Don't know whether this is true or false; if true -- a great read ... if false -- a good read and great fiction.
Anyway ... it was forwarded by an Amigo and I've never seen it before ...
In either case, the guy is a "real" guy w/ real bona fides ... it's worth the next 5 minutes out of your life to read it ... and, of course, to wonder if you could measure up .... to wit:
The 94th made the group's first combat sorties in North Africa with a six ship strafing run on a German airfield at Gabes. On the flight back to Youks-les-Bains, Captain Newell Roberts and Lt Jack llfrey shared in the destruction of a Bf-110. Later, the squadron claimed responsibility for victories over two Ju-88s and a pair of Bf-109s. 27th and 71st P-38s escorted 47 C-47's which dropped 600 paratroopers on a field in Tunisia. The red, white and blue chutes all at once were reportedly a "very pretty sight." ....
Soooooooooooooo .... read it & weep ... it makes a missile shot in the face @ 10 miles seem ... unsportsmanlike at the very least.
Whatever ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ace Newell ' Robbie ' Roberts, a descendant of Eddie Rickenbaker's ' Hat In The Ring ' squadron, tells how they ' worked ' their P-38s from six miles plus-down to North Africa's desert sand.
Robbie recalls :
" With only ' three seconds to work ' there was no time to correct any mistakes - I learned this lesson from the first Messerschmitt I shot down. In that encounter, I had three seconds to [see it-pull up-and] shoot ! "
Back home, most people had thought fighter pilots would zoom and dive and twist around like a swarm of bees, spitting bullets right and left.
For us-it wasn't like that.
You take-off in your P-38 for several hours to escort bombers, patrol or strafe. Even though you had the most concentrated firepower of any WW II fighter at that time, you only had a couple minutes worth of bullets.
You held your fire until you were a hundred yards from your enemy, then ' let her go' in three second bursts . . each squirting 300 shells . . that could knock him down. Unless, he shot you first !
My first shoot-down was one of two Me-110s cruising over Tunisia. I was the flight leader and we were patrolling the Mediterranean, trying to keep the U-boats' periscopes under the water.
On our return, we about to strafe German field concentrations, when I saw a couple of twin-engined Messerschmitts just above us . . . . . on our same compass heading !
We had the speed to overhaul them-but no time to maneuver, so I just gave my engines full throttle, pulled up the nose, got one in my sights, gave him a squirt and he burst into flames. It took about as long to do it-as it takes you to read about it. My buddy was as quick-and he shot down the other one.
We learned to fight in teams, rather than accepting high risk ' solo ' aerial combat. And almost anytime we attempted to use aerobatic maneuvers, the Jerries could shoot us down. In a P-38, the pilot ' ate up ' his precious time trying to roll or pull it around-when a German fighter pilot could kill him in a handful of seconds.
In addition, many of the P-38 pilots we ' lost ' were those who let themselves be ' suckered away ' from their formations. The Jerries would often send one of their fighters, out ahead - down low - as a decoy. If one of our pilots attacked the decoy, a whole team of Me's would swoop down and kill him.
But, if our whole team dove after the ' bait,' the Me 109s would usually keep out of it. As a team, we could often outfly and outshoot the Jerry's team.
From England, we headed toward Algeria for nine straight hours with a B-26 to guide us. Sitting in that P-38 was bad enough, but we were thinking about ' shooting our way in ' if the airfield was still in enemy hands.
Recently, the airfield had been surrendered to Allied troops. But German bombers had just cratered the runway. We landed anyway and successfully dodged around the bomb craters, except for our Colonel who smashed his P-38 ' flat as a pancake, ' but crawled out with only bruises.
Winging that far to North Africa had set a distance record for fighters. But after flying across the North Atlantic in mid-winter, it was easy.
[ And that was an interesting deal-so let's back up a bit-and consider the threats of that scenario. ]
In case the Japs attacked the West Coast, after striking Pearl Harbor, our squadron of fighters was rushed to California to ' head them off. '
It was a lucky break for us, when that it did not happen. Our P-38s were so new, nobody knew how to effectively fly them in combat. Now, we had time to work out a new system of battle tactics, and learn how to use the P-38's strong points.
Formation flying in weather over the ocean was the most dangerous flying I have ever done. Sometimes. Our formations were so tight that our wingtips were only three feet apart. Less than that, it turned out . . when someone jammed his wing into my rudder. But we both got down okay. Another day, I watched two Lightnings fold together-canopy to canopyy-then plunge into the ocean. Not long after that, in the fog, a pilot smashed up into me from below and ' knocked out ' both of my engines. He had to bail out, but I chose to pancake ' dead stick ' into a small field. I didn't get hurt.
