[mayfair35]

To: O.Menu, Adriano Baumgartner, and eke

Thank you all for your most valued information and correction of my tale.

Discussion of 20 Jan 1945 Mission

It is interesting that we did not lose any P-51s on this mission. To me it is unbelievable and probably confirms the lack of adequate flying experience for many of the Luftwaffe pilots. On our part, it was a comedy of errors as the other three had never been in a fight.

My wingman, Jim Hernly, was unaware that he had lost his generator and thus all his electrical power. He was unable to use his radio, fire his guns or drop his external wing tanks. Just after I shot down the 190, Jim said he saw two 190s on his tail, and he radioed me to tighten up my turn. Of course, I did not hear him. He said that when he saw the bottom fuselages of the 190s, he realized they could pull a lead on him. Since I was not tightening up my turn, he immediately rolled over and dove for the clouds. Even with his external wing tanks on, he said his airspeed indicator read 450 mph in the dive. He came home alone.

As we made the initial pass, my element leader, Lt Edward Miller, reported that he did the same thing I did, got on the tail of a 190D, opened fire, got a number of hits, at which time the 190 went into an “uncontrolled spinning dive” (His words). He then made the normal error of someone inexperienced and followed him down (In his excitement he forgot all about the many enemy fighters above him that could have gotten on his tail). He lost the FW-190 in the clouds but when he came out below the clouds, there was another FW-190D right in front of him, and he shot it down. As he started for home, another came out of the clouds in front of him, he opened fire on it and it crash-landed. He told our intelligence that they were all FW-190Ds, which from your E-mails and the info from the Czech historians is obviously incorrect. Moreover, in fact it seems that no FW-190Ds were shot down at all??

Ed Miller’s wingman, Hansen, dropped his wing tanks on my command and made the head-on pass. As soon as he started a turn with Ed, he realized his engine was not running. He thought his engine was been hit during the head-on pass and rolled over into a dive to get away. At about 27,000 feet, he realized he had not switched to internal fuel tanks, did so, the engine restarted, and he climbed up to 37,000 feet where he said he watched the swirling mass below him. When I asked why he did not come down to help me, his reply was that he never saw me, only black crosses.

I thought it interesting that I estimated a total of 40 E/A but the other three thought there were 75! Does anyone have any idea of how many FW-190s were in this attack?

Now I would like to ask some questions about the information some have sent me.
My altimeter read 33,500 feet but I believe it must have been in error as I read that the 190A-8 service ceiling was about 32,800 feet. What is the ceiling of the FW-190A-9? How about the FW-190D? Several of my references give it the same ceiling height as the 190A model but I cannot believe that is correct. I think it must have been higher than that of the FW-190A model?

To eke: Can you explain what I or II/JG301 means. In the USAF a fighter squadron normally had 25 aircraft. Usually a group consisted of 3 squadrons; e.g. the 325th FG had the 317th, 318th, and 319th Fighter Squadrons. At maximum strength, we put up as many as 24 aircraft per squadron near the end of the war as we often had more than 25 aircraft per squadron. Our Fighter Wing was the 306th, which had four P-51 groups: the 31st FG, 52nd FG, 325th FG, and 332nd FG(This was the black group which had 4 squadrons). The 305th Fighter Wing had three P-38 fighter groups: the 1st FG, 14th FG, and 82nd FG.

When you refer to 9./JG301 or 4./JG301 are the 9 and 4 the squadron numbers? How many squadrons would there be in a JG? Is there anyway to determine the number of E/A that we encountered?

Unteroffizier Göthel of 9./JG301 went down near Dresden? Dresden was quite a distance from the site of our battle (90 miles?) so perhaps Göthel was not in our fight. When you say “by Helerau by Dresden”, does that mean the Stadt was Helerau in the Kreis Dresden? And are Helligenkreuz, Taucha, Dreihaken, and Kohau located near each other and close to the border of Germany/Czechoslovak? I cannot find any of these names, except Dresden, in my atlases. If all the 5 pilots you listed were in the group we attacked, perhaps one of my later shots was more successful than I realized. I know that except for Lt. Miller who shot at 3 aircraft and claimed them the others did not even get a shot at an E/A. I only could be positive that I got one and so claimed it. My wingman confirmed its destruction. And of course if there is any information that would correct the story as I related it by all means let me know. I do not want to relate incorrect information.

I now realize that I do not know the name of the pilot I shot down because I thought mine was the only short nose 190 shot down. Now that O.Menu pointed out that there was no way to tell the difference between a FW-190A-9 and the FW-190A-8 during a combat, and three of the downed aircraft were the A-9 model, I realize that I do not know who the pilot was of the plane I shot down. And all these years, I have been relating that we shot down 3 of the Doras. Well at least I now know the truth and thank you for giving me the correct information.

If I can answer any other questions, please let me know.

Horrido

Art Fiedler