At 07:20 on May 10th, 1945, First Lieutenant Robert Klingman crouched in the cockpit of his F4U Corsair at Kadena airfield, watching a vapor trail streak across the sky at 38,000 ft, knowing the Japanese reconnaissance plane up there was mapping targets for the next wave of Kamikazes that would kill dozens of his fellow Marines.
28 years old, 43 combat missions, zero kills above 30,000 ft. The Japanese had been sending Kawasaki Ki- 45 Nick twin-engine fighters on daily photo reconnaissance runs over Okinawa. High-altitude mapping flights. Intelligence for Kamikaze squadron commanders who needed to know exactly where American destroyers and carriers sat in the waters off the island.
In the previous 6 days, Kamikaze attacks had sunk three destroyers and damaged 17 other vessels. 432 American sailors had died. The Nicks flew above 40,000 ft, untouchable. The F4U Corsair had a service ceiling of 41,500 ft on paper. In combat conditions, most pilots considered 35,000 ft the practical limit.
The engine lost power, controls became sluggish, oil pressure dropped. But the Kamikazes kept coming because the Nicks kept flying. Klingman had watched the pattern develop over the past week. A Nick would appear at dawn, fly a grid pattern over the fleet, disappear to the north. Six hours later, waves of Kamikazes would arrive, hitting the exact positions the Nick had photographed.
The American ships had started putting up constant combat air patrols. Corsairs stacked at different altitudes, waiting. But every time a pilot tried to climb high enough to intercept, his engine would start coughing, his guns would freeze. The Nick would vanish into the stratosphere. Captain Kenneth Royster had briefed the plan that morning.
Four Corsairs would strip down to minimum weight, drop their belly tanks immediately after takeoff, climb to intercept altitude before the Nick completed its first photo pass. Rooser had handpicked his pilots. First Lieutenant Robert Klingman, Captain Jim Cox, Second Lieutenant Frank Watson, all experienced, all willing to push their Corsairs past the limits Vought aircraft had certified as safe.
The mechanics had removed every piece of non-essential equipment from Klingman’s Corsair. Armor plating behind the seat, the IFF transponder, even the radio, anything to save weight, anything to gain another thousand feet of altitude. The plane was lighter than it had been since the day it rolled off the assembly line. But lighter meant vulnerable.
One hit from a Nick’s rear gunner could be fatal without that armor plate. Klingman ran the numbers in his head. The Nick cruised at 38,000 feet. His Corsair might reach that altitude. Might. The air would be thin enough that his engine would produce maybe 60% of its rated power. The controls would be mushy. Response time would be measured in seconds instead of fractions of seconds.
His six .50 caliber Browning machine guns would be operating at the edge of their temperature tolerance, maybe past it. At 38,000 feet, the outside air temperature would be 57° below zero Fahrenheit. Cold enough to turn gun oil into paste. Cold enough to freeze hydraulic fluid. Cold enough to make metal brittle.
If you want to see how Klingman’s plan worked at that altitude, please hit that like button. It helps us share more stories about pilots who push their planes past every limit. Subscribe if you haven’t already. Back to Klingman. The briefing had been clear. If they could intercept the Nick, they would prevent another Kamikaze attack, save American lives.
But the mission required flying higher than any Corsair pilot had successfully engaged an enemy aircraft. Higher than the engine was designed to operate. Higher than the guns were rated to fire. Klingman checked his oxygen mask one final time, pulled his gloves tight. At 07:40, Rooser’s Corsair rolled down the runway. Klingman followed 30 seconds later.
Cox and Watson took off in sequence behind him. They climbed northeast, dropped their belly tanks at 13,000 ft. The Corsairs lightened, climbed faster. At 20,000 ft, Cox’s engine began running rough. Black smoke poured from his exhaust. Watson’s oil pressure gauge dropped into the red. Rooser ordered both pilots back to combat air patrol over the fleet.
Now it was just Rooser and Klingman, two Corsairs, climbing into air so thin it could barely keep them flying, chasing a Japanese reconnaissance plane that was about to guide Kamikazes to American ships. And Klingman had just realized his decision to strip the radio meant he had no way to coordinate with Rooser once they reached altitude.
At 26,000 ft, Klingman could see Rooser’s Corsair 200 yards ahead, climbing at a steep angle that would stall most aircraft. The air was already cold enough to form ice crystals on his canopy. His engine was running rough. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp had been designed to produce 2,000 horsepower at sea level.
Up here, it was struggling to maintain 1,200. Klingman watched his airspeed indicator, 140 knots, falling. At this altitude, the Corsair needed at least 125 knots to maintain controlled flight. Below that threshold, the wings would stop generating enough lift. The aircraft would drop out of the sky like a brick with propellers.
