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Werner Christie - Dive bombing with P-51 Mustangs.

Air time 9th of April 1940: 350 hours

Combat hours 1945: 243 offensive sweeps and 567 hours.

Squadron leader 332 2nd Jan 1944 - 17 June 1944 - later for 234 squadron.

Wing Commander Flying (150 Wing and Hunsdon Wing)

Distinguished Flying Cross.

 

"Blue two leader, two bandits below three o' clock 4000 feet". I'm looking down, but I don't spot anything, but the again, I am not between cloud covers over an airport south-east of Lübeck, and I'm not flying a Mustang. I haven't taken a half-roll, diving down on enemy aircraft either.

However, I have Werner Christie by my side, and he did all this in April of 1945 with a succesfull outcome, two Focke Wulf 190 shot down.

Now, many years later, he's with me to feel air under his wings again, maybe re-discover some of the forgotten, that of holding a stick and feel that special freedom in the air. Christie makes several shallow turns, and feels like a young man again. Werner did keep his flying in shape after the war, he was indeed the first Norwegian to fly the de Havilland Vampire (by the help of John Cunningham). He advanced to general in the air force, was head of NAK, and bought a sailplane with Wilhelm Mohr, Finn Andvik and others. He kept it until he turned 75.

There's been plenty of flying through the years.

Towards Hønefoss we see "Overfloden", the one that Lystad, Mjøen and Kirkvaag sailed up to find Professor Drøvel. I feel it's appropriate to be here, because the man beside me has huge amount of experience and wisdom, and he's found!

As boss of 150 Wing, and later Hunsdon Wing consisting of two, and sometimes three squadrons, he flew the P-51 Mustang. The natural question is obviously how it was to fly it compared to the Supermarine Spitfire.

"It was a much better aircraft, we have to remember it was developed later. Spitfire IX was a natural evolution, and was much heavier than it's predecessors, but yet with the old design. The Mustang was superior in many ways. It had a longer range of operation, all the way up to six hours of flying hours, and was also quicker".

"The tactics we used included diving down and then zoom up when we had all the advantages. We couldn't engage in dogfights with sharp turns, as we would loose all advantages. We could even do trips all the way to Berlin from England".

"Wasn't it hard to spot enemy aircraft below you?" I wonder.

"Yes, and so we developed a strategy were we had 12 Mustangs, six on the deck and six in greater altitude to keep an eye on each other. We always hit ground targets with high speeds, and it was difficoult to get into position in good time. Those of us high up could see what was going on below, and gave the men down below new vectors to targets. At the same time, it was easier for those below to spot aircraft up in the sky, so they could give us directions until we spotted them ourselves".

Werner took part in most things during the war. Sometimes even the weird things. In connection to dive bombing, 84th Group was given a task of testing new G-suits. They were meant to work against the G-forces at play during dives. Werner tells the story like this:

"We got those first new G-suits to try out. It was a double rubber pants sort of thing. On the chest, there was a pipe, and here one filled it up with 10-12 liters of water which then ran down both legs. And so, you basically swam to your aircraft with hips the size of Mae West's. As commonly known, half of all missions planned got scrubbed, and it took half an hour to pour all the water in. And so, we tried to best to wait with the filling until we were seated in our aircrafts. Hard working ground personel ran like crazy with buckets of water too hot, or too cold which they poured down the pipe once we were in the cockpit. The tests were after some time scrapped, and concluded as not very succesfull".

"Diving attacks got to be routine after a while, from 10. 000 feet we placed the target under our left wing, then half rolled over, and with full throttle we dived down before we released our bomb at the right time, usually 4000 feet, and then we pulled out of the dive. We lost consciousness for a few seconds time. If they thought those G-suits would prevent it, we were never really told".

We continue our flight in the Cessna Cardinal over Nordmarka. Soon, we're over Kobberhaug, entering in over Sørkedalen and Grini. On final 19, the landing gear is out, flaps too, and 80 on the clock. We're on a solid approach, landing and then taxiing in.

I ask him what episode he remembers most clearly during those five years of war, and he tells me:

"18th of April 1945. We were on a mission to Schleswig. Plenty of flak around us. I can't really say if I got hit or not, because I heard nothing, but I lost glycol and the engine got too warm. It then caught fire, and it was really surprising seeing the alluminum getting red-hot and catching fire. Then the flames started to get very close to my feet, and I could see flames licking the top of my hood, so it was time to get out. I was at 10.000 feet. All that training gave me some calm, and I knew exactly what to do. I put my legs on my seat, got the hood away, kicked myself off and I was free. Safely on the ground, I felt that my face was dried up, and I found out I had burned off both my eyebrows. It had been a lot of flames up there, but my eyebrows was the only damage I sustained. It was the Wings second to last operational sortie, and my stay in prison didn't last very long".

 

Please visit http://www.skywards-stoltun.com for more information, and ways to order his book about these fighter pilots (in Norwegian only). This text is an translated piece from his book "The Untouchables".

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