Fred J. Christensen, 84, a leading American ace of World War II who once shot down six German transport airplanes in a day, died April 4 in Northborough, Mass. He had diabetes.
Christensen was a captain in the Army Air Forces in Europe and was assigned to the 56th Fighter Group, a unit called Zemke’s Wolfpack, for its commander, Col. Hubert “Hub” Zemke. Among the group’s star fliers were David Schilling and Francis “Gabby” Gabreski, who was credited with 28 downings and was the top American ace in Europe.
From his single-engine P-47 Thunderbolt, Christensen managed 21 confirmed aerial kills and shared another.
Though he had a strong war record before July 7, 1944, his actions that day brought him national notice.
He was guiding a squadron over central Germany at 10,000 feet when he spotted below a series of large German transport planes – JU-52s – as they were preparing to land at a Luftwaffe airfield. He dived in for a close look, alerting other members of the squad first, he told the United Press wire service.
“They wanted to know if they should stay up there for top cover for me, and I said they might as well come on down, too, ” he said. “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.”
While other members of his squad shot down several of the Junkers, Christensen’s six was the record for a single mission at the time.
He added in other interviews that the P-47s moved so fast that their gunfire could easily miss the “lumbering” German planes.
To compensate, he once said, he received permission to change the aim of the guns on his plane to focus on one point.
Typically, he said, they were targeted in a spread so the gunfire would have a chance of hitting at least something.
He also credited a good-luck charm, a black cat named Sinbad that he took as a passenger in the cockpit.
Fred Joseph Christensen, the son of a Harvard University machinist, was born in Watertown, Mass., on Oct. 17, 1921. He said he had wanted to be a fighter pilot since boyhood and learned to fly at 15 when a high school friend’s father let him practice in his plane.
After the war, he attended Boston University’s music school – in later years, he played jazz piano at Veterans Administration hospitals – and flew in the Massachusetts Air National Guard for many years.
In the 1960s, he served in the Air Force reserves and also was a technical writer.
His military decorations included the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
Earlier this year, Christensen told Massachusetts Minuteman magazine he named his P-47 “Rozzie Geth” after a flame at Wellesley College. She was painted on the front of the craft, and he was repeatedly ordered to clothe her, at least in underwear.
“I could never find the time to do it, though,” he said.