Then, we were given new P-38s equipped with jumbo belly tanks. And rumors quickly spread that we were heading ' overseas.' We felt good about it, because we now had confidence in the P-38s' strong capabilities.
Our squadron flew from California to Maine, where we practiced long flights in thick soup over the Atlantic.
Labrador was our first leg, but it was frequently buried in low cloud. So, each day, a Flying Fortress carrying our squadron's navigator, would take a look.
We got in there okay. However, the world's best weatherman could not predict the weather waiting for us in Greenland. After several false starts, we ' hovered closely' around our ' mothership' and headed for it.
With icebergs and mountains all around, our navigator in the B-17, was able to locate the tiny runway. We all got down alright. But, fighters taking off behind us, headed for a different airstrip in Greenland. Their navigator could not find it so they all bellied in on the ice cap-stayed there for a long time. We pushed on to Iceland.
That flight out of Iceland still gives me dreams more terrible than any aerial dog fight I've ever been in. In thick soup, with each Fortress 'mothering'~ four Lightnings, we headed toward Scotland.
The soup became thicker. And then thicker . For five incredibly tense hours, we were forced to jam ourselves closer together under the Fortress' wings - with our wingtips nearly touching one another.
It seemed more like 50 hours !
Through a small hole in the clouds, we finally saw land. But it flashed by so quick- we didn't have a clue whether the hole was over Scotland or Germany.
We made contact with a radio station in Northern Ireland and asked them for a homing assist. We couldn't understand their instructions- and inn our frustration, we cussed them out. They said : "Don't worry old chappies. Just stay up there and we'll have you down in a jiffy !" They sent up a ' night fighting ' radar-equipped Beaufighter. And we fastened on that plane [ like fleas on a hound dog. ] And its crew ' mothered ' us into an airfield just in the nick of time. I had only enough gas for maybe thirty more minutes.
The British gave us combat training from the hottest combat squadron in Great Britain-the 303rd Polish Pursuit Group. Those Spitfire-flying Polish kids taught us everything they had learned flying while against the Jerries. We went along with Poles on seven of their combat sorties. But were we never jumped by the ' Jerries.' Those Poles were the best dog fighter pilots' I have ever seen. By the time we reached Africa, we thought we could ' sweep the skies of Jerries and Eyties.'
Our squadron's first home was actually a goat pasture. And when it rained, we had to land without making a three-point landing. If we did, the P-38's nose wheel would bury itself in the mud and we would flip over on our backs.
We were our own ground crew, at first. We flew all day, then worked six or eight more hours at night, cleaning and loading our guns and filling our tanks from hundreds of five-gallon gas cans.
You've no idea how many gas cans are needed to fill a P-38's tanks. When the ground crews finally arrived, there were so many empty cans, they filled them with earth, then stacked them into ' walls ' for make-shift shacks. Rain or shine, we had been living in canvas ' pup tents.' Early on, we lived on chocolate bars and emergency rations. I weighed 175 pounds when we arrived-four months later, I was a stringy 135 pounds.
Lockheed Lightnings were built to fly and fight at 30,000 feet plus and our main task was as high altitude escort for the Flying Fortresses on their forays over North Africa and Italy.
Nobody had any idea that the P-38s would be good for combat down to ten feet. And Buddy, I really mean-TEN feet-to include a lo low-level mission on the strategic but enemy-held : Faid Pass.
GHQ assigned us fly into it and ' clean out ' Jerry's tank and gun positions, so our troops could push through. The pass was just wide enough, to allow four P-38's-with near overlapping wings-to ' squeeze ' between its steep walls.
We were ordered to do the job between 7:20 and 7:25 a.m. No earlier than 7:20 a.m. - BUT -absolutely NOT LATER than the ' exact time hack ' of 7:25 a.m.
On the ' dot ' we roared into Faid Pass-shooting-then climbing and di diving and-shooting-as though we were on roller coaster rails.
Every time we dived, we shot a burst into a gun position or a tank, then zoomed up to gain a favorable position for the next dive. At 7:25 our ground troops charged through. The remaining Jerries were dead, wounded or hiding out. Our coordinated attack was so successful, we cleaned out the Kasserine Pass, on another day. It was a tricky operation for a plane designed for-wide-open skies at 30M-travelinling along at 400 mph.
The big advantage in buzzing in at the tree tops, was to let ' them have it ' before their flak could be set up. And with that same devastating effect, we zoomed in on a target where the Jerries had converted the town's sports arena into an military airdrome. We roared just above the main streets ' roof top's to side-step most of the ack-ack. The P-38 wasn't designed as a bomber, but we often carried a couple of bombs on our strafing expeditions. During one of those sorties, we dropped our bombs, then zoomed up to be in position for aerial fighting. While zooming up, I saw several Me-109s take off from the edge of a woods. I couldn't tell how many there were for the dust. But I told my flight : " Let's take them on. I'll take the first one." My wingman said : "I'll take the second." Lovell and McWhorter picked out their own.
