American Flying Ace Louis E. Curdes
During WWII, an American fighter pilot saw combat over all three Axis territories. By war's end, he had destroyed Italian, German, and Japanese planes.
That man was Louis Edward Curdes, who was born on November 2, 1919, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Though an engineering student at Purdue University, he joined the Army Reserves on March 12, 1942. In his third year, he dropped out of college to take up flight school at Luke Field, Arizona, which he graduated on December 3. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and sent to Europe in March 1943.
In late April 1943, 2nd Lt. Louis E. Curdes flew his first mission in a Lockheed P-38G Lightning for the 95th Fighter Squadron, 82nd Fighter Group. Over Cap Bon, Tunisia, his flight ran into a group of Messerschmitt Me-109s. Curdes got behind one. "I could see my tracers curving right into his nose," he said. "I broke off at 100 yards and passed in front of the '109, which nosed over and went straight in. There was a big splash and an oval of white foam."
Separated from his flight, Curdes spotted three Messerschmitts chasing a Lightning just above the water. He attacked the right-hand plane. "My tracers went into him, puffs of black and white smoke came out, and he did a wingover straight in," he reported. The remaining Germans were still pursuing the struggling P-38. "I made a 30-degree deflection shot at the leader, closing to 20 degrees and making about 350 mph. The '109 bursts into flames, exploded and flopped into the water." With three kills on his first mission, Curdes named his P-38 Good Devil, adorning its nose with an image of Lucifer wearing a halo.
On May 19, after the 82nd escorted B-25 Mitchell bombers to Sardinia, eight Me-109s engaged the Americans over the Mediterranean. "My leader chased one ME 109 off the tail of the first element, and another came in at about a 30-degree angle," Curdes recalled. "I shot him down. We were attacked again, and everyone seemed mixed up. These M.E.s were fast and persistent, and three dived at us from the rear." Curdes turned into their attack. "I fired at the first M.E. and missed, but he took off. The second one I shot into the sea." After just two missions and a little over a month of combat, he had five swastikas painted on his P-38.
Curdes opened his account against a second Axis power on June 24th, shooting down an Italian Macchi C.202 over Sardinia. In August, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, but later that month, his luck ran out.
On August 27, the 95th tangled with 50 enemy fighters over Naples. Curdes claimed two before his Lightning was hit. He crash-landed in enemy territory and was captured. That should have been the end of his fighter pilot career. Days later, however, Italy withdrew from the war, and the Italian prison guards simply went home, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. Curdes made his way south, and on May 27th, 1944-nine months to the day after being shot down, he met up with the advancing British Eighth Army.
Regulations forbade a former POW to risk fighting on the same front, lest he be recaptured and tortured to reveal the details of his escape and evasion. But the war wasn't over, and Curdes had plenty of fight left. He transferred to the Pacific.
On January 6, 1945, U.S. forces landed at Lingayen, in the Philippines. Flying with the 4th Fighter Squadron, 3rd Air Commando Group, Curdes named his P-51D "Bad Angel." On February 7th, 30 miles southwest of Formosa, the lieutenant completed his hat trick, downing a Mitsubishi Ki-46 twin-engine reconnaissance plane.
Just three days later, Curdes made history during an attack on a Japanese airstrip on Batan Island, in the Formosa Straits. His flight of four Mustangs shot down two enemy fighters and got three others on the ground. After his section leader was hit by flak and bailed out over the water, Curdes messaged home to bring more fighters and ordered his wingman up to 15,000 feet to radio for a flying boat rescue. Then he headed back down to strafe the airfield to keep any remaining enemy fighters on the ground.
When Curdes came up again, he spotted a twin-engine transport approaching the field at a low level from the east. Noting the American stars on what appeared to be a Douglas C-47 Skytrain, he at first thought, "Those damned Japs have patched up one of our buggies and didn't even have the grace to take the markings off."
"The P-51 pilot had to decide whether it was one of our own planes that were lost or a Jap-built DC-3 (Showa/Nakajima L2D), with American insignia," explained General George C. Kenney, commander of Allied air forces in the Southwest Pacific Area. "He flew up alongside and satisfied himself that the pilot was not a Jap."