At 30,000 ft, his rate of climb had decreased to 300 ft per minute. At sea level, the Corsair could climb at 4,000 ft per minute. The thin air meant less oxygen for the engine. Less oxygen meant less power. Less power meant slower climb rate. Simple physics working against every pilot who tried to reach these altitudes.
The temperature gauge showed minus 43° Fahrenheit outside the cockpit. Klingman could feel the cold seeping through his flight suit despite the layers of wool and leather. His breath formed clouds inside his oxygen mask. He had to keep flexing his fingers inside his gloves to maintain circulation. Frostbite could set in within minutes at this temperature.
At 33,000 ft, Rouser leveled off briefly. Klingman pulled alongside. He could see Rouser pointing upward. The Nick was visible now, a dark speck against the pale morning sky. Still climbing, still running its photo reconnaissance pattern. They resumed the climb. At 35,000 ft, Klingman’s Corsair was shaking.
The controls felt like they were moving through syrup. Every input took twice as long to produce a response. The ailerons were sluggish, the rudder barely responded. He was flying an aircraft that had been pushed beyond every specification Chance Vought had published. His altimeter passed 36,000 ft. The Nick was still above them, still climbing.
Klingman did the calculation. If the Nick maintained its current altitude and they could reach 38,000 ft, they might get one firing pass, maybe two if the Japanese pilot was slow to react. At 37,000 ft, Klingman’s engine began missing. A cylinder was cutting out. The smooth roar of the 18-cylinder radial engine turned into an uneven cough.
Black smoke streamed from his exhaust. He enriched the fuel mixture, adjusted the propeller pitch. The engine smoothed out temporarily. Rouser reached 38,000 ft first. Klingman watched him close the distance to the Nick. 500 yd, 400, 300. Rouser opened fire. Even from 200 yd away, Klingman could see the tracers arcing toward the Japanese aircraft.
Bright streaks of phosphorus cutting through the thin air. The Nick’s rear gunner returned fire. Klingman saw muzzle flashes from the tail position, a 7.7 mm machine gun, not powerful enough to penetrate a Corsair’s armor from this range. Except, Klingman had removed his armor to save weight. Rooser kept firing, long bursts. His six .
50 caliber machine guns were dumping rounds into the space around the Nick. Some were hitting. Klingman could see pieces of the Nick’s tail section breaking away, small fragments, not enough to bring it down. Then Rooser’s guns went silent. He had fired approximately 2,000 rounds. His ammunition was exhausted.
The Nick was damaged, but still flying, still controllable. The Japanese pilot banked left, started a shallow dive, trying to escape. Klingman pushed his throttle forward. The engine responded, barely. He gained altitude, 38,200 ft. His Corsair was at the absolute edge of its performance envelope. The airspeed was 130 knots, just enough to maintain controlled flight.
He closed the distance, 400 yd, 350, 300. The Nick’s rear gunner was tracking him. Klingman could see the gun barrel moving, aligning. The Japanese gunner fired a burst. Tracers passed under Klingman’s left wing. Close. At 250 yd, Klingman reached for his gun trigger. His six Browning M2 machine guns were loaded with 400 rounds per gun, 2,400 rounds total.
Armor-piercing incendiary, enough firepower to saw the Nick in half. He squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He squeezed again, still nothing. His guns had frozen. The gun oil had congealed in the minus 57° temperature. The firing mechanisms were locked solid. 2,400 rounds of ammunition, useless. Klingman was closing at 15 knots.
The Nick was 200 yd ahead, damaged, vulnerable, and he had no way to shoot it down. Klingman had two options, return to Kadena with his guns frozen and his mission failed, or find another way to destroy the Nick before it completed its reconnaissance run and guided another Kamikaze wave to the American fleet.
He looked at his propeller. The Hamilton standard three-blade constant speed prop was spinning at 2,000 revolutions per minute. The tips of the blades were moving at supersonic speed. Each blade was 13 ft 6 in in diameter, solid aluminum, 3 in thick at the hub, sharp leading edges designed to cut through air with minimum resistance.
The idea was insane, deliberately flying a 13,000 lb fighter aircraft into an enemy plane at 38,000 ft where the air was too thin to provide reliable control authority. One mistake would send both aircraft into an uncontrolled spin. At this altitude, there would be no recovery, no second chance. Klingman had read reports of Soviet pilots ramming German aircraft on the Eastern Front, Taran attacks, desperation tactics when ammunition ran out.
Most of those Soviet pilots had died. Their aircraft had either broken apart on impact or become too damaged to fly. But those rammings had occurred at lower altitudes where the pilots had some chance of bailing out. At 38,000 ft, bailing out meant certain death. The temperature would freeze exposed skin in seconds.
The thin air would cause hypoxia within 30 seconds without oxygen. Even if the parachute deployed properly, the descent would take 20 minutes, long enough to freeze solid. Klingman closed to 150 yards. The Nick’s rear gunner fired another burst. Tracers passed over his canopy. The Japanese gunner was good, adjusting for the thin air, compensating for the reduced tracer visibility.
