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General Patton's L5 attacked by an RAF Spitfire.
Is anything known about the crash on April 20, 1945, reported by General Patton in his book “War As I Knew It”, of an RAF Spitfire, piloted in one account by an inexperienced Polish pilot, that had attempted to shoot down his L5 a few miles from Reidfeld (sic) near Munich? Patton saw four other Spitfires flying top cover for the crashed aircraft.
Robert K Wilcox in his book, 'Target: Patton', published in 2008, wrote that “ Maciej Stancki, a graduate student at both Warsaw University and Poland's National Academy of Defense”, had told him by e-mail that “the Polish Air Force lost no planes or pilots on April 20, 1945”.
The only Polish RAF pilots flying in Germany on that date, according to Wilcox, were 131 Wing comprising 302, 308 and 317 Squadrons, all equipped with Spitfire XVIs, but stationed at Nordhorn and out of range of Munich.
Tony
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