02Apr45 USAAF & VVS dogfight

[mayfair35]

Nokose, I do not know what happened to the Russian aircraft but I have an expanded version of the 325th FG mission on 2 April 1945 (actually 2 missions were flown that day) and I think you can clearly rule out the 318th pilots as being involved with the Russian a/c.
The 318th lost 2 aircraft that day and another 2 had to land at friendly fields for some reason. One P-51 was lost while strafing a truck in a hilly area and failed to pull out of his dive in time, hit the trees and exploded. The other P-51 with three other 51s were chasing German aircraft and Lt Paul Murphy flew in front of a P-51 which was firing at a German a/c. His aircraft was hit, friendly fire, and he was escorted to a Russian held airfield at Kasposvor, Hungary. That is why 4 P-51s failed to land at home base.
The 318th incident time seems to be several hours later although I can only indicate what time our planes reported attacking 15 German a/c. The time was 15:10 hours which would be Italian time at our home base. 8 Me-109s and 7 FW-190s were observed heading east at 14,000 feet by 4 P-51s . The P-51s attacked, the e/a went into a Lufbery, 3 were shot down at which time the rest broke and headed for the deck in all directions. The official report is confused as to what type of a/c were destroyed. It shows Mc Donald with "2 Me-190s" and Amedro with "1 Me-190". I have no idea if it was 109s or 190s that were destroyed.
Cordially, Art Fiedler, mayfair 35 (MY WW2 call sign)