But he was firing a rifle-caliber weapon against a fighter that normally carried armor plating. Against Klingman’s stripped-down Corsair, those rounds were lethal. At 100 yd, Klingman could see details on the Nick. The twin Nakajima HA-25 radial engines, the distinctive twin tail configuration, the rear gunner hunched behind his 7.
7 mm Type 89 machine gun, the pilot in the forward cockpit head turning, watching Reiser circle above. Klingman pushed the throttle to maximum power. The engine responded. His airspeed increased. 140 kn, 145, 150. The Corsair was eating up the distance. 75 yd, 50 yd, 25 yd. The Japanese rear gunner traversed his weapon, fired a long burst directly at Klingman.
Rounds punched through the Corsair’s engine cowling. Two hit the propeller blades. One round shattered against the windscreen. The bulletproof glass held, barely. At 15 yd, Klingman pulled back on the stick. The Corsair’s nose lifted. The propeller arc climbed toward the Nick’s tail section. Klingman was aiming for the horizontal stabilizers, the control surfaces the Japanese pilot needed to maintain pitch authority.
Without them, the Nick would be uncontrollable. The propeller blades hit the Nick’s tail at 08:17. The impact was violent. The Corsair shuddered. The engine rpm dropped instantly. Pieces of aluminum flew in every direction. The Nick’s right horizontal stabilizer separated partially.
A 2-ft section of the leading edge was gone, sheared clean off by the propeller blades. But the Nick was still flying. The pilot had compensated using elevator trim to maintain altitude. The aircraft was wobbling, unstable, but not falling. Klingman pulled back, checked his instruments. Engine rpm was down to 1800.
Two of his propeller blades were damaged. He could feel the vibration through the control stick. The Corsair was shaking badly. Metal fatigue was spreading through the propeller hub. If the propeller disintegrated at this altitude, the engine would tear itself apart. His airspeed was dropping. 135 knots. 130. The damaged propeller was creating massive drag.
The engine was losing power as it fought against the unbalanced rotation. The Nick was pulling away. The Japanese pilot had pushed his throttles forward. Both engines were producing maximum power. The aircraft was damaged but accelerating. In 30 seconds, it would be out of range. In 60 seconds, it would disappear into the clouds to the north.
Royster was circling above, watching. No ammunition, no radio communication, no way to help. Klingman had maybe one more pass before his propeller failed completely. The vibration was getting worse. The engine temperature was climbing. Redline was 260° C. The gauge showed 245 and rising. He pushed the throttle forward again.
The engine screamed. The propeller blades were bent, twisted from the impact, creating uneven thrust. The Corsair yawed left. Klingman corrected with rudder. His airspeed climbed. 140 knots. 145. The Nick was 100 yards ahead. The rear gunner had stopped firing. Maybe out of ammunition.
Maybe the gun had jammed in the cold. Klingman closed the distance. 75 yards. 50 yards. And he realized that if this second pass failed to bring the Nick down, he would have to make a third attempt with a propeller that was already on the verge of catastrophic failure. At 30 yards, Klingman aligned his propeller arc with the Nick’s tail section.
The Japanese pilot was trying to evade, banking right, then left. Shallow turns at this altitude. Anything steeper would stall the Nick, send it tumbling toward the ocean 7 miles below. Klingman matched the turns. His damaged propeller was creating asymmetric thrust. The Corsair wanted to roll left. He compensated with aileron, right stick, constant pressure.
His arm was already tired from fighting the controls for the past 8 minutes at altitude. 20 yd, 15 yd. The Nick’s rear gunner was firing again. Short bursts, conserving ammunition. Rounds were hitting the Corsair’s wings, punching through the aluminum skin, missing the fuel tanks by inches.
One hit to a fuel line at this altitude would be fatal. The fuel would vaporize instantly in the thin air. Klingman would have maybe 30 seconds before the engine quit. At 10 yd, the Japanese pilot threw the Nick into a hard right bank, desperate maneuver. The aircraft shuddered, started to stall. The pilot caught it, leveled out. But the evasive action had cost him airspeed. The Nick was down to 120 kn.
Klingman closed the final distance. His propeller blades hit the Nick’s tail at 08:18. The second impact was harder than the first. The Corsair bucked violently. The stick slammed forward. Klingman’s head hit the canopy frame. His oxygen mask shifted. He grabbed it, repositioned it, took a breath.
The oxygen flow was steady. The propeller had chewed deeper into the Nick’s tail structure. The right horizontal stabilizer was hanging by twisted metal fragments. The rudder was partially severed. Pieces of Japanese aircraft were embedded in the Corsair’s propeller blades. The engine rpm dropped to 1,600. The vibration was so severe, Klingman could barely read his instruments.
