Bob Hoover is a pilots pilot. he is famous for his one wheel landings that he preforms at airshows. it was a coin toss as to whether it was going to be him or yeager who flew the x-1. this is a long ( even after i editted ) but worth reading...
"Jimmy Doolittle was my idol," he said. "I wanted to be just like him."
At 15, Hoover began taking flying lessons. Each Sunday, he pocketed the two dollars he'd earned for 16 hours of sacking groceries and showed up at the airport for a 15-minute lesson in a Piper Cub. After almost a year, he finally had the eight hours needed to qualify for solo flight. But he had a problem.
"I was nauseated every time I got airborne," he said.
When Hoover did finally fly solo, he was pleasantly surprised to find that without his instructor, the plane flew better and he didn't get as sick. "Every time I found I could handle one maneuver, I went on to the next one, until I conquered the airsickness," he said. "I did all sorts of aerobatics with airplanes that weren't designed for it. I didn't know any better, but I managed to do it without hurting them."
He found out quickly that he loved to perform various routines, and was soon practicing harder maneuvers, like Cuban 8s, Immelmanns and hesitation rolls.
Hoover graduated from high school in 1940. On his eighteenth birthday, he joined the Tennessee Air National Guard. He was a tail-gunner trainee in the 105th Observation Squadron.
"I wasn't eligible to go to the Air Corps flying school, because I hadn't turned 21 and didn't have the requisite two years of college," he explained.
Still, some of the officers let him fly the dual-control Douglas O-38s, and he continued to buy flying time with the few dollars he earned in the Guard. In the meantime, World War II had begun. Although the United States hadn't officially entered the conflict, the Tennessee National Guard lived up to the state's reputation as the "Volunteer State," and after requesting the privilege, went on active duty in September 1940. Hoover's squadron was soon transferred to Columbia, S.C., where it was meshed into the Army Air Corps.
A change in regulations appeared to be the answer to Hoover's dream of flying in combat and, ultimately, becoming an ace.
"They lowered the age to become a pilot from 21 to 18," he said. "The squadron's commanding officer gave me an opportunity to become a second lieutenant and a pilot in the Air Guard. However, I found out that if I went through his routine to become a military pilot, I would have an 'S' in my wings, which would mean 'service' pilot, not combat."
"I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the worst way," he said.
Shorter pilots were likely to go to fighter training and taller ones to bombers and transports. At six feet, two inches, Hoover definitely had a problem, as did a short friend, who wanted to go to transports but had been given a fighter assignment. The two developed a plan and visited a sergeant in the personnel office.
"I slipped a 20-dollar bill to him and said, 'He wants transports and I want fighters. Just switch those names, and everybody will be happy.' That's how I became a fighter pilot," Hoover said.
Hoover reported to the 20th Fighter Group, stationed at Drew Field, Tampa, Fla. After training in the single-engine AT-6 trainer, he advanced to the P-40 and the P-39 Airacobra. He was soon putting the "Widow Maker" through a series of loops, rolls and spins.
When Hoover was transferred to the European theater, although he was just a sergeant, he was placed in charge of 67 pilots, both officers and enlisted men. He arrived in England in December 1942. His unit was sent to Atcham airfield, near the small town of Stone, north of London. There, they flew British Spitfires.
In a ceremony in December 1942, Hoover and the other enlisted pilots, who hadn't received officer commissions, were designated flight officers, a rank equivalent to an Army warrant officer.
Africa
Two months after the Allies' November 1942 invasion of North Africa, Hoover's outfit was transferred there. He thought he was finally going to combat, and wasn't happy when he found they were headed to a supply depot in Mediouna, assigned to a replacement pilots' pool.
A few days after their arrival, the commanding officer, Col. John Stevenson, announced that a French major would be delivering and demonstrating a brand-new Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Although he had never flown the single-seater, twin-engine, twin-boom fighter before, Hoover had more twin-engine time than anyone else, and was told to put the plane through maneuvers after the initial display. Determined to outperform the major, Hoover put the Lightning through a series of low-altitude aerobatics.
