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Old 3rd October 2014, 22:59
RodM RodM is offline
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Re: Late-war Me262 Encounter over Northern Germany

Hi Andreas,

provided that the base facts of the story are correct, especially with regards to Czypionka abandoning his Me262 part way down the runway/landing ground after touch down due to strafing attacks, from memory (because I don't have the source material at hand) there are combat reports from the RAF units involved in a strafing attack on Lübeck that describe the Me262 pilot abandoning his Me262 part way down the runway...

I don't, off-hand. recall the date of the encounter, but the book '2nd Tactical Air Force Volume 3', by Chris Shores and Chris Thomas should have amplifying details.

Here is a published account about Czypionka abandoning his Me262:

Every flak gun on the airfield was already firing at the British fighters as the two jets came in at low altitude. "They were shooting at everyone; it didn't matter. The sergeant's plane was hit in one wheel by our own flak, so when he landed, it was flat and pulled him off to the right. He was lucky because that threw 'off the aim of the ones behind him who were trying to shoot him down." Czypionka was hit in the rudder and in his empty rear-fuselage fuel tank by cannon fire from a Spitfire that overshot him as he started to lower his gear and flaps. "He zoomed past me, and I decided I wasn't going to make it that way, so I pulled everything up and landed on the turbines." The airplane slid to a stop in the middle of the field. Czypionka leapt out and started to run as several Spitfires came in on a strafing run. "The flak got the one, but they strafed the airplane."

"Wilde Sau" mosquito fighters, Flight Journal, Apr 2002 by Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey

regards

Rod
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