Word: dogfighter
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...bombers lurched frantically for the cover of their own antiaircraft. The Zeros piled into the Lightnings and both top covers swirled in a thundering dogfight. Down below, Lieut. Rex T. Barber whipped into a bomber, sawed off its tail with a burst of fire, knocked off a second as he pulled out of the attack...
Fighter pilots are said to be either old or bold, never both. In the Aleutians they are mostly bold. Often on their way home from missions they dogfight each other out of sheer exuberance. The officers don't try to stop them, agree they need the outlet...
Generals had learned, too. In the process, aircraft were sometimes badly used. Best example: the P-40, which was sent out in the early days, sometimes by necessity but sometimes with less excuse, to dogfight nimbler Zeros at high altitudes where the P-4O was second best. Another: Bell's P39 fighter, which the Russians proved was best used as a ground strafer...
...good correspondent goes overside with the troops, crawls up the ridge to the command post, cajoles himself into the bomber, bums a ride in the General's jeep. The photographer is there with his tripod, his fast-action film; he is there with a cloud filter for the dogfight in the stratosphere; there with a flash bulb in the bloody alley where the body lies...
...dogfight the Japs. You cannot do it with the planes you've got," said Buzz Wagner. But one day in May, when Wagner himself went along to initiate one of his green squadrons, some stragglers tried to dogfight Zeros with P-39s. Four of them were shot down. Four Japs were also shot down, three of them by Buzz Wagner, who knew better than to dogfight except when he had to. Buzz was bucking orders that day-a Jap bullet had splintered windshield glass into his left eye in the Philippines-but the chance to kill more Japs...