"I was shutting down one engine and rolling into it, which is a no-no," he said. "Then I started up again, and shut the other one down and rolled in that direction. Then I started to do things with just one engine. When I landed, the colonel reprimanded me in front of everybody. He said, 'Young man, I want to see you in my office, immediately.' I thought, 'He's going to ground me.' When I knocked on the door, he yelled, 'Come in,' and by the time I got through the door, he was out of his seat and had his hand stuck out. He said, 'Young man, I've never seen anything like that in my life! I have 300 hours in that airplane; I'd kill myself if I tried to do that!"
He officially grounded Hoover from that airplane. But at places including Oran and Oujda, Morocco, he became familiar with the new P-40 and the P-39, and tested Spitfires and Hurricanes. Although he was unhappy with his assignment, he later regarded it as a great learning experience.
"Flying so many airplanes gave me invaluable abilities," he said. "I had every kind of emergency you could think of, and I learned to be quick in my thinking."
He also became skilled at test-firing weapons, perfecting his talent until he could hit targets upside down and do four perfect consecutive round loops, accurately firing at targets at the bottom of each loop. During testing, Hoover had a couple of narrow escapes, but his most serious incident up to that point occurred in the Vultee Vengeance A-3 1, a light attack bomber. During a routine test flight, torching occurred; fire spewed out around the cowling next to the exhaust stacks each time the landing gear was lowered and the throttle was reduced to idle.
As Hoover tried to land, an explosion blew out the bomb-bay doors. The plane was completely engulfed in flames. Hoover told his mechanic to jump, but when he did, his parachute harness caught on the stowed .30-caliber machine-gun mount in the rear cockpit.
Hoover rolled the plane and shook the sergeant loose, but by that time, Hoover was too low to parachute. He added full power and rolled the plane from its inverted position, extinguishing the fire. Then he climbed to 10,000 feet, shut off the fuel supply and dead-sticked back toward the field. On final approach, the aircraft burst into flames. Hoover set it down, jumped out and ran.
The Distinguished Flying Cross
While training in Florida, Hoover had become good friends with Tom Watts, another P-39 pilot, who was from Globe, Ariz. By early 1943, Watts was with the 52nd Fighter Group, in Palermo, Sicily. Hoover hoped to get his chance to join the group when he met Major Marvin McNickle, on his way to taking over the 52nd FG, and shared his disappointment at not being in combat. McNickle said that if Hoover could get a transfer, he'd back up his request.
But Hoover was ordered to report to the 12th Air Corps headquarters in Algiers, which was organizing a ferry command. Their commander, Colonel Eppwright, had requested Hoover for his operations officer. Hoover was disappointed to find that he would be checking out pilots in airplanes and later, leading them in a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber to airstrips on the fighting front. He would also be bringing pilots back to Algiers to pick up planes that would replace those lost in combat.
After piloting a B-25 bomber to lead six P-40 fighters to Licata, following the invasion of Sicily, Hoover complained to a two-star general, Joe Cannon.
"I told him I'd just led these airplanes from Africa and about everything else I'd done," Hoover recalled. "I said, 'All I ever wanted was combat. I have enough time now to go home, but I don't want to go home. I came here to fight!'"
Hoover also told him about McNickle's invitation to join his group, if he could get a transfer. Cannon said he'd try to help. Hoover later discovered that Eppwright had stalled an order for his transfer.
"He told me I'd probably be shot down, and that he was just trying to save my life," Hoover remembered. "He said that if I stuck with him, I'd be quickly promoted, and before the war was over, I'd have any assignment I wanted."
Finally, Eppwright told Hoover he could leave, after he checked someone out in the B-25 to take over his responsibilities. The next day, he received copies of his transfer orders. Not wanting to give Eppwright a chance to reconsider, Hoover headed for Boco de Falco Air Base at Palermo for the B-25 check ride.
