The Most Badass Pilot Of WWII - The Fat Electrician
In a Nutshell
Paul Irvin "Pappy" Gunn, a retired Navy pilot, rejoined the Army after his family was captured during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. He repeatedly stole and modified aircraft—including mounting eight .50 caliber machine guns on B-25 Mitchell bombers and turning A-20 Havocs into strafers—then developed the low-level "strafer" attack tactics that destroyed an entire Japanese convoy at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. His innovations were adopted for mass production and helped turn the tide of the Pacific War, earning him legendary status.
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Pappy Gunn, whose full name is Paul Irvin Gunn, served as a fighter pilot between World Wars I and II. He was part of the "Top Hatters," a naval aviation group that invented new techniques including landing on carriers with aircraft. By the time World War II broke out, he had already retired from the Navy after 20 years of service. Gunn was described as an extraordinary pilot who was passionate about flying and repeatedly developed cavities requiring root canals during his naval service. Fed up with the time-consuming dental treatments, he approached a Navy dentist requesting all his teeth be removed for dentures, but was refused. He then went to a civilian dentist and paid to have all his teeth extracted and replaced with artificial ones.
After retirement in his forties, Gunn moved to the Philippines with his wife and two children, where he bought a plane and worked as a civilian pilot. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Gunn correctly predicted the Japanese would target the Philippines next. He attempted to evacuate his family but was unable to get them off the island. American forces seized all aircraft, both military and civilian, for government use. Gunn was ordered to fly MacArthur's right-hand man to Australia on his private plane.
While en route to Australia, MacArthur declared Manila an open city, resulting in the Japanese capturing his wife and children. Angered by this, Gunn rejoined the Army, received a commission as an officer, and began hijacking planes in repeated attempts to return to the Philippines to rescue his family. Each rescue attempt failed, forcing him to return to Australia. Eventually, he joined a fighter squadron focused on winning the war.
At an airfield, Gunn observed nine or twelve Dutch-owned B-25 Mitchell bombers and questioned why the Dutch possessed new American planes while America struggled to acquire aircraft. He learned the Dutch didn't know what to do with them, so he returned with pilots, forged documents, and stole the planes for his airbase. Upon discovering the planes lacked bomb sights, which the Dutch had removed and stored in the sergeant's arsenal, Gunn took the supply sergeant hostage at gunpoint to retrieve the bomb sights.
Gunn realized high-altitude bombing of Japanese Navy ships was ineffective against small moving targets. He determined they needed to fly directly over targets and drop bombs at close range. To provide protection for the B-25 Mitchells, he acquired A-20 Havoc light bombers, which he modified as a skilled mechanic and engineer by mounting six .50 caliber machine guns in their noses. This required solving complex issues including aerodynamics, weight distribution, gun tremors, and maintaining aircraft balance as hundreds of pounds of ammunition were expended.
Gunn developed a coordinated attack strategy where A-20 Havocs would first strafe Japanese ship decks to draw crew away from anti-aircraft guns, allowing Mitchell bombers to fly in low and bomb the ships. He further modified the B-25 Mitchells by mounting eight .50 caliber machine guns in front of the aircraft, with additional guns positioned on the sides. During this period of intensive work building planes for the US Navy, Gunn repeatedly broke his little finger while working with wrenches.
When his broken finger continued bothering him, Gunn requested a doctor amputate it, but was initially refused. His medic friend, understanding the finger would need removal anyway, accompanied him to a surgeon who also refused on ethical grounds. Gunn then pulled his 1911 pistol and threatened to "clean your skull off your wall" unless the surgeon performed the amputation, successfully getting his finger removed so he could continue working.
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea occurred during the fight for control of New Guinea, where Japanese forces attempted to send an entire infantry division in eight troop ships accompanied by destroyers. Gunn led a fleet of modified A-20 and B-25 aircraft against this convoy. The Japanese, unfamiliar with the modified aircraft, mistook the low-flying A-20s for torpedo bombers and turned their ships broadside to present larger targets, following naval doctrine for torpedo defense. This positioning allowed Gunn's aircraft to strafe their decks with devastating effect.
The coordinated attack resulted in the sinking of all eight Japanese troop carriers, effectively preventing the Japanese reinforcement of New Guinea and helping turn the tide of the Pacific War. General Kenney, commander of air operations in the Pacific theater, recognized the effectiveness of Gunn's modified B-25 aircraft and ordered the designs sent to American engineers for mass production. Despite initial skepticism from engineers who claimed the modifications wouldn't work, Gunn was sent to demonstrate the aircraft, leading to official adoption of the B-25 Strafer model.
American engineers later outdid Gunn's original eight-gun configuration by installing twelve .50 caliber guns. In response, Gunn developed an even more powerful variant by mounting four .50 caliber guns plus a 75mm tank gun from a Sherman tank in the nose of the B-25, which later became an official aircraft variant. During a subsequent beach mission, Gunn was wounded and hospitalized. While recovering, Manila was liberated, and his wife and children were rescued from Japanese internment. The family was reunited at the hospital where Gunn was recovering, and he had become a living legend throughout the military for his extraordinary efforts to save his family while contributing significantly to the war effort.
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