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At the time, the 354th Fighter Group was assigned to occupation duty. The truth is, Carr did take an Fw 190, but that was after the Second World War had ended in Europe and it wasn’t exactly his finest hour. Too bad none of it actually happened, despite all those articles and the famous video. Photo Credit: Jack Cook, 354th Fighter Group Association He executed a perfect belly landing with power at idle (note the propeller blades are bent backward, an indication of a power off landing). Recognizing Carr, he ordered the men to lower their rifles, stepped onto the grounded wing of the Focke Wulf, leaned into the cockpit, and said, “Carr, where in hell have you been?” View of the left side of the Focke Wulf Fw 190A as it was after his wheels up landing at Ansbach after the end of the war. George Bickell, walked up, did things calm down. Only when the 354th Fighter Group’s commander, Col.

Bewildered, he yelled, “F-off, I’m Captain Carr of this goddamned squadron” – but they couldn’t hear him. They were screaming and threatening to shoot him. He had made it, but then a dozen Americans ran up and, thinking he was German, pointed their rifles into his face. He couldn’t pitch up and orbit while he worked it out, so he bellied it in with the wheels still up. He reached to lower the landing gear, but when he moved the lever, nothing happened. The base’s air defense unit sprinted for their guns.Ĭarr chopped the throttle, pitched up to bleed off speed, then rolled to pull the nose back down toward the runway. Down below, the 354th Fighter Group was just waking up when they saw a German fighter plane coming in straight at them in what looked like a strafing attack. He stayed down at treetop level and about forty minutes later, spotted a familiar landmark, made a final course adjustment, and came to his airbase. He was 200 miles from his base in France, alone, in a German fighter plane, without a parachute, and likely to be intercepted by Allied planes up on their morning patrol. The flaps are set in the down position so that he could touch down with minimum airspeed and thus cause less damage to the plane as well as lower his own risk of injury.

Carr “borrowed” from a Luftwaffe airfield just after the end of the war. In minutes, the Luftwaffe base was far behind.Ī view of the right side of the Focke Wulf Fw 190A fighter plane that Lt. He pulled up on the gear handle and the wheels retracted as he flew away at treetop level. He pushed the throttle forward and the plane lifted off. As several Germans walked toward the plane, he gunned the throttle, careened out of the trees, pointed the nose between the two hangars, and just beyond found the airfield. He turned on what he thought was the master power switch, set the fuel selectors to the main tanks, and set the magnetos to what he thought was “both” and pulled up on the starter handle. It took the rest of the night studying the gauges to figure it out.Īs the sun rose, the first signs of German activity appeared on the field.

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With no checklist, he had no idea of how to start it either. The instruments were labeled in German and, worst of all, in the metric system – kilometers instead of miles, meters and not feet. Except for the stick, throttle, and rudder pedals, nothing about the plane was familiar. That night, he crept forward and slipped into the plane’s cockpit. This photograph shows him just prior to touching down in the grass. He had orbited for some time over the field, struggling to figure out how to lower the landing gear but ultimately, running low on fuel, he elected to belly the plane in. Carr while in flight in the Focke Wulf Fw 190A that he took from Austria. Just prior to touching down at Ansbach, the only photo taken of Lt.