"Palermo had just fallen into our hands," Hoover recalled. "I put my footlocker in the back end of that B-25, and I got in the pilot seat. These fellas said, 'Where are we going?' I said, 'Palermo.' When we got to Palermo, I took my footlocker out and said, 'Fellas, you're checked out. So long!'"
4th Fighter Squadron, 52nd Fighter Group
Hoover joined the 52nd Fighter Group in September 1943. Assigned to the 4th Fighter Squadron, his initial duties involved escorting Allied ship convoys carrying supplies. The newly designated combat pilot was disappointed that those excursions never resulted in dogfights with the enemy.
But Hoover became a hero when the squadron was offered a shot-up B-26 Martin Marauder, if someone could retrieve the plane from a short stretch of beach in the Straits of Messina. No one felt they could get the plane airborne, because it was in a narrow, obstructed area.
The challenge intrigued Hoover. He and a mechanic flew an L-4 reconnaissance plane to look at the bomber, which they found on a 1,000-foot crescent-shaped stretch of sand that had a 12-foot drop-off to the water at one end.
Hoover had studied manuals describing the plane's capabilities and knew they would need to lighten the aircraft. Two days later, the mechanic and a crew of 10 men began removing the copilot's seat, most of the instruments and everything else that wasn't essential to fly the plane.
The recovery effort took more than a month. On takeoff, Hoover had less than 100 gallons of fuel. With about four feet of clearance on each side of 600 feet of steel matting now covering the sandy beach, and a 300-foot extension of chicken wire beyond that, he was able to lift the nose of the B-26 and head toward Palermo. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his effort.
When orders came for the 52nd to relocate to Corsica, Hoover was told to fly an Italian Fiat to the new base. The vintage World War I aircraft had been discovered behind a damaged hangar, and Hoover and some of the base mechanics had restored the single-seat, high-wing monoplane. Traveling to Corsica in the aircraft was tricky, since he had only a float compass and no navigational aids. But he finally saw the southern tip of Sardinia.
"The Italian Air Force had surrendered, but these people didn't have anybody to surrender to," he recalled. "I landed, and they said, 'We surrender.' I said, 'I can't accept this. I have to be up in Corsica; all I'm asking for is some fuel and something to eat.'"
As Hoover neared the edge of the island, a flight of P-38s thought he was an enemy plane.
"They were going so fast, they couldn't slow down to shoot at me," he said. "I wagged the wings and pointed to the American insignia on the side of the airplane."
It won't happen to me
On Jan. 24, 1944, Hoover's twenty-second birthday, he lost his roommate and best friend. After being shot down near the coast of Calvi, Corsica, Tom Watts had successfully bailed out of his Spitfire. But high winds dragged his parachute into a reef of rocks offshore, and he drowned. It wasn't the first fatality for his band of men, but it hit Hoover the hardest.
A little over two weeks later, on Feb. 9, 1944, Hoover, who had been promoted to flight leader, took off from Calvi. He was heading a four-plane-formation of Spitfires on a mission to patrol the waters off the Italian and French coasts, between Cannes and Genoa.
Hoover was flying Black 3, a Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Vc, on a harassment mission to search and destroy enemy ships and trains. After Hoover and his fellow pilots had successfully destroyed a German freighter in the harbor near Savona, Italy, they flew back to base to refuel and then returned to patrol.
When Hoover caught sight of four German Focke-Wulf 190s, he called out their position. One of the FW-190s was on the tail of James "Monty" Montgomery, a friend who had been shot down a few months earlier and had spent three days in a life raft before being rescued. Hoover frantically called for Montgomery to break left to avoid gunfire. He knew he would need all the speed he could get, so he had to get rid of his aircraft's external fuel tank.
"That's high drag," he said. "It really slows the airplane down. I had only 1,100 horsepower and was capable of doing only 215 mph. The airplanes I had engaged had capability of 350 mph. It's like racing a Model T Ford with a Cadillac."
But when Hoover pulled the handle that would release the external fuel tank, the handle came off in his hand. With the Spitfire's superior turning ability now his only defense, he headed straight for a German fighter. He spat out a burst of .50 caliber gunfire and then saw billows of smoke streaming through the sky.
