FEATS IN THE AIR

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 82, 18 July 1941, Page 6

FEATS IN THE AIR

Daring Spitfire Pilot

PARTY FOR EVERYONE How a Spitfire pilot narrowly averted a collision, with a parachuting German whose Messerschmitt he had shot down over northern France is told in an Air Ministry bulletin. Describing the incident, the pilot said :

“The flight began at a great height, when I approached the Messerschmitt and followed it down as it dived a.way from my attack. • We were diving almost vertically, reaching a speed of over 450 miles an hour, and after a three-mile descent I began to overhaul him. By this time ice was forming on my windscreen, but I kept the Messerschmitt in sight, and when close enough gave him bursts from my cannon. Pieces of the Messerschmitt began to fly off as the downward rush continued. One large piece' whizzed past my cockpit and struck my tailplane.

“We had got to within 2000 feet of the ground when the German pushed his hood back and baled out. I was only 50 yards behind him — about a quarter of a second away, at nearly eight miles a minute. I acted immediately, but the Spitfire had scarcely begun to answer the controls in that split second when I was on the German. My wingtip missed him by less than a yard. The abandoned aircraft went on diving, shedding its wings before it crashed on the-ground. I did not see the pilot again.”

By this victory the Spitfire pilot scored the hat trick. It was his third victim in three successive operations and his fourteenth victim in all.

One Of The Best Parties Yet.

The wing commander of another fighter wing, who shot down a Messerschmitt and damaged several others, described the British fighters’ work over France yesterday as “one of the best parties ever.” , “We were over our target when we saw 18 Messerschmitt 109 F’s flying in line astern,” he said. “I detailed two other Spitfires to follow me around to attack them head on. They quickly broke up into pairs, but 1 managed to get in quick bursts at three of them. Soon there was a party for everybody.

“One Messerschmitt that I hit went down in a vertical dive with black and white smoke pouring behind. I attacked another which also began io go straight down, and I jumped on him and chased him down vertically, firing with my machine-guns most of the time. He burst into (lames. Tin party happened over a wood, which from the sky looks like a big map of England, and it gave us a kick seeing the Huns go scrambling down.”

First Interne: “Did you say anything to encourage your patient?” Nurse: “Yes, I told him it would be months before he’d be well enough for his relatives to call on him.”