re: #337 Romantic Heretic

Couldn’t even handle the Japanese attack.

You do not fight Zekes at NOE in P-40s and live. Not done. Not no how, not no way. You will simply end up a flag on the Zeke pilot’s cockpit.

Actually, it did happen.

The roles the two male leads have in the attack sequence are analogous to the real historical deeds of U.S. Army Air Forces Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies in P-40 Warhawk aircraft during the Japanese attack and, together, claimed six Japanese aircraft and a few probables.

en.wikipedia.org

I remember reading about that when I was a kid - my dad, old US Navy man that he was, said that Welch and Taylor were “the luckiest sonsabitches” he’d ever heard of.