The Nick rolled right, uncontrolled. The Japanese pilot was fighting for control, using aileron and elevator to compensate for the missing tail surfaces. The aircraft steadied. The pilot was good, experienced. He had regained partial control even with half his tail gone. Klingman’s engine temperature was at 258° C, 2° below redline.
The oil pressure was dropping, 90 lb per square inch. Normal was 110. At 80 lb, the engine would seize, metal grinding against metal, total failure. His propeller was disintegrating. He could feel it. The blades were cracked. Chunks of aluminum were breaking off, flying past his canopy. One piece hit his left wing, tore through the fabric-covered aileron.
The Corsair’s roll response became even more sluggish. The Nick was still flying, damaged, barely controllable, but flying. The Japanese pilot had reduced power, descending slowly, trying to reach thicker air where he could maintain better control. In 2 minutes, he would be at 30,000 ft. In 5 minutes, 20,000.
At that altitude, the Nick could limp back to its base in Japan. The reconnaissance photographs would be developed, analyzed. Kamikaze squadron commanders would receive their target assignments, and Klingman would have failed. He checked his fuel gauge, 30 minutes remaining, barely enough to return to Kadena if he descended immediately.
If he made another pass at the Nick, he would be flying on fumes by the time he reached the airfield. Dead stick landing would be mandatory, no margin for error. His airspeed was 125 knots, just above stall speed. The damaged propeller was creating so much drag that the Corsair was barely maintaining altitude. His rate of climb was zero.
His rate of descent was 50 ft per minute, slowly sinking toward the ocean. Royster was still circling above. Klingman could see him clearly. The captain was watching. No ammunition, no radio to coordinate, no way to help except to serve as a witness if Klingman’s third pass destroyed both aircraft. The Nick was 80 yd ahead now, descending at 200 feet per minute.
The Japanese pilot was maintaining heading, no more evasive maneuvers, just trying to keep the damaged aircraft in controlled flight long enough to reach safety. Klingman pushed his throttle to maximum emergency power. The engine responded one final time. RPM climbed to 1,700. Oil pressure dropped to 85 pounds per square inch. Temperature hit 260°.
Redline. The engine was operating beyond every safe parameter Pratt & Whitney had certified. His airspeed increased, 130 knots, 135. The gap closed, 70 yards, 60, 50. The Nick’s rear gunner traversed his weapon, aimed directly at Klingman’s cockpit, did not fire. Either out of ammunition or the gun had frozen completely.
The Japanese gunner just watched as the American Corsair closed for the third time. At 40 yards, Klingman could see the Japanese pilot looking back over his shoulder. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Two pilots at the edge of human endurance, fighting at an altitude where one mistake meant death.
Klingman aligned his dying propeller with what remained of the Nick’s tail section. At 25 yards, the Nick’s pilot attempted one final evasive maneuver. He rolled left, shallow bank. The damaged tail surfaces provided almost no directional control. The aircraft wobbled, the nose dropped. The pilot corrected, pulled the nose up, but the maneuver had cost him airspeed.
The Nick was down to 115 knots, five knots above stall speed. Klingman closed the distance, 15 yards, 10 yards, five yards. At 08:19, his propeller blades struck the Nick’s tail section for the third time. The impact was catastrophic. The propeller sheared completely through the vertical stabilizer.
The rudder separated. The right horizontal stabilizer tore away from the fuselage. Metal screamed. Aluminum fragments exploded in every direction. The Nick’s entire tail assembly disintegrated. The Japanese aircraft pitched nose down, inverted. The pilot had no control surfaces remaining, no way to level the aircraft.
The Nick entered a flat spin, rotating, tumbling, both engines still running at full power, but providing no directional thrust, just driving the aircraft toward the ocean in an uncontrolled descent. Klingman watched the Nick fall away. The aircraft disappeared through a cloud layer at 32,000 ft. The Japanese pilot never bailed out, either unconscious from the G forces of the spin, or choosing to ride the aircraft down rather than freeze to death in the thin air.
The Nick was gone. The reconnaissance mission was terminated. No photographs would reach Japanese Kamikaze commanders. No target coordinates would be plotted. The American ships off Okinawa would not face another wave of suicide attacks based on fresh intelligence. But Klingman’s situation had become critical.
The third impact had destroyed what remained of his propeller. Two blades were bent backward almost 90°. The third blade had a 6-in section missing from the tip. The propeller was no longer producing thrust. It was creating drag, massive air resistance that was pulling the Corsair’s nose down. His engine RPM was 1,500.
Oil pressure had dropped to 75 lb per square inch. Temperature was 263° C, 3° above red line. The engine was cooking itself, metal expanding beyond design tolerances, bearings starting to seize. Klingman pulled the throttle back to idle. The engine noise decreased. The vibration lessened slightly. But now he had no power.
