himself when the warhead detonated. Capitaine Maridor had previously damaged the V-1 with his cannon fire, and seeing it begin to dive onto a military field hospital in Kent, chose to deliberately ram the bomb. United States On 25 October 1942 over Guadalcanal, Marine First Lieutenant Jack E. Conger of VMF-212 shot down three Misubishi A6M Zeros. Pursuing a fourth Zero, Conger ran out of ammunition and decided to use his propeller to chop the tail rudder off. However, Conger misjudged the distance between his plane and the Zero and struck the plane halfway between the cockpit and the tail, tearing the entire tail off. Both Conger and the Zero pilot, Shiro Ishikawa, bailed out of their planes and were picked up by a rescue boat. For his actions, Conger was awarded the Navy Cross. During the battle of the Coral Sea, SBD pilot Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was attacked by three A6M2 "Zero" fighters; he shot down two of them and cut off the wing of the third in a head-on pass with his wingtip. On 10 May 1945 over Okinawa, Marine First Lieutenant Robert R. Klingman and three other pilots of VMF-312 climbed to intercept an aircraft they identified as a Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu ("Nick") twin-engined heavy fighter flying reconnaissance at , but the "Nick" began climbing higher. Two of the FG-1D Corsairs ceased their pursuit at , but Marine Captain Kenneth Reusser and his wingman Klingman continued to , expending most of their .50 caliber ammunition to lighten their aircraft. Reusser scored hits on the "Nick's" port engine, but ran out of ammunition, and was under fire from the Japanese rear gunner. Klingman lined up for a shot at a distance of when his guns jammed due to the extreme cold. He approached the "Nick" three times to damage it with his propeller, chopping away at his opponent's rudder, rear cockpit, and right stabilizer. The Toryu spun down to where its wings came off. Despite missing five inches (13 cm) from the ends of his propeller blades, running out of fuel and having an aircraft dented and punctured by debris and bullets, Klingman safely guided his Corsair to a deadstick landing. He was awarded the Navy Cross. Cold War In the 1960 U-2 incident, Soviet pilot Igor Mentyukov was scrambled with orders to ram the intruding Lockheed U-2, using his unarmed Sukhoi Su-9 which had been modified for