This Day in History: Fred Christensen, WWII Flying Ace

On this day in 1921, a future flying Ace is born in Watertown, Massachusetts. Fred Christensen’s love of flying started early, when a friend’s father took him up in a plane as a teenager.

“From a very early age,” his daughter Diane would explain years later, “he did anything he could to get to the airport or befriend those at school whose dads had planes. As children, we thought he could fly without wings.”

Christensen joined the Army soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Army thought he should be a pilot because of his 20/10 vision, but Christensen had no complaints: He just wanted to fly anyway.

By August 1943, he was serving with the 56th Fighter Group, a unit known as Zemke’s Wolfpack. “Rat-Top,” as the other pilots called him, would earn his first victory by November 1943. He became a flying ace a few months later and had 14.5 victories to his credit by mid-April.

Nevertheless, he is best known for the day he shot down 6 enemy transports, all in one day. He had been escorting a squadron of B-17 bombers when he looked down to see a formation of 12 enemy planes in a landing pattern below him.

He radioed his find to the rest of the squadron, then darted down to get a better look.

“They wanted to know if they should stay up there for top cover for me,” he later described, “and I said, ‘Hell, no, might as well come on down, too.’ I just kept moving up the line, shooting them down. They were only about 50 to 100 feet off the ground, and they didn’t have a chance.”

The kills required more accuracy than you might think, Christensen explained, because his P-47 was moving so fast in comparison to the “lumbering” German planes. He compensated by changing the direction of his guns, so they aimed in the same direction (rather than a wider spread), but he also believes that his good luck charm helped him out.

That “good luck charm” was a black cat riding as a passenger in the cockpit. 

Indeed, during his time in the Army Air Forces, Christensen flew 107 combat missions without incident. The only damage to his plane, he would later note, came from a friendly fire incident near the end of the war. He credits Sinbad the cat, the stray he’d taken in—and who flew in the skies with him.

One story is often told about Sinbad: Once a reporter and photographer visited the fighter group, intending to do a story on the Wolfpack. They tried to take a picture of Sinbad, but the cat refused to cooperate.

He was leaping among the pilots’ packed parachutes instead.

According to Diane, each pilot whose gear was touched by Sinbad returned from their next mission having earned an aerial victory. You can imagine that the legend of Sinbad only grew from there.

Either way, by the time Christensen returned to the States, he’d earned multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses, Silver Stars and Air Medals. He had 21.5 victories to his name, and he was noted as the first pilot in the 8th Air Force to shoot down six enemy aircraft in a single mission.

“His feat was matched by only a handful of U.S. Air Force aces,” president of the Massachusetts Aviation Historical Society, Bill Deane, concludes.

Nevertheless, Christensen seems to have had other priorities. He came home, got married, and had three daughters. He flew for the Massachusetts Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force Reserve, retiring with the rank of Colonel.

“He used to fly over our house at a very low altitude and dip his wings,” Diane remembers. “Daddy’s up there—he’s looking out for you.”

“He was a very humble man,” she concluded after his passing in 2006. “He didn’t want to be known as a war hero.”

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Primary Sources:

• Adam Bernstein, Obituary: Fred Christensen, 84: World War II flying ace downed 6 enemy transport planes in a day (Miami Herald; Apr. 16, 2006) (p. 5B)

• Bryan Marquard, Obituaries: Fred J. Christensen, at 84; World War II flying ace (Boston Globe; April 10, 2006) (p. C8)

• Fred Christensen Obituary (Legacy.com)

• Fred Christensen, World War II ace (Press Democrat; April 14, 2006)

• Guide to Aces and Heroes (Journal of the Air Force Association: Air Force Magazine; May 2012)

• Hero pilot in WWII dies at 84 (Associated Press; April 14, 2006)

• Kathy Uek, Pilot remembered as one of war’s best: Fred Christensen, 84, lived in Wayland, Northborough (Daily News; April 6, 2006)

• Megan Woolhouse, When the sky was not the limit (Boston Globe; Nov. 11, 2004) (p. 1 Globe West)

• Melissa Nelson Gabriel, Researchers solve mystery of World War II photo from Pensacola thrift store (Pensacola News Journal; June 5, 2018)

• Object No. Fre 177: Capt. Frederick J. Christensen of the 62nd Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group, holds up six fingers to show the number of aircraft he shot down during a mission on 7 July 1944 (American Air Museum in Britain)

• Stuart J. Wright, An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies (2020)

• USAF Historical Study No. 85: USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft, World War II (Office of Air Force History: Headquarters USAF; 1978)

• Wall of Honor Profile: Col Fred J Christensen USAFR (Ret) (National Air and Space Museum)