The One Who got Away

[rob van den nieuwendijk]

Hello all,

Just found a translation of Von Werra's combat report relating to 28 Aug 40 I would like to share with you.

I was flying as the Kommandeur's wingman as part of the Stabsschwarm when we attacked a formation of about 20 Hawker Hurricanes. Their formation and then ours dispersed and we fought individually I was involved in a dogfight with a Spitfire belonging to a second unit which attacked us just after the start of the combat. The Englishman hit my aircraft, destroying my radio. We lost a great deal of altitude while maneuvering into a firing position and had descended to 2000 meters before I finally managed to take aim. My adversary was hit and immediately dived. I plunged behind him while firing, more bursts, but he did not pull out and crashed three kilometers west of Rochester.

Flying again in the direction of the mouth of the Thames at very low altitude, I noticed six single-engined aircraft on my left. They had their landing gear down and were in a curve, preparing to land. I looked hard and saw ahead and below them a runway half hidden by a cloud of dust. Another formation was landing. At this time, I was only 300-500 meters behind the first group I had seen, so I also put my landing gear down and, with my engine throttled back, positioned myself behind the last aircraft which I identified as a Hurricane. As I circled over the runway like the seventh machine in the landing pattern, I could leisurely observe the airfield's dispersal area with aircraft parked under small trees to the west of the runway I did not see any anti-aircraft defences. "My formation began to land. As the first three machines lined up towards the runway and lost altitude, I retracted my wheels, opened up my engine and fired a burst at the aircraft immediately ahead of me. Instantaneously, it fell on fire. Maneuvering, I placed myself behind the second Englishman and easily shot him down in flames.

I continued to fly in the direction of the runway and then made a climbing turn to gain altitude, finally firing into the dispersal where I could just see the rudder tips of some Hurricanes protruding above the tops of their blast pens. I fired at the first aircraft, but my height did not enable me to aim at the rest. A little further away I saw a bowser with two Hurricanes parked on its right and another on its left. I fired at the bowser which exploded, setting flre to all three aircraft. Keeping at low altitude I made a half-turn away from the installations before carrying out a further attack. This time I tried to destroy the aircraft parked in the blast pens but was unable to observe any hits. The anti-aircraft defences were practically non-existent, with only a few machine-guns opening fire, but I dived towards them and forced the troops to run for shelter. I made two more attacks from different directions and set another aircraft on fire in its pen. That made five Hurricanes on fire on the airfield. A tent (undoubtedly reserved for aircraft maintenance) was also burning. Constant bursts now came up towards me from guns on the edges of the aerodrome, and I carried out my last attack against some of them. I then turned 90° towards the north, joined the mouth of the Thames and re-crossed the English Channel.

Positivelv destroved:
One Spitfire shot down in combat, crash observed,
Two Hawker Hurricanes shot down in flames near the runway as they were landing,
Two Hawker Hurricanes destroyed by fire on the aerodrome,
Three Hawker Hurricanes destroyed by fire following the explosion of a tanker; as well as a large tent (of which I could not observe the contents) with three stakes. .

(Signed) v. Werra ,(Countersigned) Oblt. Sannemann)

Nearly one month after this event, and almost certainly as a result of a higher authority seeking verification of von Werra's account, Hptm. von Selle was asked to comment. However, he could only write: "Considering the conditions of combat over England, in the majority of the cases there is no witness who can confirm or refute the declarations. Nothing, however, makes it possible to contradict the report." No doubt von Selle was referring here to his personal experience when several of his own victories - including a Spitfire shot down two days before von Werra's claims were not officially confirmed due to lack of witnesses.


Any comments...??

Best wishes,
Rob