Thread by @Mother_of_Tanks

I came across a story that’s pretty interesting and thought I’d share it, even though it’s not exactly for #TankTwitter – but there is a tank. We can call it #SundayStorytime 🙂

Let’s start with a little background info though…

With the Great Depression kicking off in 1929, big manufacturers had to do something to stay in business. For some that meant cutting production costs.

Clarence Taylor, an engineer, designed a lightweight aircraft composed of wood, fitting this “lower cost” model and the prototype had its test flight in September 1930. He called it the “Taylor Cub.”

In December, William Piper bought Taylor’s company.

The “Taylor Cub” was renamed the “Piper J-3” and by 1938 over 700 had been sold. They each cost about $1000 to make. It took only 20 minutes to build one Piper J-3, which is kind of crazy if you think about modern production timelines.

Interestingly, the Mexican Air Force first showed an interest in lightweight aircraft in the late 1930s. The design was suitable for aerial surveillance of their borders.

The US Civil Aviation had been using the Piper J-3 for training purposes. In 1941, the plane was chosen for the US Army Air Corps, as a means for observers to correct artillery fire. (nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-E…)

It was called the O-59 (“O” for “Observer”), but from April 1942 it was known as the L-4 (“L” for “Liaison”).

The Piper L-4 eventually took the nickname “Grasshopper”. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_J-3…)

The L-4 Grasshopper was used in all WWII theaters. It was even used on D-Day to correct Allied Navy targeting. The British also used them with improvised contraptions for carrying antitank weapons, like a Bazooka. (Pics courtesy of @Erikhistorian 🙂)

So, the L-4 Grasshopper, being very lightweight, could take off with very short runways and, as the British showed, it could be modified slightly to carry some very useful weapons.

This brings us to the story of Charles Carpenter.

Charles was born in 1912 near Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. He attended Kentucky University and became a high school history teacher. Described as calm and soft-spoken, WWII would bring out a side of him that many never knew existed.

In 1942, with WWII raging and US entry into the war imminent, Carpenter (at nearly 30) left his teaching job to join the Army. He went to basic training, then (accelerated) OCS, and then on to flight school. He wanted to be fighter pilot.

Instead, he was assigned to fly the L-4 Grasshopper.

Let’s go through that again 😐

He wanted to be a fighter pilot.

Instead, he was given a lightweight, wooden aircraft, that was unarmed.

So, the Army has been disappointing people for a long time 🤣

Also, the plane had no lights so it was only meant to be flown during daylight. No night missions for you, dude.

Well, technically no missions for him at all yet 🙄

At first, Carpenter was stuck teaching other pilots. This kept him Stateside for longer – Carpenter calling Branch every week like

He didn’t waste the time though. If he wasn’t in the fight yet, he was going to be damn sure he was ready for when that day finally came. Carpenter got really good with his Grasshopper and the L-5 Sentinel.

(It didn't look like this)

It looked like this. And unlike the Grasshopper and most WWII aircraft, the Sentinel had no civilian counterpart.

In 1944, he finally got orders to France!

I’m not exactly sure when he arrived in France but I’m assuming if he arrived before D-Day he would flown during the operation. So, sometime after D-Day but before 20 September 1944.

But instead of flying, he was first assigned to serve as the ground liaison between aircraft and infantry.

He made the most of things though.

Again.

It wasn’t the job he wanted, but the experience gave him an appreciation for what the ground forces faced.

Here’s where the story takes some interesting turns!

Carpenter’s job was to move ahead of the forces with a scout unit and do stuff like identify locations that could be used for landing strips. They weren’t supposed to get into fights.

So he’s out with a scout unit and they spotted a small Allied infantry unit being attacked by Germans who were taking a nearby town. Carpenter urged the scout unit to attack, fearing the infantry unit would be killed. He was probably right.

They had some tanks with them and the Tank Commander was like “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Their scout mission was pretty clear about not engaging in dangerous battles.

Plus, they didn’t have enough Infantry with them, so going into the town was an even worse idea.

Carpenter didn’t care. There was something that could be done, it was within their power to do, and it could save the lives of those other guys – you bet your ass he was going to at least try.

Dude jumps up on a lead tank and grabs the .50 cal, starts shooting at the Germans, and shouts at the tanks to go and they move out 😆 (news.google.com/newspapers?nid…)

The Germans retreated.

During the incident, Carpenter accidentally damaged part of one of the Shermans. This pissed off the Tank Commander, who was already mad that Carpenter more or less led them into battle.

Carpenter was only attached temporarily to that unit, so even as a Major he wasn’t part of the Chain of Command and really had no authority to do any of this. The Tank Commander was like

So the Tank Commander was being a dick and had MPs arrest Carpenter.

That Tank Commander wanted him Court Martialed, even threatened death by firing squad 🙄

General Patton dismissed the charges though. This was exactly the kind of bold leader he could appreciate!

Carpenter was eventually tasked with his original mission, flying his L-4 Grasshopper. The problem is, after all the excitement on the ground, this was even more disappointing.

