Combat #10, page 19 by Glanzman

Great book to have sequential pages from!

Indeed! Thanks, Rick! 

Hopefully diving underwater will make him invisible to the pilot and he can survive that storm of bullets!

this is the kind of page where I'm hearing sound effects throughout while reading it and looking at the art - from the ocean water, gasping, approaching plane noise and bullets, and then back to a muted silence when he dives back underwater to dodge. very cinematic!

The pace is breakneck!  

Would a pilot actually have wasted time and fuel to go around and make another pass after the opponent had been shot down already, just to to try killing the pilot who is barely staying adrift? These are the types of details I wonder about, whether the comics publishers took liberties with the historical fact and perhaps embellished in order to create more drama. No differently than how the film industry takes creative liberties with "true stories" by adding fictional moments to make it more interesting. Either way, it's a really dramatic scene that allows you to feel the action going on!

Interesting question. Yes, that also drives me crazy. In the actual battle, the downed pilot feared he was going to be strafed so he hid under his seat cushion as he floated in the water. He didn't get strafed. It was, however, regular practice for Japanese planes to strafe pilots as they parachuted to the ground or were floating in the ocean. Here's an interesting fact: Ben Christman, co-creator of the Wesley Dodds Sandman, flew with the Flying Tigers in China and was killed by Japanese planes after he bailed out and was parachuting to the ground.