Aerial ramming
In the early stages of World War II the tactic was employed by Soviet pilots, who called it taran (таран) , the Russian word for "battering ram".
H. G. Wells, writing in 1899 in his novel The Sleeper Awakes, has his main character, Graham, ram one of the enemy's aeroplanes with his flying apparatus, causing it to fall out of the sky.
[citation needed] The American Wilbert Wallace White of the 147th Aero Squadron rammed a German plane on 10 October 1918, and was killed — his opponent survived.
As the advancing Soviet Red Army used very few aircraft in Poland, air combat rarely took place (except for interceptions of Bolshevik observation balloons).
On the night of 27–28 November 1937, Soviet pilot Evgeny Stepanov, flying a Polikarpov I-15 for the Spanish Republican Air Force, shot down one SM.81 bomber near Barcelona and emptied the rest of his bullets into another.
In the first year of the Great Patriotic War, most available Soviet machines were markedly inferior to the German ones and pilots sometimes perceived a taran as the only way to guarantee the destruction of the enemy.
[1] In some cases, pilots who were heavily wounded or in damaged aircraft decided to perform a suicidal attack against air, ground or naval targets.
[1] After clearing much of Soviet airpower from their path, the Luftwaffe stopped providing fighter escort for bombing groups, and split their forces into much smaller sorties, including single aircraft making deep penetration flights.
[12] Yekaterina Zelenko on 12 September 1941 supposedly performed a diving ramming attack in her Su-2, which tore a Messerschmitt Bf 109 in two as the propeller of her plane hit the German aircraft's tail.
[17] On 18 August 1940, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Sergeant Bruce Hancock of No.6 SFTS from RAF Windrush used his Avro Anson aircraft to ram a Heinkel He 111P; there were no survivors.
504 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Dornier Do 17 bomber over London by ramming but at the loss of his own aircraft (and almost his own life) in one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain.
His Combat Report read: I attacked the three nearest machines in vic formation from beneath and a fourth enemy aircraft doing rear-guard flew across the line of fire and he developed a leak in the glycol tank...
American researcher Matthew Poole notes that Japanese historian Hiroshi Ichimura interviewed 64th Sentai veteran Lt. Naoyuki Ito, who also claimed to have shot down a B-24 of the 492nd BS on 26 October 1943.
Kamiguchi rammed the crippled B-24, and General Major Shinichi Tanaka praised the brave young pilot and intentionally made "Corporal Saw" a legend.
On 6 June 1944, having expended his ammunition in an extended dogfight, Sergeant Tomesaku Igarashi of the 50th Sentai used the propeller of his Nakajima Ki-43 to bring down a Lockheed P-38 Lightning near Meiktila, Burma.
[40][38] Starting in August 1944, several Japanese pilots flying Kawasaki Ki-45 and other fighters engaging B-29 Superfortresses found that ramming the very heavy bomber was a practical tactic.
[41] From that experience, in November 1944 a "Special Attack Unit" was formed using Kawasaki Ki-61s that had been stripped of most of their weapons and armor so as to quickly achieve high altitude.
Three successful surviving ramming pilots were the first recipients of the Bukosho, Japan's equivalent to the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor, an award which had been inaugurated on 7 December 1944 as an Imperial Edict by Emperor Hirohito.
The Japanese practice of kamikaze may also be viewed as a form of ramming, although the primary mode of destruction was not physical impact force, but rather the explosives carried.
[48] On 25 May 1944 Oberfähnrich Hubert Heckmann used his Messerschmitt Bf 109 to ram a P-51 Mustang when his guns malfunctioned, severing the tail and rear fuselage from the American aircraft.
Captain Joseph H. Bennett of the 336th Fighter Squadron managed to bail out to captivity, while Heckmann made an immediate belly landing near Botenheim, Germany.
The plan was to dissuade Allied bomber pilots from conducting bombing raids long enough for the Germans to create a significant number of Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters to turn the tide of the air war.
Only a single dedicated unit, Sonderkommando Elbe, was ever formed to the point of being operational, and flew their only mission – only a month before the end of the war in Europe – on 7 April 1945.
Capitaine Maridor had previously damaged the V-1 with his cannon fire, and seeing it begin to dive onto a military field hospital in Kent, chose to deliberately ram the bomb.
[51][52] During the battle of the Coral Sea, SBD pilot Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was attacked by three A6M2 "Zero" fighters; he shot down two of them and cut off the wing of the third in a head-on pass with his wingtip.
Despite missing five inches (13 cm) from the ends of his propeller blades, running out of fuel and having an aircraft dented and punctured by debris and bullets, Klingman safely guided his Corsair to a deadstick landing.
[54] In the 1960 U-2 incident, Soviet pilot Igor Mentyukov was scrambled with orders to ram the intruding Lockheed U-2, using his unarmed Sukhoi Su-9 which had been modified for higher altitude flight.
9 Squadron "Griffins" which was piloted by Flight Lieutenant Amjad Hussain Khan intercepted 6 Indian Mystere IVs which were attacking Sargodha Airbase.
While the Indian pilot perished with his warplane, Amjad managed to eject safely and was rescued by Pakistani villagers watching the intense dogfight.
The study posited that defending fighters might expend their weapons without downing the enemy bomber, and the pilots would then be faced with the final choice of ramming—almost certainly trading their lives for the many who would be killed by a successful nuclear attack.
