ROBERT S. JOHNSON

'Robert Samuel Johnson' (21 February 1920 to 27 December 1998) was a USAAF fighter pilot during the Second World War. He is credited with scoring 27 victories during the conflict flying a P-47 Thunderbolt. For his service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medals and a Purple Heart.
Robert S. Johnson was the first USAAF fighter pilot in the European theater to surpass Eddie Rickenbacker's WWI score of 26 victories. He was originally credited by the Eighth Air Force claims board with 28 victories. This was changed to 27, however, when post-war review of claims discovered that credits for a kill he made and a double kill by a fellow 56th pilot, Ralph A. Johnson, on November 26, 1943 (a day when Robert Johnson wasn't flying), had been inadvertently switched. (Their Army serial numbers were also nearly identical, A00662216 and A00662217.)

Contents

Childhood and flying interest

Aviation cadet

56th Fighter Group

Early combat experiences

Becoming an ace

Post-war career

See also

Sources

Childhood and flying interest

Note on sources: Johnson's autobiographical memoir, ''Thunderbolt!'', provided all information regarding Johnson's childhood and cadet training.
Johnson was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, the son of an automobile mechanic, in February 1920. In his war memoir, ''Thunderbolt!'', he states that he first developed an interest in military aviation in the summer of 1928 when his father took him to see a U.S. Army Air Corps barnstorming team, "The Three Musketeers", appearing at Ft. Sill's Henry Post Field. Four years later Johnson took his first flight, a 15-minute night excursion over Lawton in a Ford Tri-motor.
Johnson attended Lawton public schools, was a Boy Scout, and excelled in athletics. He credited an interest in shooting and in hunting small game with a .22 rifle, boxing competitively to learn about controlling fear, and playing high school and junior college football as a blocking guard with instilling the skills and aggressiveness he later employed as a fighter pilot.
At the age of eleven Johnson began working as a laborer in a Lawton cabinet-making shop, working 8 or more hours daily after school to earn four dollars a week. At 12 he began applying his earnings to flying lessons, soloing after 5 hours and 45 minutes of instruction. He achieved his student license and logged 35 hours in four years of instruction before suspending his flying lessons because of a newfound interest in girls. Johnson resumed flying while attending Cameron Junior College in its Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) program, and accumulated 100 hours total flight time by his second year. Johnson gave up his full-time job to allow for his varied interests, but continued to hold a series of part-time jobs, including as a firefighter with the Lawton Fire Department.

Aviation cadet

In the summer of 1941 Johnson enlisted as an aviation cadet in the United States Army, and entered the service at Oklahoma City on November 11, 1941, as a member of Class 42F. Pre-Flight training was conducted at Kelly Field, Texas, beginning November 12 and was still in progress when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War II.

On December 18, 1941, Johnson reported to the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics, a civilian contractor school in Sikeston, Missouri, for Primary Flying Training. His first five hours of the pre-solo training phase were flown in a Fairchild PT-19A trainer in which he was instructed in spin recoveries, stalls, and basic turning maneuvers. He then began nearly sixty hours of Primary training in the more agile PT-18 Kaydet, practicing aerobatic maneuvers. All of the training, which included more than 175 landings, was conducted in open-cockpit trainers in the dead of winter.
On January 28, 1942, at the midpoint of Primary, he was forced to switch instructors by the school commander. His new instructor became a flying mentor, for which Johnson wrote: "I shall always be indebted to men like (Phil P.) Zampini...(for their) willingness to turn the fledgling into an eagle." Johnson's classmates in Primary included several pilots who would become fighter pilots with him in the 56th Fighter Group, and Frank K. Everest, Jr.
In February 1942 the USAAF regulation requiring aviation cadets to be unmarried was rescinded. Johnson married Barbara Morgan, whom he had met in high school, in Benton, Missouri, on February 21 immediately upon completing Primary Flying Training.