He had his first kill of the war, but had no time to celebrate. Montgomery had been hit, and Hoover watched his aircraft burst into flames. Now, two FW-190s were after Hoover. As he dove left, he noticed that his two friends had veered off and left him to fend for himself.
Not being able to release the external fuel tank seemed unlucky at the time, but now it made Hoover's Spitfire so slow that the F-190s overshot him. When two more enemy aircraft turned in toward him, Hoover fired and hit one of the FW-190s. Just when he thought he might escape, shells hit his engine cowling from underneath. An enemy fighter had hit him with a high-angle deflection shot.
"I saw this airplane, 90 degrees out here, and I just ignored it," Hoover recalled. "How could you ever get an angle shot like that?"
Hoover felt severe pain shoot through his lower body as another FW-190 closed in on him. The enemy pilot must've thought Hoover had no firepower, because he swooped under Hoover and pulled up in front of his nose. Hoover shot a burst of gunfire, but seconds later, the Spitfire's engine exploded, and a ball of flames engulfed the aircraft's nose.
"I called and told the British patroller, 'I'm going down at sea, so alert the Dumbos (Walrus amphibian rescue planes) to start flying,'" he recalled.
He opened the cockpit, released his shoulder and seat straps, rolled the plane and pulled his parachute's ripcord. The parachute didn't open until three or four hundred feet above the water. His life vest, riddled with shrapnel, wouldn't inflate, and when he hit the cold water, he felt immense pain in his lower body.
As he floated in the icy water, about 20 miles off the coast of Nice, France, he saw four Spitfires approach. When a group of FW-190s swooped down on them, one Spitfire was shot down and the others turned away. After four hours in the water, Hoover was picked up by a German corvette.
Prisoner of war
At Nice, France, German guards took Hoover to a local jail. Even though he was searched, he wasn't given medical attention for his shrapnel wounds.
"Fragments of metal got into the backs of my legs and my private parts," he said. "It wasn't anything at that time; they were just flesh wounds."
Hoover was transported to the Continental Hotel in Cannes, headquarters for German officers. There, to all questions, Hoover answered as he'd been taught: "Robert A. Hoover, flight officer, 20443029." After days of lengthy, futile interrogation, he was transported to the southern coast of France, near Marseilles. There, he made his first of several escape attempts. When he was caught, he was confined to a dark basement cell.
He was then herded into a train compartment, and was soon heading north, toward Switzerland. Near the border, Hoover slipped out a small bathroom window and made his way along the tracks. He heard gunshots, and guards soon surrounded him.
When they arrived at the German Luftwaffe interrogation headquarters at Oberursel, north of Frankfurt, Hoover was put in solitary confinement. Over the next week, he would be questioned several times, but was still obstinate. One day, as he stood before a bullet-riddled cement wall, a frustrated German captain addressed him.
"You still have a chance," the captain said, and Hoover responded, "Robert A. Hoover, flight officer, 20443029."
"When they stood me against the wall, I thought, 'Well, it won't hurt for very long,'" he recalled.
As Hoover waited for the end, the captain said something to the Germans, who dropped their guns. Once back inside, the captain addressed him again, asking why he continued to be stubborn, since they already had information on him and knowledge of his aircraft from gun camera film. After repeatedly giving his name, rank and serial number, Hoover was returned to his cell. The Germans eventually did learn additional information about him, and Hoover was furious to know someone wasn't able to hold his tongue.
Hoover became even more determined to escape. After one attempt, he was kicked repeatedly, resulting in head and facial injuries that left permanent scars. The Germans still hadn't offered to treat his other injuries, which were now infected. Finally, an interrogator told him to drop his trousers. His swollen testicles and red, inflamed groin led the interrogator to believe Hoover had syphilis.
"I thought, 'Maybe I do!' I'd been having a lot of fun," Hoover chuckled. "But it was actually blood poisoning. They didn't treat me until I got to the main prison camp."
