[mayfair35]

Hello Again Adriano,
Thank you for all your detailed information. I really appreciate it. Referring to the 24 June mission, I was returning early with a rough engine at between 20 to perhaps 23,000 feet. Somewhere over Jugoslavia while flying beside the bomber stream which was on the way to Ploesti, I was shocked to see 6 or 7 Me-109s lined up beside the stream preparing to attack the B-24s. I immediately decided to make a head on attack (I was higher than they were) and shoot them all down. Ha Ha, no one has a monopoly on being stupid. As I dove on them, they began their passes and by the time I got there, there was only one left. He began his pass, and I had to pull 4 Gs to get on his tail which blew out my gunsight bulb. I then opened fire jockeying around trying to figure out where I should be aiming. Here is the picture. I am firing at the Me-109, he is firing at the B-24s, and the B-24s are firing at both of us. Never saw so many orange bees flying through the air in my entire life and realizing that there were at least 3 or 4 that were not tracers, I had a great appreciation for what the German pilots went through when attacking bombers.
I finally started hitting him but not sure whether he caught fire or it was his coolant streaming out. Followed him to 15,000 feet as he tried to dive away but then had to return to the bombers. It was a court martial offense to go below 15K. That was a probable victory. I have the mission report for 24 and 28 June if you are interested plus the 9 July one.
An English gentleman, named Sadler, was also interested in trying to determine whom I shot down and came to the conclusion that on 28 June, it was Lt Gehring and on 9 July it was Uffz Hommes. The problem was that he tried to connect the times of my victories and probable location with the reports of the German pilots. Although these may be correct, if so it would only be by chance.
Let me explain. Our combat map was about 10 inches high and about 3 inches wide. That covered from our base to Berlin and from France to Greece. It had 2 sides but we mostly used only the part that covered Austria, East Germany, Hungry, Czeckoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Roumania (the Eastern part of Europe). Major cities, rivers, and railroads were shown. From 30,000 feet I had no difficulty knowing exactly where I was. But in a fight, I had no time to refer to a map or a clock for the time and so when we got right down on the deck, it was a guess as to what direction we had been flying and and how long. I think this is mostly guess work as in combat I am sure the seconds passed far more slowly than during normal flight so most of us have a limited ability to give that kind of information. We usually depended upon the bombers to say where they were attacked, or where we began the engagement and how it went from then on.
Would you like me to post the mission reports for the above?
Cordially, Art