On February 27, 1942, Johnson began Basic Flying Training at Randolph Field, Texas. As with the other phases of flying training, the 9-week course of instruction included ground school, military training, and intensive flying practice, this time in the North American BT-9 Yale. He received 70 hours of instrument, formation, and night flying in March and April of 1942. At the conclusion of basic, at the recommendation of his instructors, Johnson requested multi-engine school for his advanced training course.
Johnson began advanced training at nearby Kelly Field on May 3, 1942. Although training for transition to bombers, because multi-engine trainers were not yet available to meet training demands, all 93.5 hours of his advanced flying training were
performed in variants of the T-6 Texan: the North American BC-1 basic combat trainer and the AT-6 advanced trainer. Johnson completed his flight training on June 28 and was commissioned July 3, 1942, as a second lieutenant. Although he requested transition training in the A-20 Havoc, he instead received orders to report to the 56th Fighter Group.

56th Fighter Group

Johnson reported to the group's 61st Fighter Squadron on July 19, 1942, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The unit had just received the first production P-47B Thunderbolts and in effect was flight testing the new fighter as it trained. While the 56th FG was responsible for many of the modifications that made later variants a successful fighter-bomber, the training resulted in more than forty crashes and 18 fatalities, many of which Johnson blamed on the inadequacy of the small airport at Bridgeport. However he also asserted that many more lives would have been lost had not the P-47 proved to be an exceptionally rugged airframe. The P-47 became the first USAAF aircraft to provide an understanding of compressibility and its effects.
The 56th FG was alerted over overseas movement on November 26, 1942, and ceased flying operations in preparation. On December 28 it moved to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and on January 6, 1943, sailed from the New York port of embarkation aboard the RMS ''Queen Elizabeth'' for Scotland. The group arrived on January 13 without aircraft at its first base in the United Kingdom, RAF Kings Cliffe. There it received new P-47C Thunderbolts and trained on them until April, when it began combat operations from a new base at RAF Horsham St. Faith.
Johnson, still classified as a bomber pilot, was not officially qualified to fly the P-47 in combat. To rectify that, he was sent to Llanbedr, Wales, on March 10 for a two-week course in gunnery training in which he would fire the Thunderbolt's weapons for the first tme. However bad weather prevented any training flights and he returned to Kings Cliffe still not qualified. Johnson feared he was losing the confidence of both his group commander, Col. Hubert Zemke, and his flight leader, Capt. Gerald W. Johnson, in his ability to perform as a fighter pilot.

Early combat experiences

2nd Lt. Johnson flew his first combat mission on April 18, 1943, which was the second mission of the 56th FG. The mission, a fighter sweep over the coast of Holland, proved entirely uneventful. On his return from his first combat sortie, Johnson and four other pilots were sent to RAF Goxhill to complete gunnery training, but because he could not hit the target sleeve until his final day of training, he wrote, he failed to achieve the minimum required percentage of hits and did not officially qualify as a combat pilot.
The 56th experienced its first combat on April 29, losing two planes and pilots, but Johnson was not scheduled for the mission and did not resume missions until May 3. On May 14 he encountered Luftwaffe aircraft for the first time on a mission to escort B-17 Flying Fortresses to bomb Antwerp, damaging two Fw 190s that had broken up his squadron's formation but becoming separated from the group. Finding himself alone, he broke off the engagement and returned to base to find that he had been erroneously reported as missing in action. On May 19, as part of a diversionary mission, his flight was ambushed by German fighters, but again the inexperienced Johnson was able to elude them.
On June 13 while flying in a flight led by his squadron commander, Major Francis Gabreski, Johnson shot down his first German aircraft ( of 10 ''Staffel'', JG 26) . The 56th had scored its first confirmed kill just the day before but had missed an opportunity to achieve a larger victory. Johnson and his element leader as a result agreed on tactics that the pilot spotting the enemy should immediately attack and be supported by the other, regardless of who was leading. Johnson achieved his kill, over an Fw 190, doing just that, but discovered that his element leader had not covered him as agreed. Johnson was reprimanded by Zemke, Gabreski, and Jerry Johnson for breaking formation when the other pilot denied his concurrence. Even so, the kill was confirmed, one of the very first among the novice VIII Fighter Command pilots. Johnson received a bottle of scotch whiskey from Maj. Gen. Carl Spaatz, commanding the Eighth Air Force, to mark the occasion.
One of the 56th's worst setbacks occurred on June 26, 1943, when 48 P-47Cs left a forward operating base at RAF Manston late in the afternoon to provide escort for B-17 Flying Fortress bombers returning from a mission against Villacoublay airfield in the Paris suburbs. As the P-47s approached the rendezvous point near Forges-les-Eaux, they were jumped from above and behind by 16 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s of II Gruppe, JG 26. The first pass scattered the Thunderbolts, and Johnson's aircraft, flying at the rear of the 61st Squadron's formation, was seriously damaged by a 20mm shell that exploded in his cockpit and ruptured his hydraulic system. Burned and blinded by hydraulic fluid, Johnson elected to bail out but could not open his shattered canopy.
After disengaging from the fight and re-orienting himself, Johnson dove for the Channel but was intercepted by a single Fw 190. Unable to fight back, he maneuvered violently while under attack, and although sustaining heavy damage, managed to survive until the German ran out of ammunition, at which point it turned back. This latter opponent has never been identified, but Johnson could have been one of three victories claimed that day by the commander of III/JG 2, Oberst Egon Mayer.^[1] After landing, Johnson tried to count the bullet holes in his airplane, but when he passed 200 without even moving around the plane, he gave up.
While Johnson made it back to crashland at Manston, damaging his fighter beyond economical repair, four other pilots of the 56th FG were killed in action. A fifth, able to extend only one of his plane's landing gear struts, had to bail out over the English Channel and was rescued north of Yarmouth. Five other Thunderbolts suffered battle damage. Johnson suffered minor wounds and burns to his face, hands, and legs, and was awarded the Purple Heart.

