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Instead of the usual large formation of bombers, or even a light raid of medium bombers, we would hit it with one squadron of B-17's escorted by our single squadron of Lightnings. Behind this plan was the experience we'd had in trying to get the Luftwaffe up into combat by flying fighter sweeps. The Jerries wouldn't come up for a group of fighters, saving their strength for serious threats the way we did when I was flying Spitfires for the RAF back in '40 and '41. The planners hoped the Jerries would think this was just another sweep and we'd get through to the target unchallenged, presuming Jerry couldn't distinguish Forts from Lightnings on their radar. Problem was, they could make a pretty good guess at it, and in our case, they did. We took off from Duxford and immediately lost four ships due to malfunctions, including our leader. By the time we met the bombers over the North Sea we had only eight fighters. The Forts had lost two on their way up and only had six now themselves. We went into what passed for a close support formation at the time. I was out to starboard with just my wingman (a new guy named Gary), two others were forward of the bombers and high, two to port, and two, including our stand-in leader, trailing about 2,500 ft high. I always hated the idea of close cover for the heavies because we had to fly slow to maintain formation, and a slow fighter is all too often a dead fighter. The first attack on us was a complete foul up on the Jerries' part. They came at me and Gary, obviously having mistaken our twin engine fighters for medium bombers. I took a couple hits from at least one Bf109 as they swept by at high speed and frantically tried to position themselves for a run on the Forts. By the time they made their pass at the heavies, the other Lightnings had a chance to get fast and dive on them. Two of the Forts took damage, but we managed to knock down four of the eight attacking Jerries. The others retreated, but it was certain we no longer had anything approaching surprise on our side. The only firing I'd done in this was some machine gunning at the approaching 109's just to give them something to think about. Gary hadn't even done that, and he was now moaning that he pretty well missed the whole show. I had some holes in my left wing, and sincerely wished the whole show would miss me from now on. Gary was by now all the way over on the other side of the Forts, having tried desperately to get in some shooting, which left me off the the right on my own. We made a sweeping turn to change heading from what the bandits would have called out, and two Lightnings went out ahead to try to spot any further attacks. Then the Jerries bounced us from behind and high. Three 109's had positioned themselves perfectly and screamed through the Forts. One Fort and one Lightning went down, but as the Jerries climbed and banked up ahead they ran into the forward escort, which caught them nose up and slow. They got all three. A ball gunner called out that there was a bogie down under the bombers. It was almost impossible to look down in a P38 without practically inverting, so if the gunner hadn't spotted him, what turned out to be a single 109 would have been shadowing us all the way in, giving out course, speed and altitude to his buddies. I went down for him. It was foolish, and actually against our procedures for one fighter to leave the formation, but I had to get him off us. I told Gary to take over my position and down I went, angling my ship to come down out of the high southern sun. The P38 is not very good for diving at an enemy, and if you don't watch your speed you lose control pretty quick. If control loss doesn't get you, the windows frosting over will. There isn't much of a heater in a Lightning, despite having two water cooled motors to draw heat from. As you dive you rub your hand over the windows constantly to keep them as clear as possible. Anyway, after a few minutes of careful diving I found myself in an excellent position to bounce the Jerry. I closed to within about 300 yards and began firing, and scored some hits on his right wing. He was pretty quick, and rolled left to dive under me. Having seen this move enough before to expect it, I took my ship up and banked high to be over him when he tried to come back up at me. He spent his energy in the first pass at me, and it was just a matter of my staying above and flying in a roller coaster pattern as he tried to out turn me. My long hours in the air practicing maneuvers over and over paid off now. Working my flaps and rudder almost automatically, I would get an occasional shot off at him while staying pretty much in control of the fight. It wasn't long before his plane was trailing smoke and losing power, and he rolled it over and bailed out. By this time we were only 2,500 feet off the water, and he didn't have long to wait before he was in the sea. I whispered a prayer for him, knowing how lethally cold that water was, and began to climb back up to my working altitude. Procedure calls for a fighter separated from formation to set a course for home and preserve his ship. I wasn't having any of that and since I knew I couldn't rejoin the raid I climbed up to where I could hope to catch them as they came back. When I got up to 28,000 feet on the return route, I found that someone else had the same idea. There was a single FW190 cruising there, and apparently watching to the east, since he didn't see me until I was almost on him. I don't know why he was flying alone, but it looked like it was going to be a classic one on one dogfight up