A veteran of two wars--World War II and the Korean War--North American Aviation's P-51 Mustang was the first U.S. fighter airplane to push its nose over Europe after the fall of France. The P-51 scurried back and forth across the channel, taking on the best the Axis could put in the air. Mustangs met and conquered every German plane from the early Junkers to the sleek, twin-jet Messerschmitt 262s. An amazing array of firsts was piled up by the Mustang while carrying the war to the heart of the German fatherland. It was the first single-engined plane based in Britain to penetrate Germany, first to reach Berlin, first to go with the heavy bombers over the Ploesti oil fields and first to make a major-scale, all-fighter sweep specifically to hunt down the dwindling Luftwaffe.