One Me-109 pulled around ' head-on ' into me. Twice before, I'd had been flown into ' head-on. ' So talking to myself I said [ maybe shouted ] : " If you can take it, Jerry-I can." Both of us were just 200 feet off the ground, when I gave him a squirt. He blew to pieces and I made a quick turn left to avoid the debris. Continuing in the turn, another Me 109 came into my sights. I was quickly on his tail. When I gave him a burst-he dove straight in.
My squadronmates were getting in their bursts, also. There were alot more Jerries than I expected. But we had the position and the speed.
I heard someone yell : "LOOK OUT ! THERE'S ONE ON YOUR TAIL ! " I looked back in a hurry. But the Jerry wasn't on me-he was on my wingman Jack Ilfrey's tail. Jack was asking : " Somebody -please come do something ! "
It's funny how things just come out of your mouth in a ' pinch ' like that.
I dived to shoot the 109 off Jack's tail. And as quickly as I got the Jerry in my sights and pressed the trigger-nothing happened.. In all the excitement-to do . . is to- R-A-M - this guy ! "
So I swerved hard into the Messerschmitt. As I swerved in, the German ' veered away ' to avoid the mid- air. But he veered into the gunsights of Bill Lovell. Bill's quick burst brought the Jerry down.
Mac's plane vanished in the skirmish. One of Jack Ilfrey's engines was out, so while Lovell and I hovered above his limping plane, we headed for home as the Jerries decided to break it off, also.
In about three minutes of fighting, the four of us had shot down nine ( 9 ) Me-109s, with our apparent loss of one pilot. Later that afternoon, with one of his engines sputtering . . Mac's plane limped in.
After being chased out into the desert, Mac was low on gas and landed on a village road. Scouting around the town, he located some auto gasoline, tanked up and flew home.
When Rommel's army was still in Tripoli, I was doing reconnaissance, and I'd dropped down to 5,000 feet over a peaceful place named Casa Bonita. There wasn't a German plane in the air. No one seemed to be shooting at me from the ground. And I was curious as to -WHY THEY WERE NOT shooting at me ? I kept peering down. In a flash, I saw blotched silhouettes-and I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Directly below, I could make out a very skillfully camouflaged airstrip that was stacked, wingtip to wingtip, with dozens of planes. Only intuition and pure luck had revealed them. Maybe ' Desert Fox ' Rommel, had been stashing them as an unpleasant surprise party for us. I immediately thought : "Robbie, you'd better high tail it . . out of here ! "
At a bomber base, the B-26's loaded up. Bombers had led me across the Atlantic and down to Africa. This time I led them. And we swept into Casa Bonita to unload bombs so quick that only three of Jerry's fighters had time to respond. Later, Intelligence counted 128 Axis aircraft destroyed by the raid. After Rommel evacuated Tripoli, our squadron strafed his communications center, then using difficult to guess figure-8's, we swooped in on the lines of trucks, locomotives and rail cars . . and let them have it with bombs, cannon and machine guns. Our missions with the Fortresses were at high altitude, with six to twelve Lightnings attached to each set of twenty B-17s. We flew high fly above them, so when the Jerry tried to get set to dive on them, we were positioned to dive on them.
As long as they let the bombers alone, we let them alone. They might even send a couple of Messerschmitts down to make non-firing passes. We stayed where we were . . unless they actually attacked the bombers.
That's how ' businesslike ' it was. But it took plenty of nerve for the Jerries to attack our bombers. From the bombers defensive formation, at least nine Fortress' guns would be shooting at them. Meanwhile, our Lightnings would be attacking them with all we had.
Usually, the only time we broke formation was when a Fortress was struck by ' ack-ack ' or gunfire . . then it fell behind.
The Jerries always waited like buzzards for this to happen. But it would be our our task to hover above the injured bomber, and fight off any attacking Germans while the bomber ' limped' home.
After a battle, I was protecting a shot-up bomber, as he was limping along at about 150 miles an hour. As I was trying to get in a better defensive position above him, two Me-109s attacked me.
All the other P-38's were spread out across the sky, so the Germans stayed on my tail. And the three of us circled around in a Lufberry at 15,000 feet. I couldn't gain on them; they couldn't gain on me. So I called on my radio : âEUR I've got two Me-109s that need some help [ can you give 'em a hand ! ] " Lt. Murdock heard me. Soon . . he swooped in ! I gave him a squirt. And down that Jerry went in . . trailing a long black streamer of smoke.