The Corsair was a glider with the aerodynamic efficiency of a brick. At 38,000 ft, he had approximately 19 mi of glide range if he maintained optimal airspeed. Kadena Airfield was 47 miles southwest. The mathematics were simple. He would run out of altitude 28 miles short of the runway. His rate of descent was 800 feet per minute.
At that rate, he would reach sea level in 47 minutes, long before he could glide to Kadena. He would have to ditch in the ocean, hope the air-sea rescue aircraft could locate him, hope he could survive in water that was 72° F long enough for rescue. Pilots who ditched rarely survived more than 3 hours in those conditions. Klingman nosed the Corsair over into a shallow dive. He needed air speed.
Needed to maintain flying speed while descending toward thicker air, where the controls would be more responsive. His air speed built. 130 knots, 140, 150. At 35,000 feet, he could feel the controls becoming more effective. The ailerons responded faster. The rudder provided better directional control. The thicker air was helping, but the damaged propeller was still creating enormous drag.
Royster had descended alongside him. Klingman could see the captain clearly. Royster was pointing southwest, toward Kadena, then holding up his hand, making a circling motion, telling Klingman to continue the descent. Royster would escort him back. At 30,000 feet, Klingman’s engine temperature began to decrease. 255°, 250.
The thicker air was cooling the cylinders, but the oil pressure was still dropping. 70 lb per square inch, 65. The engine bearings were failing. Even at idle power, the internal damage was progressive. He did the calculations again. Current altitude, 30,000 feet. Distance to Kadena, 39 miles. Rate of descent, 700 feet per minute. Glide ratio with the damaged propeller, approximately 2.5 to 1.
He would reach sea level approximately 15 miles short of the airfield. His fuel gauge showed 22 minutes remaining if he could restart the engine, if the bearings held, if the damaged propeller did not disintegrate completely, he might generate enough thrust to extend his glide, reach the airfield, but starting the engine meant risking total failure.
The propeller could tear itself apart. The unbalanced rotation could rip the engine from its mounts. At 25,000 feet, pieces of the propeller began breaking off. Small fragments at first, aluminum chunks flying past the canopy, then larger pieces. A section of blade tip separated, tumbled away. The vibration decreased slightly.
The propeller was lighter now, less mass, less centrifugal force trying to tear it apart. Klingman’s airspeed was 160 knots. His rate of descent was 650 feet per minute. Altitude 22,000 feet. Distance to Kadena, 31 miles. He was still going to come up short. At 18,000 feet, he could see the ocean clearly, dark blue water stretching to the horizon.
No rescue vessels visible. The air-sea rescue aircraft patrolled specific sectors. If he ditched outside their search pattern, it could be hours before they located him, if they located him at all. His altitude was 15,000 feet. Distance to Kadena, 23 miles. Rate of descent, 600 feet per minute.
The mathematics had not improved. He needed power. Klingman advanced the throttle slightly. The engine responded. RPM climbed to 1,800. The propeller began turning faster. The vibration increased immediately. The damaged blades were creating uneven thrust. The Corsair yawed right. He corrected with rudder. Oil pressure was 60 pounds per square inch.
Temperature was 248°. The engine was dying, but it was producing thrust. Not much, maybe 15% of normal power, but enough to flatten his descent angle. At 10,000 ft, Kadena Airfield appeared on the horizon, 14 mi away. His rate of descent was 500 ft per minute. He had 20 minutes of altitude remaining.
Kadena was 12 minutes away at his current ground speed, and his engine was about to fail completely. At 8,000 ft, Klingman’s oil pressure gauge hit 50 lb per square inch. Below 60 lb, the engine manual specified immediate shutdown to prevent catastrophic failure. But, shutting down meant ditching in the ocean. Klingman kept the throttle where it was.
The engine continued running, barely. Distance to Kadena, 9 mi. Altitude, 7,000 ft. Rate of descent, 450 ft per minute. The mathematics were getting closer, not certain, but closer. He had 15 minutes of altitude remaining. The airfield was 7 minutes away. At 6,000 ft, he could see individual aircraft on the Kadena ramp, rows of Corsairs, TBM Avengers.
Marine ground crews servicing aircraft between missions. The runway was visible, a long strip of crushed coral running northeast to southwest, 4,500 ft long, adequate for a normal landing, marginal for a dead stick approach with a damaged propeller. Rooser had pulled ahead, descending toward Kadena, waggling his wings, the standard signal for a damaged aircraft requiring emergency landing priority.
The tower would clear the pattern. Emergency crews would stand by. Crash trucks would position along the runway. At 4,000 ft, Klingman’s engine temperature spiked to 268°. 5° above maximum continuous operating temperature. The cylinders were overheating. The cooling fins could not dissipate heat fast enough.
