Awesome / Dogfights

• Moment of Awesome: A number of episodes focus on these, including but not limited to "Long Odds" and "Death Of The Japanese Navy".
  • Werner Voss' final dogfight in "The First Dogfighters". Counts as a Dying Moment of Awesome.
  • The Tuskegee Airmen fighting jet fighters with propeller planes and winning.
• In "Death of the Japanese Navy", the picket task unit Taffy 3 facing off against a massive fleet of Japan's remaining big-gun warships. From the pilots throwing whatever ordnance they had at the Japanese ships and continuing mock attack runs once they were out of ammo to keep the formations disrupted, to the courage and intrepid gunnery of the destroyers and one of the destroyer escorts, hitting the Japanese ships with torpedoes and mauling superstructures with their five-inch guns. The Japanese admiral loses hope in his mission, and orders a retreat. Something the episode doesn't mention is that a few of the planes were armed with nothing more then propaganda leaflets and broken plane parts(so when the bomb bay is opened something will fall out to make the ships crews duck) meaning they were doing attack runs knowing full well they were completely unarmed.
• "Long Odds" features several, the episode being focused on bombers who found themselves fighting alone against enemy fighter aircraft.
  • A dive bomber pilot in the Pacific found himself alone against three Japanese zeroes. For twenty minutes he managed to outmaneuver and outwit them, taking advantage of his craft's great durability, pulling turns that would have torn the wings off his opponents' aircraft. He shot down two of them, and clipped the last one with his wingtip, causing it to crash.
  • A B-17^note nicknamed "Old 666" crew volunteers for a lone reconnaissance mission, and does not break from their task even when Japanese fighters come up after them. The fighters catch up to them on the way out, where the crew's modifications - installing six extra Browning 50 caliber machine guns, bringing the craft's total to nineteen - came in handy. They downed three Zeroes out of a pack of twenty, but lost one of their crew. Lieutenant Joseph Sarnoski was mortally wounded by enemy fire, but was able to crawl back to his gun and shoot down an incoming enemy fighter before succumbing to his injuries. The entire crew received the Distinguished Service Cross — except Captain Jay Zeamer and the aforementioned Sarnoski, who were awarded the Medal of Honor.
• In the episode about the P-51, Richard Candelaria's segment. He was separated from the rest of his squadron, and formed up alone on the bombers they were assigned to protect. A pair of Me-262 jet fighters attacked, and Candelaria scored a probable kill on one and drove the other off. Then a squadron of Me-109s attacked, lead by a German ace. Candelaria managed to bring down the ace and three other 109s, at which point the rest of his squadron caught up and the remaining 109s withdrew
• The entire ordeal of the USS Laffey, which came under attack from over 50 kamikaze aircraft. Thanks to her captain's, and her crew's, determination, they were able to survive at least 3 bomb hits and around 7-9 kamikaze hits, before being rescued by a squadron of Marine Corsairs.
  • One aviator who's fighting the Japanese runs out of ammo, yet continues to defend Laffey by flying at kamikaze pilots and forcing them to abort their attacks.

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