I worked with an older gent once in electronics repair shop named Charles "Chuck" Judd, who wanted SO badly to be a fighter pilot when the war broke out. He made flight school, and his assignment during the war was in the Pacific, ferrying aircraft to forward bases. He flew the Dauntless dive bomber and other aircraft from bases in the Hawaiian islands to the Philippines, then he would go back and get another.
On one particular trip he was ferrying a Dauntless dive bomber from Honolulu to Manila. The aircraft could make the flight if they took out all the ammo and used the weight savings for extra fuel which they did. On this trip, somewhere over the Pacific, a Japanese twin engine Betty spotted the lone dive bomber and gave chase.
Chuck knew with the amount of fuel he had on board that he couldn't outrun the Betty, but he could out maneuver it easily enough. After a few failed attempts to get away, he was determined to come out ahead one way or another and he got behind and above the Betty, put his plane into a dive and flew through the tail of the Betty, chopping off a massive chunk of the airplane, and sending the crippled Betty into the drink with it's crew.
He made it to Manila none the worse for wear, and upon landing they could not believe what he had done to survive the harrowing flight, and even more could not believe the Dauntless made it the rest of the way! It had sheet metal all in the engine cowling, had holes all in the wings, chunks taken out of the propeller blades, but it was a tale with a happy ending and Chuck went back to Hawaii and ferried more aircraft before the end of the war came.