Is Johnny Cloud a Superhero? Here are some amazing pistol shots!

Aside from killing enemy planes from behind the stick, Johnny Cloud was extraordinary in ways that can only happen in comic books. 

Did you know that he downed four enemy planes with just his sidearm – a .45 caliber pistol? It takes a precise shot, as the bullet has to sever a fuel or coolant line tucked under an armored cowling. And Me-109s and Fw-190s move fast – 150 to 300 mph fast! And, let's not forget the MiG-15 he downed with a flare gun.

None of them were easy targets.

In fact, the RAF estimated that a British Spitfire had to shoot 4,500 rounds from their .30 caliber wing guns (on average) to down one German aircraft. That’s a lot of lead! So, imagine having to face-off against one of these killing machines when you only have a pistol with eight rounds.

Such a feat has only been documented once during WW2 when REAL pilot Lt. Owen Baggett bailed out of his burning B-24 bomber over Burma in March 1943, and while drifting in his parachute, he shot (four times) into the cockpit of a Japanese Ki-43 cruising close to see if he was alive or not. He was alive!

The bullets from his Colt hit the Japanese pilot and the fighter fell out of the sky. In contrast, Cloud shot down two Me-109s, one Fw-190, and one Ju-87 with his sidearm. Plus, he fired a flare gun to destroy a MiG-15, but that was just a dream … or was it?

My favorite pistol match: Cloud faced down a Me-109 strafing him on an iced lake after his P-51 had been destroyed in AAMOW#104.
He had nowhere to hide. Most men would have dove to the ground, rolled, or jumped into the frozen lake where the ice had broken. But not Cloud!

He turned to face the enemy, braced himself in a combat stance, and aimed his Colt at the bandit flying so low that it seemed as if he wanted to sweep me off the ice floe contemptuously – with a wingtip. As he fired, Cloud vowed to fight on to my last bullet. His shots were precise, and the Me-109 exploded and crashed into the lake.

For sure, Cloud knew that pistoling a fighter was crazy as he once lamented when a Me-109 strafed his base, and he chased it with his pistol: I really must have flipped my props to trade pistol shots with a fighter.

Image Credit:

AAMOW#102 (April 1964); Art: I. Novick; Writer: R. Kanigher.

Johnny Cloud TM DC Comics