Off from Gilze again. Fluid six bombed up for a target over the frontline of a fuel dump east of Emmerich.At Gilze we had 2/10ths cloud but as we approached the frontline at over 10,000 ft the cloud cover had grown to 6/10ths then to 8/10ths. Some FLAK but nothing serious. As we banked to starboard on the run into the target area Sqn Ldr Merfort called out bogies in the rear. A moment later they were upon us and we were all breaking and dropping munitions. I broke hard to starboard and saw at least three 109s painted in a mottled grey and blue colour. I saw air firing in front of me with a conga line of a/c and I joined up with that group firing at a 109. I should have left them to it but down came the red mist and I took a snapshot opportunity. I hit one of my fellow squadron pilots by mistake and he said on the R/T that he had been wounded but his a/c was still able to fly. This pilot was flying as White One. After this I relaxed and searched for my own section. They were not to be found so I hunted down a Fw-190 that I came up on above the cloud layer. He seemed to be smoking and may have been damaged by one of our pilots. I put a half-second burst into his cockpit area and saw the E/A dive vertically down through the cloud cover emitting black smoke. I claim this as a destroyed E/A. Over the R/T there was clearly much air combat activity. I heard a report of Heinkel bombers being reported and one of the sections attempted to give chase. Over the town of Emmerich I came across a bee-hive of air firing activity and saw that our escorting flight of P-38s from the 402nd were fighting a flight of Bf-109s. I approached a lone E/A on his low six and put a couple of 1 second bursts into his fuselage and wings. This pilot bailed out and I claim this as a second destroyed E/A. Some of our squadron were not answering calls on the R/T. We had lost Red Section and I believed that White One was injured but still flying. Yellow Two was in the same area as myself and I instructed him to take a bearing of 230 deg. to recover to Gilze. White Two was also in the area. We RV'd over Tilburg at 3000 ft and then headed for base. At about this time both myself and White Two ran out of fuel. Yellow Two had a little left in the tank. I instructed White Two to attempt to glide back to base which was only a few miles away and clearly visible at 3000 ft. White Two was lower than that at just above 2000 ft and he lowered down in a safe emergency landing in a field. He would return to Gilze quite easily. I put myself into a perfect glide slopw and made the main runway at Glize at a good air speed of around 160 mph. I let the gear and flaps down and made a textbook dead stick landing on the main runway and came to a standstill on the left side. I informed Yellow Two who used the other runway and made a clean landing. Two had RTB'd, two were in friendly territory and will be picked up later tonight and two pilots from Red Section are missing in action. F/Lt 'Madov' Emblin |
