... it wasn't straight vertical, but might as well have been for all the good it did him. Target fixation seems the most likely culprit.

A friend of mine's cousin, Siegfried Baer, was shot down and killed in this same combat in Fw 190A-9 "white 2"... it was a sister ship to that flown by Stiles' opponent, whose name I have noted somewhere but not immediately to hand.

This is a great shot, Jack... "Serenade" is one of my top five "desert island" books, one of the best books I've ever read. Who knows what heights he might've reached in the literary world, had he survived the war...

Lynn

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:36 pm

I liken him to Joyce Kilmer :!:

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Serenade To The Big Bird

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