Curdes also recognized on the Skytrain the markings of the "Jungle Skippers," the 39th Military Airlift Squadron of the 317th Troop Carrier Group. The transport had taken off from Leyte for Manila with eight passengers, including two nurses. Rough weather had carried it far off course, and after almost five hours in the air, the C-47 was low on fuel and couldn't raise any help via radio. According to the after-action report: "We received no bearings or response of any kind. The airplane continued until 1150 hours and was still over water. The pilot then informed his passengers that he was in trouble and would set the airplane down on the first land he saw." Unfortunately, the crew didn't realize the island they headed for was enemy-held Batan.
"I tried to contact the pilot by radio," Curdes noted. "This failed."
"He then dived in front of the transport to keep it from landing on the Jap-held strip," related Kenney. "The pilot of the transport circled again and again started to glide in for a landing. The P-51 pilot then decided on a desperate measure."
"The gear was put down," the report continued, "and at 150 ft altitude, with the airplane at half flaps and about to be put down, six strings of tracers came up in front of us."
"I shot across the nose of the ship," Curdes said, "but still, he came on." In what he later referred to as a "last resort," he then closed to 20 yards, took careful aim, and used his machine guns to take out the Skytrain's right engine. Still, the transport held course. The passengers and crew inside must have been horrified to see the Mustang then sideslip over to port and shoot up their left engine.
That did it. "We ditched 300 yards from shore," they reported. "Four rafts were put out. One was perforated by bullets and sank. The 12 of us got into the three rafts. The P-51 circled us for an hour but did not fire again."
Curdes dropped them a message: "For God's sake, keep away from shore. Japs there." By then, however, everybody had figured that out. "We were out about a mile when machine guns and rifles opened up on us from the shore," the crew noted. "We were out of range, but the shooting continued for 30 minutes."
Curdes and his wingman flew back to base but returned to Batan before dawn to find the life rafts, including that of their section leader, still bobbing in the waves west of the island. The P-51s flew cover until a PBY-5A Catalina arrived and picked up everybody.
"They were all quite put out at the action of the P-51 pilot until the situation was explained to them," remembered Kenney, "but from then on, the kid was the greatest hero of the war as far as they were concerned."
Back at base, Curdes was shocked to discover on the C-47 passenger manifest the name of a nurse he had dated the night before. "Jeepers," was his comment-or at least that's what the reporter who wrote up Curdes' story for the August 1945 issue of Air Force magazine recalled. "Seven 109's and one Macchi in North Africa, one Jap, and one Yank in the Pacific-and to top it, I have to go out and shoot down the girlfriend."
Curdes repeated the maneuver twice more, but the plane was determined to land on the Japanese airstrip. Desperate to stop it, Curdes fired at its right engine, but the thing just kept on going. So, he took out its other engine, forcing the plane to land on the water. Out came a dinghy, not far from La Croix's own. Shortly after, people started climbing on it-they were Americans, not Japanese. Relieved, La Croix paddled over and explained the situation to them.
The plane had gotten lost in bad weather, apparently, and its radio had stopped working. Running out of fuel, the pilot made a beeline toward the landing strip, not knowing it was Japanese. Overhead, Curdes kept watch until more U.S. planes came to the rescue.
"The P-51 lad already had painted on the nose of his airplane seven Nazi swastikas and one Italian insignia - as well as a Jap flag for a victory in the Pacific," Kenney recalled. "He added an American flag in memory of his latest exploit." But since the C-47 was not counted as an official victory, Louis Curdes' final score stands at nine.
In recognition of his quick thinking and sharpshooting, he received an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Distinguished Flying Cross. General Kenny said, "I awarded him an Air Medal for the job and told him I hoped he wouldn't feel called on to repeat that performance."
After World War II, he joined an Air National Guard unit at Baer Field and remained there until 1948. In Allen County, Indiana, April 2, 1946, he married Svetlana Valeria, one of the passengers of the C-47 he shot down in the Philippines. Curdes returned to active duty, this time again with the United States Air Force. He participated in the Berlin airlift during the opening stages of the Cold War.
He was promoted to Major on September 1, 1951, and retired from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel in October 1963. After he retired from the Air Force, he started a construction company under the name of Curdes Builders Company.
Louis Curdes died on February 5, 1995, at the age of 75, and was buried at Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne. His widow Valeria died on October 10, 2013, at the age of 87.