|
Re: B-24 shot down by Me-262 Photo!
There appear to be two candidates for shooting down the B-24 (44-50838) shown in the picture in this thread. According to Theo Boiten and Martin Bowman in Battles with the Luftwaffe: The Bomber Campaign Against Germany, 1942-45 (2001), p. 221, former JG 54 experte Lt. Rudi Rademacher shot it down. In their book The Me 262 Combat Diary (1990), p. 223, authors John Foreman and S.E.Harvey say the victor is believed to be another III./JG 7 pilot, Lt. Fritz Mueller.
Though at odds on who downed the plane in the picture, both sources agree that Rademacher and Mueller were the only III./JG 7 pilots who brought down Liberators that day and that they both used R4M rockets.
Boiten and Bowman say that Mueller brought down "Trouble N Mind," also of the 448 BG. I note that the book by Foreman and Harvey (p. 222) contains a fairly detailed account of Mueller's attack that says he saw six men bail out of the Liberator he attacked. Boiten and Bowman say that six men parachuted from "Trouble N Mind," not 44-50838, which had only one survivor.
|