He could SEE the German vehicles from way above but he had no weapons and no armor and no way of doing anything. This got even more frustrating when he’d see them and alert the right people, but it would take time to see any action.

The only weapon he had was his sidearm. Well, that and a radio. His missions were generally to help guide artillery fire to their targets.

Funny enough, some articles say the radio actually exceeded the L-4 Grasshopper’s weight limits. (warisboring.com/army-pilot-too…)

The pilot manual for L-4A & L-4B shows a slight variation in the empty plane weights but the overall weight could be up to 1160 lbs. This left ~340-387 lbs for the combined weight of the pilot/crew, parachute, baggage, and observation equipment. (ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/…)

The Grasshopper was meant to be fast and agile, with the ability to fly over battlefields for long periods of time. Not the most glamorous or exciting of missions, but an important one.

Carpenter got an idea though 🤔

There were some experiments strapping bazookas to the lightweight aircraft. He decided to give that a try. He had two bazookas mounted on his Grasshopper at 30° angles & rigged with a remote that allowed him to fire them from the cockpit.

The bazookas were not that great on the ground because in order to use them against a tank, you had to be behind or beside it and hope for the best. Hitting the frontal armor wasn’t going to do much. But the tanks were particularly vulnerable from above.

And Carpenter was in a plane.

He started using this dive technique to get close enough to German vehicles to hit them with one of his bazookas then pull up before crashing into the ground. His success got his plane nicknamed “Rosie the Rocketer”.

The Germans would recognize these lightweight spotter “liaison” aircraft and tended not to fire on them. Firing could give away their positions to nearby forces. Carpenter exploited this and went after armored cars, tanks, and other German formations.

Eventually the Germans started to recognize his plane in particular and began firing back though. But the design of the L-4 meant that it could take a large amount of small arms fire and be fine, as long as the engine, fuel tank, and pilot were ok.

For the bazookas to be effective, Carpenter would often have to be within a hundred meters or so of his target. He could fire them independently so he had two shots he could use. It wasn’t enough.

Carpenter bumped up his firepower to 6 bazookas, all mounted to his lightweight L-4 Grasshopper, with independent firing from the cockpit using wired remotes rigged to each weapon. (warhistoryonline.com/military-vehic…)

He earned himself the nicknames “The Mad Major” and “Bazooka Charlie”.

His missions got bolder. At one point, after attacking German forces, he landed his plane nearby, grabbed a German rifle that had been dropped, and took a half-dozen or so German soldiers prisoner.

In Sept 1944, the German counterattack nearly reached the 4th Armored Division Headquarters. These guys were just headquarters personnel and had no fighting forces of their own. Gabel talks about in this paper armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/comb…

Carpenter loaded his 6 bazookas and took off, but had to wait for a dense fog to lift. When it finally cleared, Germans were closing in on that HQ. This was during the Battle of Arracourt. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of…)

Carpenter dove and attacked the front Armored Personnel Carriers (pics from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sd.Kfz._2… and The Tank Book).

He then went after other vehicles and parts of the formation.

When he had fired all 6 rounds, he went back to base, reloaded, took off, and attacked the Germans again.

He did this twice!

While serving in WWII, Carpenter reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. (army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/t…)

And while the official number is debated by those that know the story, the Army only officially credited him with knocking out 14 vehicles. He did make it into the February 1945 Popular Science, which is also kind of cool. (books.google.com/books?id=AyEDA…)

An article about Carpenter in the 3 Oct 1944 @LJWorld quotes him: “Some people around here think I’m nuts, but I just believe that if we’re going to fight a war we have to go on with it 60 minutes an hour and 24 hours a day.” (news.google.com/newspapers?nid…)

With all these dangerous missions, it’s a little curious that Carpenter wasn’t injured.

He did eventually land in the hospital though, and it was discovered he had cancer. The Army sent him home in 1945. (cancer.org/cancer/hodgkin…)

Like many of our Greatest Generation, Carpenter humbly resumed his pre-WWII life. He returned to his calm and quiet life, teaching high school history classes.

Despite being given only a couple of years to live, he raised a family and survived to age 53. Cancer eventually won that battle in 1966. (pics bendbulletin.com/localstate/la-…)

Carpenter’s L-4 Grasshopper was considered missing or misplaced for some time.

It was still in Europe though. Various owners had flown it before it ended up in a museum in Austria.

It’s now Stateside again, being restored, with plans to be flown this summer in Wisconsin. bendbulletin.com/localstate/la-…

I think all the links are above but there are a few others I'd like to share. This video, for example

Bazooka Charlie – WW2s Strangest Tank Buster

And this video

Bazooka Charlie – Pilot Who Attached a Bazooka to Plane

This one talks more about the plane in WWII.

The Piper Cub and Forgotten WWII History

Also more about the plane dday-overlord.com/en/material/av…

Anyway, that's all I've got for Carpenter.

Special thanks to @Erikhistorian and Joe (who is not on Twitter yet) and @102ndblackhawk6 for the feedback and help to finish this one🙂

~fin~