Top Photo: Clayton Kelly “Windy” Gross poses for a photograph in front of his P-51 Mustang fighter named “Live Bait.” National Archives.

The grim nature of life-and-death struggles in the skies during World War II led some aviators to grapple with their mortality in strange ways. When it came to naming their aircraft, aviators sometimes resorted to dark humor.

The moniker on a P-51 Mustang flown by Dale Meyers of the 21st Fighter Group queried observers, “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” The phrase had a double meaning, both echoing a wartime fuel conservation poster and asking, to no one in particular, if each dangerous thousand-plus-mile roundtrip journey over the Pacific Ocean to tangle with Japanese fighters and shoot up enemy airfields was worth the risk.

A cheeky question adorns the nose of this North American P-51D Mustang based on Iwo Jima. National Archives

On the other side of the world, Frederick LeFebre of the 353rd Fighter Group flew a Mustang he named “Willit Run?” While LeFebre seemed ever suspicious of his P-51’s mechanical health, he managed to make it into the air for 119 combat missions. Both he and his aircraft survived the war, and the latter resides in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Another combat vet, a B-26 medium bomber of the 322nd Bombardment Group, is undergoing a meticulous restoration in Virginia. The machine managed to collect more than 1,000 holes from enemy fire during 207 wartime missions from various European airfields. The crew facetiously dubbed the battered and sieved aircraft “Flak Bait.”

“Flak Bait,” a haggard Martin B-26 Marauder, survived despite being punctured with holes from hundreds of enemy flak and fighter attacks. None of the bomber’s crewmembers were killed during the war. National Archive

Also in Europe, a young fighter pilot named Clayton Kelly Gross served with the 354th Fighter Group. His friends called him “Windy.” During his tours overseas, he flew many different fighters, both P-47s and P-51s, but he always named them the same thing. The moniker originated from a conversation with a fellow pilot, who suggested Gross should fly lower than him, so his gung-ho partner could pounce on overly aggressive enemy fighter pilots. Gross understandably chafed at the idea of being used as “live bait” but asked his crew chief to paint the humorous nickname on the nose of his trusty steed later that day.

Gross’s fighters named “Live Bait,” in various iterations, carried him through months of missions. During one flight, he had to bail out of his P-51 after getting hit by groundfire. On another day, with another aircraft named “Live Bait,” he shot down a German Me 262 jet fighter near the Elbe River. In between, Gross participated in some of the most important, and challenging, missions of the war in Europe.

As the sun faded on the evening of June 5, 1944, “Live Bait,” Gross, and the rest of the pilots of the 354th Fighter Group were cruising in the blackening skies, assigned the task of escorting gliders and their towplanes to drop sites near Normandy. Due to scheduling and weather, they were back on station at dawn, June 6, shepherding more gliders into France. During his D-Day flight, Gross got a look at the amassed armada of Allied vessels near Normandy. In his memoir, he wrote, “Below us in cold light of a new day was a sight I could not believe or will ever forget. It was more ships than I knew existed.” After patrolling the beaches for a time, Gross and the others turned home. During the most crucial days of the war in Western Europe, Gross was awake for nearly 30 hours straight.

As of this writing, the hand-painted A-2 flight jacket Gross wore on his missions over the beaches of France can be seen as an iconic part of The National WWII Museum’s foundational exhibit, The D-Day Invasion of Normandy. His nickname, “Windy,” is on the left chest. On the back is an image of a Mustang aloft and the simple moniker inspired by the perilous plan suggested by his overzealous colleague: “Live Bait.” 

The back of "Windy" Gross’s A-2 flight jacket features the moniker “Live Bait,” related to a misguided suggestion of a squadron mate. Gift of Dr. Clayton Kelly Gross, 2010.505.001

In 1945, Captain Windy Gross returned home to Eastern Washington, after two tours with the 354th Fighter Group, 105 missions over enemy territory, 400 combat flying hours, and six official air-to-air victories, earning Gross the title of ace. He later wrote, “Though I tried desperately to reactivate … during the Korean War, no success. I never donned a uniform again. But, in my heart, I remain a ‘fighter pilot’ forever.”