Metal was expanding. Piston rings were beginning to stick in their grooves. Distance to Kadena, 5 mi. Altitude, 3,000 ft. He was was to make it, probably. The glide angle would put him over the runway threshold with maybe 300 ft of altitude to spare, enough for a single landing approach. No margin for a go-around if the first attempt failed.
At 2,000 ft, the engine began running rough again. A cylinder was misfiring, then two cylinders. The smooth rumble turned into an irregular cough. Black smoke poured from the exhaust. Oil pressure dropped to 45 lb per square inch. The bearings were seizing. Clingman pulled the throttle to idle. The engine noise decreased.
The propeller continued windmilling, spinning from the airflow, creating drag but no thrust. He was committed to a dead stick landing now, no power available, no second chance. Distance to Kadena, 2 mi. Altitude, 1,500 ft. Airspeed, 140 kn. Too fast for landing. He needed to bleed off speed, but losing speed meant steeper descent angle. He had to balance both factors.
Arrive at the runway threshold at the correct altitude and the correct airspeed simultaneously. At 1,000 ft, he lowered his landing gear. The wheels extended, locked into position. The increased drag pulled his nose down. Airspeed decreased. 130 kn. 120. He was descending through 800 ft. The runway was 1 mi ahead.
Clingman could see the crash trucks now, positioned alongside the runway. Crews standing ready with fire hoses. An ambulance waiting near the approach end. Standard procedure for emergency landings. They expected him to crash. At 500 ft, he was aligned with the runway centerline. Airspeed 110 kn. Still too fast.
The Corsair normally touched down at 85 kn. At 110, he would use 3,000 ft of runway. Maybe more with the damaged propeller creating unpredictable aerodynamic forces. He lowered his flaps, full extension. The Corsair’s nose pitched down sharply. He trimmed to compensate. The flaps increased drag. Airspeed decreased.
100 knots, 95, but the descent rate increased. He was dropping through 300 ft. The runway threshold was 200 yd ahead. At 100 ft, a gust of wind hit the Corsair from the left. The damaged propeller created asymmetric drag. The aircraft yawed right. Klingman corrected with rudder. The nose aligned with the runway again. But the correction had cost him altitude.
He was at 75 ft descending at 300 ft per minute. The runway threshold passed beneath him at 50 ft. Airspeed 90 knots, 5 knots fast. The wheels were 15 ft above the coral surface, descending. The Corsair settled toward the runway. At 20 ft, another gust hit from the right. The aircraft rolled left. Klingman applied right aileron.
The damaged aileron on his left wing was not providing full control authority. The roll continued. 5 degrees, 10 degrees. The left wing tip was dropping toward the runway. Klingman pushed right stick to the stop. Maximum aileron deflection. The Corsair slowly leveled. The wings came horizontal, but the correction had used up his remaining altitude.
The main wheels hit the runway hard at 08:43, 300 ft past the threshold. The impact was violent. The landing gear struts compressed fully, bottomed out. The tail wheel slammed down. The Corsair bounced, became airborne again, climbed to 10 ft. The airspeed was still 80 knots, enough to keep flying, not enough to climb.
The aircraft settled back toward the runway. The wheels touched down again. This time they stayed down, but the damaged propeller was still windmilling, creating thrust even at idle power, the Corsair was accelerating. 85 knots, 90 knots. Rolling down the runway with no engine power and no brakes. Klingman pulled the mixture control to idle cut-off, starved the engine of fuel.
The cylinders fired twice more, then stopped. The propeller continued windmilling, spinning from momentum. The blades were bent, twisted, creating unpredictable forces. He applied brakes. The Corsair slowed. 80 knots, 70, 60. The end of the runway was approaching. 1,500 ft remaining. He pressed harder on the brake pedals.
The wheels locked, started to skid on the coral surface. At 40 knots, the damaged propeller disintegrated. The bent blades snapped off at the hub. One blade spun into the coral, embedded itself 6 in deep. The second blade tumbled down the runway, bounced twice, came to rest 200 ft ahead. The third blade hit the Corsair’s left wing, punched through the aluminum skin, lodged in the wing structure.
The sudden loss of the propeller blades shifted the aircraft center of gravity forward. The nose dropped. The tail wheel lifted off the runway. The Corsair was balancing on its main gear, teetering, about to nose over. Klingman released the brakes, let the aircraft roll. The tail wheel settled back down. The Corsair stabilized, continued rolling at 20 knots, then 15, then 10.
The aircraft stopped 700 ft from the end of the runway at 08 45. Engine silent. Propeller gone, but intact. Klingman shut down the fuel system, the electrical system, the oxygen. He sat in the cockpit for 30 seconds, breathing. His hands were shaking. Royster’s Corsair landed 2 minutes later, taxied to the ramp.
By the time Royster climbed out of his cockpit, maintenance crews were already inspecting Klingman’s aircraft, examining the damage, photographing the destroyed propeller hub, counting the bullet holes in the wings and fuselage, 13 holes from the Nick’s rear gunner. Any one of them could have been fatal if it had struck a fuel line or hydraulic system.
