19th April 1945 - P-47s vs. He 162s?
Hello everybody,
Here's one more puzzle about Thunderbolts. On 19th April 1945, at 12:22 hrs, Lt. Gerhard Stiemer and FhjFw. Guenther Kirchner of 3./JG 1 took off from Leck. In a book by Marek J. Murawski - "JG 1 'Oesau' 1944-1945" - I found Stiemer's personal account of what happened next. Let me quote:
"We took off from the concrete runway in Leck, Kirchner [Fhj.Fw. Guenther Kirchner - author's note] stayed 30 meters behind me on my right hand side, as usual; [...] We climbed up to about 200 meters, when suddenly two Thunderbolts appeared behind us and instantly shot down Guenther Kirchner's plane. I saw him jettison canopy and catapult but his parachute did not deploy. I was very lucky that the Thunderbolts did not press on with another attack since one of the wheels in my plane failed to retract, forcing me to return immediately. Fortunately, I managed to touch down smoothly."
Mr. William N. Hess in his book "German Jets vs. The U.S. Army Air Force" doesn't mention this fact, nor could I trace it in any other source at hand. Could it be a case of misidentification on part of Lt. Stiemer? Perhaps Kirchner was knocked down by British Typhoons? The bounce took place only 2 km away from Leck and was witnessed by other JG 1 personnel.
In any case, the only P-47 pilot's credited victory on that day which I could track down is that of Maj. Paul Crawley 508th FS / 404th FG. Could anyone contribute some more data on this event? This would be the only Thunderbolt's victory over Hs 162.
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