It was a bad day for 1st Lieutenant Harold Fisher. It was World War II and he was on his 20th bombing mission, coming back from Italy. His B-17 "Bonnie Sue" was barely flyable. Two engines were gone, and he was seriously considering ditching the plane. He had the crew throw everything out -- guns, ammo, flak jackets, anything that could lessen the weight of the aircraft, hoping to stay aloft long enough for a miracle.
They got one -- a familiar American P-38 fighter came by to cover him. Fisher radioed him asking for assistance, and his comrade happily obliged and pulled alongside to escort him home. Everything was at last looking up.
Until a minute later, when Fisher was shot down by the very P-38 that was supposed to be covering him.
Instead of an American pilot behind the controls, this particular P-38 was piloted by an Italian named Guido Rossi who had captured it on the ground. Fisher attempted a water landing with his aircraft and, as far as water landings go, it was pretty successful. Translation: Every single person on board wasn't killed. Fisher survived the emergency landing and was eventually rescued by the British.
As it turns out, Fisher wasn't Rossi's first or last victim, but would prove to be the one who would lead to his undoing.
The Petty Revenge:
Fisher went to his commander, Colonel Bill Hall, and asked permission to borrow an experimental YB-40 aircraft. A YB-40 was essentially a B-17 with the bombs taken out and a ridiculous amount of guns added.
There were no YB-40s in Africa, so they had the Brits fly one out there, for the sole purpose of taking down Rossi. The Allies had essentially just condoned a private vendetta using experimental aircraft just to quell the hijinks of one Italian fighter pilot.
After hand-picking a crew, Fisher went out in search of Rossi, but the sinnister Italian never showed. Meanwhile, Rossi was still off somewhere in his undercover plane, pulling his ruse and shooting down B-17s left and right.
Fisher wasn't going to give up. He pored over intelligence documents and found something interesting: Rossi's wife, Gina, was located behind friendly lines. Fisher quickly searched her out and found her. After seeing what she looked like, Fisher got a painter to paint a picture of her on his aircraft and put her name on it. All just so he could annoy Rossi even more when he shot him down.
On the next bombing mission, Fisher was getting ready to become a pretend straggler again when he all of a sudden was shot and became an actual straggler. Who among us hasn't been there before? After ordering his crew to dump everything except for ammunition, they flew on. Soon enough a P-38 pulled up alongside, but they couldn't tell if it was Rossi or not. Thinking this time it was a legitimate P-38, he ordered ammunition dumped overboard as well, until a curious question came across the radio.
"Pretty girl, Gina. She from Constantine?"
Suddenly thrust back into reality, Fisher ordered his men to keep their ammunition and guns and carried on with his conversation with the P-38 pilot, steering the discussion toward cutesy stories about how nice it was to be bedding Mrs. Rossi.
This infuriated Rossi to the point that he flew far ahead of the bomber and attempted a suicidal head-on attack. Waiting until the last minute, Fisher ordered every gun on board his aircraft to fire on the P-38, which was literally shredded away around Rossi from the massive amount of gunfire.
Rossi was picked up by Allied Rescue crews and became a POW for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, Fisher was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and his entire crew Air Medals for their incredibly hilarious revenge campaign against one Italian pilot.
Source: Cracked.com article
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