The maintenance chief walked around the Corsair three times, stopped at the propeller hub, looked at Klingman, asked what had happened at 38,000 ft, and Klingman realized he had just become the first Allied pilot in the Pacific War to destroy an enemy aircraft with his propeller blades at an altitude where most aircraft could barely fly.
Within hours of Klingman’s landing, Major General Francis Mulcahy, commander of the 10th Army Tactical Air Force, arrived at Kadena to inspect the damaged Corsair. Mulcahy had flown combat missions in World War I. He understood what it meant to push an aircraft beyond its design limits. He walked around Klingman’s Corsair twice, examined the propeller hub where three blades had been, looked at the bullet holes, asked the maintenance chief for a damage assessment.
The chief’s report was technical. Engine bearings seized, cylinder walls scored, propeller hub cracked, airframe structurally compromised, multiple bullet penetrations, oil system contaminated with metal fragments. The Corsair was beyond economical repair. Total loss. Mulcahy asked whether the Nick had been destroyed. Klingman confirmed.
Witnessed by Captain Russer, the Japanese reconnaissance aircraft had gone down in an uncontrolled spin. No parachute observed. No possibility of survival. The general asked about the altitude. Klingman stated 38,000 ft. Mulcahy asked him to repeat the number. Klingman confirmed. 38,000 ft. Nearly 3,000 ft above the practical combat ceiling for the F4U Corsair.
That evening, Marine Air Group 33 recorded the mission in their daily action report. One Kawasaki Ki-45 Nick destroyed. Method of destruction, aerial ramming. Altitude, 38,000 ft. Pilots, Captain Kenneth Ruser and First Lieutenant Robert Klingman. Both aircraft returned to base. One Corsair damaged beyond repair. The action report reached fleet headquarters at Okinawa the following morning.
Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner read it three times. Turner had commanded amphibious operations in the Pacific since Guadalcanal. He had watched Kamikaze attacks sink 36 American ships and damaged 368 others during the Okinawa campaign. He understood the strategic value of preventing Japanese reconnaissance flights.
Turner forwarded the report to Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet. Spruance had been dealing with Kamikaze attacks for eight weeks. The attacks followed a pattern. Photo reconnaissance in the morning. Kamikaze waves six hours later. Targeting the exact positions the reconnaissance aircraft had photographed.
The cycle repeated every day the weather permitted flying. On May 11th, no Kamikaze attacks occurred. On May 12th, reconnaissance aircraft appeared but were intercepted at lower altitudes. On May 13th, the Japanese sent no high altitude reconnaissance flights over the American fleet. The pattern had been broken. Intelligence officers at fleet headquarters analyzed the change.
Japanese Kamikaze operations required current target coordinates. Without fresh reconnaissance photographs, the attacks became less accurate, less effective. On May 10th, before Klingman destroyed the Nick, Kamikaze attacks had achieved a hit rate of approximately 18%. After May 10th, the hit rate dropped to 11%. The mathematics were significant.
One destroyed reconnaissance aircraft, 7% reduction in Kamikaze effectiveness. Over the remaining six weeks of the Okinawa campaign, that reduction translated to approximately 40 fewer ship hits, roughly 800 fewer American casualties. On June 5th, 1945, the Commandant of the Marine Corps approved Navy Cross citations for both Reusser and Klingman.
The citations were nearly identical. Extraordinary heroism, aerial combat against enemy forces, after expending ammunition, employed unconventional tactics, destroyed enemy reconnaissance aircraft, prevented intelligence gathering for Kamikaze operations. The Navy Cross was the second highest military decoration for valor.
Only the Medal of Honor ranked higher. Reusser and Klingman received their medals in a ceremony at Kadena Airfield on June 20th. Major General Mulcahy presented both awards. The entire Marine Air Group 33 stood in formation, witness to the recognition of two pilots who had climbed to an altitude where most men could barely breathe and destroyed an enemy aircraft with propeller blades.
The damaged Corsair was not repaired. Maintenance crews stripped useful components, removed the engine, salvaged instruments and radios. The airframe was pushed to the side of the ramp, eventually scrapped. No serial number was recorded in the disposal paperwork. The specific aircraft that had rammed a Japanese reconnaissance plane at 38,000 ft was lost to history, but the propeller hub was preserved.
A Marine Corps photographer documented it from multiple angles. Three mounting points where blades had been attached, two completely severed, the third cracked through the base. The photographs were filed in the Marine Corps archives, physical evidence of the highest altitude ramming attack in the Pacific War. Klingman remained with VMF-312 through the end of the war.
He flew 73 more combat missions, accumulated 116 total missions by the time Japan surrendered on August 15th. He claimed no aerial victories except the Nick, one kill. One of the most unusual kills in Marine Corps aviation history. After the war, Klingman stayed in the Marine Corps. He served in Korea, flew close air support missions, promoted to captain, then major, then lieutenant colonel.
