[drgondog]

Thought you might want the following summary - there were a lot of separate Staffels in this fight!

April 24

F.O.312. Lieutenant Colonel Dix led a Ramrod at the lead of 357 Squadron to the Munich area from 1106 to 1632. The 355th provided target and withdrawal support to the trailing wings of First Division B-17s bombing Oberpfaffenhofen and Landsberg. Rendezvous was made at 1315 northeast of Augsburg, near Regensburg and turned south toward Munich.

The 357FG was already engaged with ZG26 and their escorts just north of Munich, quickly shooting down 10+ Me 110’s.

At 1320 the 357FS got into a scrap in front of the rest of the 355th, between Augsburg and Regensburg. Lt.Colonel Dix shot down a Fw 190 NE of Augsburg and chased down another very good German pilot in an Me 109 at Regensburg. The pilot was probably JG3 ace Ltn. Franz Schwaiger. Dix hit him hard and watched him in an inverted flat spin into cloud cover before breaking off to take on the Fw 190. Dix only claimed the 109 as a ‘Probable’ but Schwaiger went in just outside Regensburg.

Minchew, McNeff and Butler in the Red Flight with Dix accounted for two more 109s. Wilson and Demers in Yellow flight picked off one and two more 109s respectively between Augsburg and Munich in the 1335-1345 timeframe. StabII/JG3 Gruppenkommandeur Herman von Kapp also went down in this same fight.

During the fight, Minchew was separated from the flight and picked up Norman and Hillman near Munich. Norman called a bounce on unidentified single engine fighter below. Minchew investigated, only find a single 357FG Mustang. When he climbed back to altitude, Norman and Hillman had disappeared. Second Lieutenant Jack Sturm was also shot down in this fight.

Based on the timing and location it is probable that Luftwaffe Expertens Major Dahl, III/JG3 Gruppenkommandeuer and Fw Heinrich Bartels of 11/JG27 shot down Hillman, Norman and Sturm as they claimed three Mustang victories in the 1345-1347 timeframe in the Munich area. The 357FG also lost three

At 1340, just north of Munich, more B-17s out in front of the 355th came under heavy attack by 40 plus Fw 190s and Me 109s.

Kucheman led the 354FS into the gaggle and the 354th engaged for about 20 minutes in a wild scrap ranging from 35,000 feet to the deck. This fight started NW Munich, ranged over the city and around the bomber stream on the way back, SE and SSW of Munich.

Woody led his flight into one bunch of Me 109s and quickly flamed four, got heavy strikes on the fifth, but over ran it.. Boulet got strikes on number five but also ran past it as Woody slid in and put a solid burst into the engine and cockpit. Number five fell off pouring smoke, coolant and oil and finished in a tight inverted spin before blowing up. Woody then put another concentration of strikes into a sixth Me-109, from about 60 degrees deflection, before finally running out of ammo. The 109 fell off in a spin but Woody only claimed a "damaged".

In all, Woody, Fortier and Boulet destroyed nine in this encounter and Woody received a DSC for his role in the mission. Kucheman picked up three 109’s, Brown two 109’s and Fortier nailed one and shared another 109 with Boulet before the Luftwaffe was able to extract itself from this fight.

Woody and Brown became the group's fourth and fifth air aces.

Demers unfortunately was lost on the way home attacking barge traffic on the Rhine ~1425. He had a structural failure on pull up, losing both wings near Minden.

The 358FS had opportunities but stuck with the B-17’s to cover for the 354 and 357FS attacks.

The 355th FG claimed 24 but the final score was later reduced to 20-1-6. The 357th FG also had a great day in the same area with 23 claimed. In all it was bad day for ZG26, JG3, JG27 and JG300 but also a bad day for bomber losses with 14 B-17’s going down in the Munich area to fighters and flak plus another 7 crossing the border to land or crash in Switzerland. In all including ditchings, evasions into Switzerland and more losses on the way back to England the 1st Bomb Division lost 27 B-17’s, 17 due to actions by German fighters.

The Luftwaffe controllers were successful at exploiting the gap in coverage between the 357FG and 355FG due primarily to the trailing wings lagging too far from lead wings and positioned 200+ fighters in that area. The order of engagement seems to be ZG26 with 1/JG3 flying top cover around 1315-1320, followed by III/JG3 around 1325, then StabII/JG3, IV/JG26 and III & IV/JG3 in the 1330-1335 timeframe. IV/JG 27 appeared in the 1336 timeframe. The battle ranged from Regensburg to Augsburg and Dachau in the northwest to Muhldorf and Lanshut in the northeast to Rogoersdorf in the southeast to Landsberg and Oberfaffenhofen to the west of Munich.

Rarely did two different Fighter Groups cooperate so well.