The next day, Hoover and other POWs were stuffed into a boxcar in the marshaling yards near Frankfurt.
"The British were bombing the marshaling yards," he said. "One of the British POWs had been the lead navigator on some night flights a few weeks before. He said, 'I say, old chaps, it looks like we've had it. We're the target.' Everybody was praying; bombs were bursting all over the place. The guards went to the air raid shelters and left us there to die."
Although those in his boxcar were unhurt, one car exploded, killing everyone inside. The prisoners finally arrived at Stalag Luft 1 in Barth. Double 10-foot barbed-wire fences surrounded individual compounds, while a similar fence enclosed the entire camp. POWs were aware that if they crossed a "warning wire," they would be shot. Searchlights, mounted on the guard towers, illuminated the entire area.
An obsessive pursuit of freedom
Guards boasted that no one had ever escaped from Stalag 1, but Hoover and many fellow "Kriegies" continued their "obsessive pursuit of freedom." He tried to escape at least 25 times, and as a result, spent a lot of time in solitary confinement.
Sometimes, while in confinement, Hoover talked through the walls to other prisoners. One was Col. Russ Spicer, who became an inspiration to his fellow POWs. Within earshot of German officers, he had given a bold speech about Nazi atrocities and reminded the prisoners not to get friendly with their captors.
"Russ was my hero," Hoover said.
In early spring 1945, Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower believed the war was almost over. He issued orders to POWs.
"He told the soldiers that were going out on missions to pass the word: POWs were not to escape after a certain date," Hoover recalled.
By that time, 10,000 prisoners were held at Stalag I. It was a significant increase over the 1,200 who were there when he arrived. Despite Eisenhower's directive, Hoover and others still devised ways to escape.
"I had been on an escape committee," Hoover explained. "We'd been trying for so long. We were dedicated, digging tunnels and running at the fence. I once got caught hanging on the barbed wire, with dogs nipping at my feet. I really was scared, but I'd been working so hard at it, and I wasn't about to quit."
In April 1945, the Russians were getting closer, and German guards started deserting. Hoover had been a POW for more than 15 months. His partners in his latest escape scheme were Jerry Ennis, from the 52nd Fighter Group, and a Canadian airman named George.
"We found a board underneath one of the buildings," Hoover said. "A bunch of people who had worked on the escape committee created a diversion. They started a fight on one side of the compound, so the guards were all looking over there. We ran out with this plank, put it up over the top of the fence and climbed out."
The prison camp was located on a peninsula that jutted into the Baltic Sea. The three escapees went through the woods and gathered wood and grapevines for a raft.
"Jerry was on the raft," Hoover recalled. "He held our clothes while we were in that cold water, pushing this thing across. We had to go about 2,000 feet, before we could get to the other side of the little inlet. When we got over there, the Canadian thought he'd be better off by himself."
Hoover and Ennis spent the night at a deserted German farmhouse, under hay in the barn. The next morning, they stole bicycles from a small village.
"We kept heading west and landed in the middle of the Russian lines," Hoover said. "They were still fighting the Germans. It was a slaughter."
As Allies, Hoover and Ennis spent the night with a group of Russian soldiers. Ennis spoke fluent French and was able to communicate with some French-speaking Russians. The next day, another group of drunk, friendly Russian soldiers stopped them at a nearby village and invited them to a local church. Later, at another German village, a distraught elderly woman with a bloody cloth wrapped around her hand asked Hoover and Ennis if they were Americans.
"The Russians had cut off her finger to get her wedding ring," Hoover recalled.
The woman led them to an area where they found many victims whose throats had been slit, then another spot where hundreds more had suffered the same fate.
"The Russians showed no mercy," Hoover said.
While Hoover and Ennis traveled, they avoided revealing that they had been POWs.
"The Russians believed if you were captured, you were a collaborator," Hoover said. "We knew the Russian philosophy by then, so if they asked what had happened to us, I would say, 'We were shot down over Berlin, and we've been evading ever since.'"
