[Chris Goss]

From my forthcoming book:

On 12 February 1944, II./KG 40's attention switched to the Bay of Biscay and the southbound convoy OS 67/KMS 41 which included the carrier HMS Purser which carried two squadrons of Grumman Martlet fighters. The convoy had been located by a Ju 290 of Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 at 1054hrs after which it was ordered to shadow the convoy. That afternoon, seven He 177s from II./KG 40 and 11 Fw 200s of III./KG 40 had taken off from Bordeaux-Mérignac armed with Hs 293s. Being slower, the Fw 200s had taken off first starting 1430hrs only to be intercepted by Mosquitoes of 157 Sqn which shot down the Condor flown by FhjFw Karl-Heinz Schairer of 7./KG 40 and damaged two more from Stab III and 9./KG 40 at around 1637hrs. The convoy was now alerted of imminent air attack and at 2012hrs, four Wildcats of 890 Sqn were scrambled flown by Ltd Cdr Digby "Dagwood" Cosh, Lt Hank Wilson, Sub Lt Lawrie Brandner and Sub Lt Norman Turner; Norman Turner relates what happened next:

"The convoy was warned of a possible attack by the new Heinkel guided missile bombers. Dagwood and Hank were catapulted off to intercept a shadower-Hanks fired off a few rounds at a Condor but lost it in cloud. Radar picked up bandits as the sun was going down over the horizon. Lawrie and I were walking on the flight deck when Dagwood yelled "They are coming!". We dashed for our gear and were catapulted off after Dagwood and Hank, course 092 degrees. I picked up Dagwood and joined him. A climb to about 6,000ft and suddenly there was an explosion and a ball of fire-Lawrie had blown one up. Then I spotted an outline, called "Bandit!" to Dagwood and dived on it. The defensive fire was strong—I realised they could see my exhaust flames so dived underneath and fired from below. The rear and mid-upper gunners shut up. Disappeared into cloud and couldn't find them."

Lawrie Brandner relates what happened to him:

"Still heading east, what was that dim light heading west towards the convoy? Not one of us-we should all be heading east. I turned towards and saw a bloody great shape of a big aeroplane dimly. Obviously no friend of mine so I opened fire. Easy to go too close in the dark and knock down your target with a collision so broke away and started again. This time it was easy because the beast was on fire. One ring deflection, not a word of complaint from the rear gunner. When I was nearly astern, a parachute opened and the thing blew up, both too close for comfort. All I had seen was the tail and that seemed like a He 177. Then I saw another one and went in but he must have dropped his bombs because he climbed steeply and slowly that I stalled while trying to get a bead on him. Here the cloud was more broken and his rear gunner very active so I could see where he was but couldn't match his rate of climb and he disappeared into cloud and I lost contact."

The unlucky He 177A-3 was flown by Kommandeur Maj Walter Rieder who with his six crew were all killed. Command of II./KG 40 now passed to Hptm Hans Dochtermann who handed over command of 5./KG 40 to Hptm Hans-Joachim Stolte.