Bud Anderson, Old Crow, and the Triple Ace Who Never Lost a Wingman, Told From Warbird Alley at Oshkosh

Bud Anderson was one of the finest fighter pilots the United States ever produced. Flying a P-51 Mustang named Old Crow with the 357th Fighter Group in World War II, he became a triple ace with just over 16 aerial victories - yet the number that truly defines him is zero: across two full combat tours, he never lost a single wingman. He died in 2024 at age 102, one of the last great fighter aces of that war.

Who Was Bud Anderson?

Clarence “Bud” Anderson was born in 1922 in the farm country of Northern California, near the small town of Newcastle. It was orchard country - plum trees, dirt roads, and the occasional airplane droning overhead. Like a lot of future pilots, he was the kid who stopped in the field to watch an aircraft until it shrank to a speck and disappeared.

He entered the Army flying program as the war was coming on. By 1943 he was a young fighter pilot with the 357th Fighter Group, shipping to England and a field called Leiston on the east coast, close enough to the North Sea that the wind never really stopped.

The P-51 Mustang and the Merlin Engine

The 357th received a brand-new airplane: the North American P-51 Mustang. The early Mustangs had a good airframe but the wrong engine. Everything changed when the design received the Rolls-Royce Merlin, a liquid-cooled V-12 producing roughly 1,200 horsepower, built under license in the United States by Packard. Its supercharger let it breathe at the high altitudes where the bombers flew.

The Merlin has a distinctive sound. Radial engines on the Thunderbolts and Corsairs rumble and bark; the Merlin snarls - a hard, tight, ripping note you never mistake for anything else. That was the sound Anderson went to war in.

Why Was It Named “Old Crow”?

Anderson named his Mustang Old Crow, and most people assumed it was after the whiskey. He let them think what they wanted, but he always maintained it was named for the bird. The crow, he said, was the smartest bird in the sky - and one that survives anything. It proved a fitting name for the way he flew.

What Was It Like to Fly Bomber Escort?

Escort missions were brutal endurance tests. Pilots took off before dawn, formed up over the English overcast in the dark, climbed to altitude, and flew for hours wrapped around the bomber stream, S-turning to stay slow enough to hold formation with the bombers.

At 25,000 to 30,000 feet it was savagely cold. The cockpit was tiny and smelled of oil, hot metal, and rubber. Oxygen masks iced up around the edges from a pilot’s own breath. Feet went numb, and the heater was barely more than a rumor.

A pilot might sit like that for five, six, or seven hours on a hard dinghy pack, scanning toward the sun - because the enemy who killed you was usually the one you never saw, the one who came out of the glare. Then a fight would erupt into a swirling knife fight of aircraft, and just as suddenly the sky would empty and you’d be alone, low on fuel, a long way from home over winter water.

The Record That Defines Him: Never Lost a Wingman

Anderson flew two full combat tours of that work - and he volunteered for the second one. By the end he had a little over 16 aerial victories (16¼ by the counting of the day, sharing a fraction of one), making him a triple ace, three times over the five kills that earn the title.

But the defining number is different. Across all those missions, in one of the most dangerous jobs of the war, Anderson never lost a wingman - never had a man shot down flying off his wing. The whole job of a flight leader was to bring his people home, and he brought every one of them back.

That is not luck. It reflects a pilot who flew with his head as much as his hands - who always knew where everyone was and never let the excitement of a kill pull him off protecting his flight.

He also said Old Crow never took a single enemy round and that he never once had to turn back for a mechanical problem. He credited much of that to the ground crews who worked outdoors through the English mud and rain, sometimes all night, so the airplane was perfect at sunrise.

Bud Anderson and Chuck Yeager

In the same squadron - the 363rd - was another young pilot, a country kid from West Virginia with sharp eyes and a natural feel for the stick: Chuck Yeager. The two became close friends flying out of that muddy field in England and stayed friends for the rest of their long lives.

Two farm boys, one from California and one from West Virginia, both barely old enough to vote, flew Mustangs off the same wet grass and kept each other alive - before each went on to write a major chapter in the story of American flight.

Life After the War: Test Pilot and Colonel

Anderson stayed in the service and became a test pilot at Wright Field and at Edwards in the California desert, back when it was largely dry lake bed. He flew the new jets in an era when jets were killing pilots regularly, because no one yet knew where the limits were.

He also flew one of the wild experiments of the age, in which small parasite fighters were docked to the wingtips of a large bomber in flight to extend escort range - locking one wingtip to another airplane’s wingtip. He later commanded a fighter wing, flew combat again in another war, and retired a full colonel after 30 years in the cockpit.

Old Crow at Oshkosh Today

In his later years, Anderson came to the fly-ins and warbird gatherings. He would stand in front of a restored Mustang painted as Old Crow - an old man in a ball cap - and talk to anyone who wanted to listen. He also told the whole story in his memoir, To Fly and Fight, an honest, unvarnished account of what the flying was really like.

He lived a long life and passed away in 2024 at 102 years old, among the very last of the great fighter aces of World War II. That longevity means many people walking Warbird Alley today got to shake his hand.

The warbirds at Oshkosh aren’t behind glass - they fly in and taxi the same pavement visitors walk. A restored Old Crow is as near to the original as devotion can make it: the kind of machine a skilled, frightened 22-year-old used to do an impossible job and bring his friends home.

Key Takeaways

Bud Anderson flew the P-51 Mustang “Old Crow” with the 357th Fighter Group in WWII and became a triple ace with just over 16 aerial victories.
His most remarkable record: across two combat tours, he never lost a wingman and his own aircraft never took an enemy round.
The Mustang’s transformation came from the Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 (~1,200 hp), which gave it high-altitude performance for bomber escort.
Anderson named the aircraft for the crow - “the smartest bird in the sky” - not the whiskey, and served in the same squadron as Chuck Yeager.
After the war he became a test pilot at Edwards and Wright Field and retired a full colonel; he died in 2024 at age 102 and left his story in the memoir To Fly and Fight.