The place was Asch, Belgium at a forward airstrip called Y-29, just ten miles west of enemy lines.

It was the first day of 1945. Happy New Year.

1st Lt. Alden P. Rigby sat in the cramped cockpit of his P-51D Mustang fighter at the end of the PCP steel plank runway and waited for his squadron commander to take off ahead of him. The weather was light fog and haze, with the sky only recently visible. Unfortunately for Rigby, that sky was suddenly swarming with more than 50 Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf fighters.

The Fw-190s had just started their strafing runs as the four-ship flight of Mustangs turned onto the runway. Alerted by streams of flak rising from the field, flight leader Lt. Col. John Meyer began his takeoff roll immediately. 1st Lt. Raymond Littge, in the lead plane of the second two-ship element, waited less than five seconds before following Meyer.

Close on Littge's right side and slightly behind him, Lt. Al Rigby released his brakes when Littge did and, with his left hand, rammed his throttle to its stops.

"We didn't even wait for the green light from the makeshift tower," Rigby said. "We figured we had little or no chance to survive this attack, but if we got airborne immediately we could hope for the 'little' chance rather than the 'no' chance we'd have on the ground."

As the Mustang's acceleration pushed him back in his seat, Rigby's eyes were glued to Littge's plane just a few feet to his left. On that narrow runway he couldn't risk even a quick glance at his instruments, flying by instinct alone. Nor could he look ahead down the runway or up at the attacking Germans. Over the roar of his engine all he could hear was "a pretty good rumble" coming from his tires as they rolled along the rough planking.

"Colonel Meyer's plane was right in front of me on the runway and the buffeting from his propwash was coming back at us," said Rigby. "All that buffeting gave us a lot of trouble with directional control." With his right hand, he eased his stick from its "neutral-back" position to slightly forward, feeling for enough airspeed to lift the tailwheel off the runway. Initially, he was steering by tapping his left or right brakes. Then, as the tail rose and his rudder developed more authority, a foot planted firmly on the right rudder pedal kept the plane going straight despite the torque of the big Packard-Merlin engine trying to roll it to the left.

"Colonel Meyer's two-ship element wasn't even airborne yet and we were right behind him fighting the buffeting," said Rigby. "I kept nose-down pressure on the stick to stay on the runway longer and get extra airspeed for control." The blue and silver Mustang danced along the runway as he fought the rough air.

He and Littge lifted off together, but that's when the formation scattered. "It was going to be every man for himself," said Rigby, "there were planes everywhere." The second he broke ground, he took his left hand from the throttle long enough to reach down and grab the short landing gear lever located halfway down the pedestal, pulling it upward. "I had to get the gear up quickly to gain speed", he explained.

At 300 feet Rigby got into smooth air, "but at that point I realized that our flak [gunners] were shooting at everybody." And they had a lot of targets. Fifty German fighters were being jumped right over the field by just eight American P-47 fighter-bombers which had taken off ahead of Meyer's formation. The "Jugs" had jettisoned their bombs and external fuel tanks through the German formations and attacked, giving the Mustangs precious seconds to get airborne.

"About the time my gear came up I saw that Littge had an Fw-190 right on his tail." It was going to be Littge's lucky day, however, because inexplicably this was the only time during Al Rigby's 76 combat missions that he had turned on his optical gun sight, gun master switch and gun heaters while still on the ground. As his wheels disappeared into the wings, Al Rigby was already armed and dangerous.

"I told Littge on the radio to 'break left,'" Rigby recalled. "He did, and that 190 just flashed across right in front of me. He was only about 75 to 100 yards away. I just led him one radii, just put the ring of my illuminated gun sight out ahead of his nose, and pulled the trigger."

He saw the bullets from his six .50 caliber machine guns impact immediately. "I saw that plane light up all the way from its nose to its tail. I could see the flashes of those AP [armor piercing] bullets striking metal." The Focke-Wulf slammed into the ground.

Thirty seconds after leaving the runway, and while still only 300 to 400 ft in the air, 1st Lt. Alden P. Rigby had shot down his first German plane of the day. The Legend of Y-29 had begun, and Al Rigby was minutes from becoming an ace.

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