The two men eventually ended up in a walled compound of farmhouses, where more than 50 people were staying. Most were French, who had been forced into labor camps when France fell to Germany and were now trying to flee the Russians.
"These people were all trying to get back home," he said. "Since Jerry could speak French, they opened their arms to us."
That night, as Ennis and Hoover slept in a hayloft, a tank broke through the wall of the compound.
We could hear them speaking Russian," Hoover remembered. "They were looking for people and anything they could take. They came into the barn, and I heard somebody scream. They were poking the hay with a pitchfork. When they finally came near us, we stood up and held up our hands. Jerry started speaking in French. Eventually, we found somebody who understood a little bit. We said we were Allies and had been evading, and we were trying to get back to our lines. They killed almost everybody else."
Up, up and away?
When Hoover and Ennis left that area, they came across an abandoned Luftwaffe air base, just inside Germany's border. The base was deserted, except for a few ground crew. As the men looked for an aircraft that might be flyable, they were surprised to be totally ignored. They discovered at least 25 Focke-Wulf 190s, but none were airworthy.
"They were all shot up," Hoover said. "I finally came to one that had a lot of holes in it, but not in any of the vital organs."
Although he had never flown a Focke-Wulf 190, Hoover had learned about the aircraft from a fellow POW, Gus Lundquist, who had gone to England to evaluate captured German airplanes.
"He talked one of the lead generals into letting him fly a mission, and was shot down," Hoover said. "One day, I told him that I wanted to go to Wright Field after I got out, and he said, 'I'm from Wright Field!' When we'd have an opportunity, he'd sketch in the dirt where everything was."
The men made plans to use the plane, but Ennis had decided not to fly out with Hoover.
"He never wanted to fly again," Hoover said.
When a mechanic noticed the men, Hoover motioned him closer with a gun he'd acquired during their travels. They discovered that the German could speak French.
"Jerry told him that if he didn't help me get airborne, he'd kill him," Hoover said. "I got in the cockpit and the German helped me get the engine going. The fuel gauge was full and the engine ran up nicely."
Realizing that the Germans could shoot at him as he took off, Hoover closed the canopy, opened the throttle full power and went across the grass field to the runway.
"I got airborne and pulled the gear up," he remembered. "The stupidity of what I was doing hit me. I thought, 'Here I am in a German airplane, without a parachute.'"
Since he was flying a plane with a swastika painted on the side, the Allies might take aim as well.
It was overcast at about 4,000 feet," he said. "I pulled up to the bottom of that overcast, so I wouldn't be a target."
Hoover headed north until he saw the North Sea.
"I didn't have any maps or charts," he said. "I knew that if I turned west and followed the shoreline, I would be safe when I saw windmills, because the Dutch hated the Germans."
He followed the coastline to the liberated Zuider Zee in Holland. When he saw windmill, he looked for somewhere to get fuel.
"I had passed over some airfields that appeared to be deserted, but I knew that deserted runways were often mined," he said.
He found a field and decided to land, but hit a ditch he hadn't spotted from the air.
"I ground-looped it and wiped the landing gear out," he said.
Hoover was disappointed.
"I wanted to get the plane back to England," he said.
As darkness approached, he remembered seeing a road past some trees.
"I thought if I walked to that road, maybe a military vehicle would come along," he said. "Just as I got ready to go into the trees, farmers with pitchforks came at me from all sides. They thought I was a German. They couldn't speak English, so I kept pointing towards the other side of the trees, and they took me there. I stopped an English truck. I said, 'I'm an American, but they think I'm a German!' This fella said, 'Get in here with us.'"
Hoover grins and says that later, everybody considered him a hero.
"People made it sound like a great escape, but the guards had deserted us," he said.
According to Hoover, in the two weeks before the Americans liberated the camp on April 30, 1945, about 200 POWs actually escaped.
"General Eisenhower was correct," he said. "We would've been safer to stay there. It was the dumbest thing I've ever done."
Hoover doesn't know of anyone else who flew an enemy plane out of Germany.
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