Rex Barber
When the pilots returned to Guadalcanal from the fight over Bougainville, there was a lot of talk and some argument over what had happened, but there was never a careful debriefing with individual pilots separated and debriefed by intelligence officers.
Rex Barber said that he attacked a bomber, shot pieces off of the tail, shot into the right engine and then through the fuselage and into the left engine and back into the right engine, following it down to the treetops. The bomber slowed abruptly and Barber swerved to miss it and, looking back, saw a pillar of smoke from the jungle and the escorting Zeros attacking him. With good luck and very skillful flying he got away from the Zeros and out over the water saw a Betty bomber under attack by two P-38s (Besby Holmes and Ray Hine). Barber joined in the attack and the bomber exploded from his gunfire and he flew through the pieces of the bomber, getting substantial damage to his airplane from hitting different pieces.
Website for AFAA
Bio of Rex Barber from the American Fighter Aces Album © 1996
|