Becoming an ace

As the 56th Group gained experience, its success in aerial combat improved dramatically, beginning with 17 Luftwaffe fighters shot down on August 17 while escorting bombers attacking Regensburg and Schweinfurt. Johnson, promoted to first lieutenant in July, got his second kill on August 19 over Holland when he exploded a Bf 109, but unlucky scheduling often left him on the ground on days when the 56th scored high.
That situation changed on October 8 when Johnson, assigned as Jerry Johnson's wingman on an escort mission to Bremen, shot down an Fw 190 that was attacking another P-47. Two days later, covering bombers as they withdrew from Münster, his squadron engaged an estimated 40 fighters intercepting the bombers. In a prolonged and vicious dogfight Johnson shot down a Bf 110 and one of its Fw 190 escorts, but suffered severe battle damage himself. Both he and 56th deputy commander Major David C. Schilling became aces on that date, becoming the fourth and fifth pilots of the Eighth Air Force to achieve the feat.
He later was promoted to major on May 1, 1944, and transferred to the 62nd Fighter Squadron as its Operations Officer (S-3). He recorded his finals kills on 8 May 1944, when he broke Rickenbacker's record and was immediately taken off operations until his return to the United States on June 6, 1944. Johnson flew a total of 89 combat missions between April 1943 and May 1944.

Post-war career

After the war, Johnson became the chief test pilot for Republic Aviation, maker of the P-47, where he worked as an engineering executive for 18 years, and served as one of the first presidents of the Air Force Association. He retired from the US Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel, and became an insurance executive in Lake Wylie, South Carolina.
The terminal building at Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport, in his birthplace, Lawton, Oklahoma, is named in his memory. A painting of Johnson's final mission was commissioned by the Oklahoma State Senate Historical Preservation Fund, Inc. in 2000 and hangs in the Oklahoma State Senate conference room on the fourth floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol.

See also

★ Gabby Gabreski, another ace who flew with the 61st Fighter Squadron.

Sources

★ Thunderbolt!, Robert S. Johnson, , , The Honoribus Press, 1958, ISBN 1885354053

★ Heaton, Colin D. "World War II: Interview with Ace Pilot Robert S. Johnson", History net.com, orig. published ''Military History'' August 1996

★ Robert S. Johnson on Find-A-Grave

★ Acepilots.com

★ Farewell, Bob Johnson: A fitting tribute to an American hero

★ Air University Gathering Of Eagles bio

★ 'JG 26 War Diary- Volume 2'- Donald Caldwell (grub street 1998)