He retired in 1966 after 25 years of service, returned to Oklahoma, settled in a small town, rarely spoke about the war. Reusser also stayed in the Marines. He became the most decorated Marine aviator in history. Two Navy Crosses, five Purple Hearts, 253 combat missions across three wars. The only Marine pilot shot down in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
He survived all three shoot-downs, retired as a colonel in 1968. The two pilots remained friends. They attended Marine Corps reunions together, spoke at aviation history conferences, answered questions about May 10th, 1945, about climbing to 38,000 feet in aircraft designed to operate at 35,000, about frozen guns and windmilling propellers, and ramming attacks against enemy reconnaissance planes.
And every time they told the story, they emphasized the same detail. The Nick had to be stopped. The Kamikaze attacks had to be prevented. The mathematics were simple. One reconnaissance aircraft destroyed meant dozens of American lives saved. On July 6th, 2004, Robert Klingman died in Hawaii at age 87. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
The headstone listed his rank, lieutenant colonel, his service, United States Marine Corps, his decoration, Navy Cross. Kenneth Reusser died five years later on June 20th, 2009, age 89, also buried at Arlington. His headstone listed 59 medals earned across three wars. But neither headstone mentioned the specific detail that made their mission on May 10th, 1945, unique in the history of aerial combat.
They were the only two pilots in World War II to destroy an enemy aircraft with propeller blades at an altitude above 35,000 ft. The Pacific War produced numerous instances of aerial ramming. Soviet pilots on the Eastern Front developed the Taran as a standard tactic. Japanese pilots deliberately crashed into American bombers when ammunition ran out.
American pilots occasionally resorted to ramming when facing overwhelming odds, but those incidents occurred at altitudes between 10,000 and 25,000 ft where the air was thick enough to provide control authority, where pilots had some chance of recovering from the collision. Kliengman and Ruester operated at 38,000 ft in air so thin that the Corsair’s engine produced barely 60% of rated power, where control inputs took seconds to register, where the temperature was cold enough to freeze gun oil solid, where one mistake would send both
aircraft into unrecoverable spins. The technical analysis conducted after the mission identified why the tactic succeeded. The Corsair’s propeller was larger and more robust than the Nick’s tail structure, 13 ft 6 in in diameter, 3 in thick at the hub, designed to handle 2,000 horsepower of engine torque.
The Nick’s horizontal stabilizers were built for lightweight and maneuverability, aluminum skin over aluminum stringers, not engineered to withstand impact from a propeller spinning at 2,000 RPM, three impacts, each one progressively more destructive. The first damaged the stabilizer, the second partially severed it, the third removed it completely.
The progression was systematic, calculated, not desperate ramming, but controlled use of the propeller as a cutting tool. After the war, aviation historians studied the mission. They identified factors that made success possible. Kliengman’s decision to strip the Corsair to minimum weight. The reduced mass allowed higher altitude.
Rouser’s initial attack that damaged the Nick and reduced its maneuverability. The Japanese pilot’s inability to dive away because diving would have exceeded the Nick’s maximum air speed. The cold air that prevented the Corsair’s damaged propeller from overheating during the descent. Remove any single factor and the mission fails. Klingman crashes or the Nick escapes or both aircraft go down locked together.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum requested artifacts from the mission. The Marine Corps provided photographs, mission reports, the Navy Cross citations, but the propeller hub had been scrapped. The Corsair’s wreckage was gone. No physical evidence remained except archived photographs and witness statements.
In 1998, a Marine Corps Historical Foundation located Klingman in Hawaii. They interviewed him about the mission, asked for details that did not appear in official records. Klingman described the cold, the vibration when the propeller struck the Nick’s tail, the certainty that his engine would fail before he reached Kadena. He spoke for 90 minutes.
The interview was recorded, archived, made available to researchers. Rouser gave similar interviews. He emphasized different aspects. The decision to expend all ammunition on the first pass, the frustration of watching his guns go silent while the Nick was still flying, the relief when Klingman’s third pass succeeded.
The fear during Klingman’s descent that the damaged Corsair would not reach the runway. Both pilots insisted on one point. The mission was not heroic. It was necessary. The kamikaze attacks were killing American sailors every day. The Nick had to be stopped. They did what the situation required. But the Navy Cross citations disagreed.
Extraordinary heroism in the line of duty. That was the standard. Klingman and Rouser met it. If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor. Hit that like button. Every single like tells YouTube to show this story to more people. Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. We’re rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.
Stories about pilots who saved lives with propeller blades and courage at altitudes where most men cannot breathe. Real people. Real heroism. Drop a comment right now and tell us where you’re watching from. Are you watching from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia? Our community stretches across the entire world. You’re not just a viewer.
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