high. Now the FW190 is an awesome machine under 20,000 feet. It can roll faster than anything else in the air, and has four 20 mm cannons that can shred a B17 on one pass. However, at 28,000 feet, the P38 - when the new superchargers are working - can out fly the FW190 in every way. The Jerry has to constantly be careful not to stall and find himself spinning all the way to the ground. I expected him to dive out to protect himself, since the FW can easily out dive the Lightning. They can take those things straight down if they want and build enough speed without control loss to scoot all the way to Italy before I could do a thing. This guy wasn't going to follow the usual procedure any more than me. This guy was going to stay up there and give me a fight, despite my obvious advantage, and by my second pass at him I realized that I was the one in trouble up here. This guy was GOOD! He was handling his machine with ease, rolling around on my turns to make himself impossible to hit, and as I slowed to stay behind him, he managed to roll out into a shallow dive to my right, coming back up in a high yo-yo to take advantage of my lack of relative speed to get position behind my right wing. I desperately banked up and over him, hoping to draw his nose back up and make him stall, but he just dipped his nose for more speed and rolled under my left wing. He was hoping I'd stall first, but with some careful extension of flaps I was easily able to maintain a gentle climbing turn until I began to gain the angle on him for a shot. He dove a little again and rolled off gathering speed to make his move, and it was extremely lucky for me that I was looking at him as he did, or he would have come up under my ship and knocked me right out of it. I added some more flap, rolled my nose down to the right, held my breath, and continued my roll until I was turning left and coming up under him as he was coming out of his maneuver. I scored a couple of hits behind the cockpit of the FW, but the chance was fleeting and he moved under me again and I had to concentrate on keeping him located where he couldn't bring those cannons to bear. I don't know how long this would have gone on, or even who would have won, but the dogfighting ended suddenly as the Forts came limping into view above us. We had dropped down to about 23,000 feet during the fight, and the Forts came through at about 25,000. The FW was looking for bigger game than me, and rolled into a shallow dive to gain speed for his zoom at the bombers. I stayed level with the flaps in and throttle wide open and the race was on. He got just into attack position on the lead Fort as I closed to extreme gun range on him. I let loose with all guns, and must have hit the gas tanks because he simply exploded. The was no chance for him to bail out. I don't know who he was, but I know my lucky shot had put a serious dent in the LuftWaffe's fighter arm by taking him out. I was happy to be back in the group, but a quick look around me told me how the raid went. There were five Lightnings now, including me. Gary was still there, but he'd taken some flak hits from the look of his right wing. The others all showed some damage from flak. There had been no further fighter attacks on them. Ground fire had done a good job on them all by itself, since they were such a small formation on which to concentrate all their guns. They really got it bad. There were only two Forts now, and they were both seriously beaten up. The lead Fort had no ball turret any more. There was just a hole in the plane where it had been, and many other holes in wings, tail and fuselage. All her engines were still running somehow, and it looked good for her to make it back. The second Fort had only the inner starboard and outer port engines running, and she looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. The top half of the tail was missing, and it was apparent that her tail gunner was gone as well. The Boss decided to take the lead bomber home with three Lightnings, and Gary and I would stay with the cripple. After about twenty minutes, Gary started having troubles of his own. His right engine quit, and he couldn't get the prop to feather. This was causing some serious drag and making his plane hard to keep straight. After just a few minutes of this he went into a spin and dropped toward the North Sea. I heard him say he was bailing out, but he was never found. I wasn't able to follow him down at all because just as he started spinning two Bf109's came screaming toward the crippled Fort and I had my hands full trying to get some speed up to engage. The Jerries realized there was no tail gunner and concentrated on staying behind him as he dove away. This gave me a good shot at them, but by the time I got lined up and firing, the left wing of the Fort was folding up and breaking off. I couldn't save them. That crew, like Gary, was never found. The 109's banked up and separated, so that no matter which one I followed, the other would be on my tail. I had seen this trick often enough in '40 & '41, so I just pointed my nose for home and gave it all she had, just hoping she'd hold together for me. Within about five minutes the Jerries gave up the chase and went home for lunch. I made it back to Duxford without
further adventure. Some time later I heard that the raid was a 'success'
in that it blew up some stuff on the docks. I was credited with two
victories, confirmed by gun camera film. It wasn't such a good day
for a lot of other guys. The North Sea is the coldest place
on earth I can think of.
Welp, that's the story folks.
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