Over Tunis, our bombing missions were low-level. Our total mission distance was short enough to allow us to carry bombs, defend the bombers and still make it back home.
On one mission, I was flight leader for a dozen Lightnings, protecting two dozen Fortresses. After we completed that part of our mission, we headed down to drop our bombs on some railroad yards . . where I almost twisted my neck off . . looking around and up for Jerries on my ' tail.
Just as our bombers warned us by radio, I saw this bunch of Me-109s coming up behind us.
I called my planes together, and I began making a fifteen-degree bank join- up turn into the attacking Jerries. During the turn, I looked in the cockpit of the closest Lightning and saw its pilot munching on a chocolate bar. I guess he was distracted by his hunger and was not listening to his radio. Or he was not looking around. When I turned my head to look at him again . . he wasn't there. Jerry shot him down.
They must have thought he was such easy meat . . they could shoot down the rest of us. So, going round and round about fifty feet off the ground -- eleven P-38s and fifteen Me-109s, fought for nearly 100 miles. The Fortresses soon disappeared as we battled.
We lost two men . . the fellow who went down eating the chocolate bar and Bill Lovell. Bill shot down one Messerschmitt before he was also killed.
That fight explains why the next day's battle communique read :
"All our bombers returned safely."
Newell O. Roberts. M.D. 94th Pursuit Squadron
[ Abridged from Collier's magazine, September 3, 1943 ]
Anyway ... it was forwarded by an Amigo and I've never seen it before ...
In either case, the guy is a "real" guy w/ real bona fides ... it's worth the next 5 minutes out of your life to read it ... and, of course, to wonder if you could measure up .... to wit:
The 94th made the group's first combat sorties in North Africa with a six ship strafing run on a German airfield at Gabes. On the flight back to Youks-les-Bains, Captain Newell Roberts and Lt Jack llfrey shared in the destruction of a Bf-110. Later, the squadron claimed responsibility for victories over two Ju-88s and a pair of Bf-109s. 27th and 71st P-38s escorted 47 C-47's which dropped 600 paratroopers on a field in Tunisia. The red, white and blue chutes all at once were reportedly a "very pretty sight." ....
Soooooooooooooo .... read it & weep ... it makes a missile shot in the face @ 10 miles seem ... unsportsmanlike at the very least.
Whatever ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ace Newell ' Robbie ' Roberts, a descendant of Eddie Rickenbaker's ' Hat In The Ring ' squadron, tells how they ' worked ' their P-38s from six miles plus-down to North Africa's desert sand.
Robbie recalls :
" With only ' three seconds to work ' there was no time to correct any mistakes - I learned this lesson from the first Messerschmitt I shot down. In that encounter, I had three seconds to [see it-pull up-and] shoot ! "
Back home, most people had thought fighter pilots would zoom and dive and twist around like a swarm of bees, spitting bullets right and left.
For us-it wasn't like that.
You take-off in your P-38 for several hours to escort bombers, patrol or strafe. Even though you had the most concentrated firepower of any WW II fighter at that time, you only had a couple minutes worth of bullets.
You held your fire until you were a hundred yards from your enemy, then ' let her go' in three second bursts . . each squirting 300 shells . . that could knock him down. Unless, he shot you first !
My first shoot-down was one of two Me-110s cruising over Tunisia. I was the flight leader and we were patrolling the Mediterranean, trying to keep the U-boats' periscopes under the water.
On our return, we about to strafe German field concentrations, when I saw a couple of twin-engined Messerschmitts just above us . . . . . on our same compass heading !
We had the speed to overhaul them-but no time to maneuver, so I just gave my engines full throttle, pulled up the nose, got one in my sights, gave him a squirt and he burst into flames. It took about as long to do it-as it takes you to read about it. My buddy was as quick-and he shot down the other one.
We learned to fight in teams, rather than accepting high risk ' solo ' aerial combat. And almost anytime we attempted to use aerobatic maneuvers, the Jerries could shoot us down. In a P-38, the pilot ' ate up ' his precious time trying to roll or pull it around-when a German fighter pilot could kill him in a handful of seconds.
In addition, many of the P-38 pilots we ' lost ' were those who let themselves be ' suckered away ' from their formations. The Jerries would often send one of their fighters, out ahead - down low - as a decoy. If one of our pilots attacked the decoy, a whole team of Me's would swoop down and kill him.
But, if our whole team dove after the ' bait,' the Me 109s would usually keep out of it. As a team, we could often outfly and outshoot the Jerry's team.
From England, we headed toward Algeria for nine straight hours with a B-26 to guide us. Sitting in that P-38 was bad enough, but we were thinking about ' shooting our way in ' if the airfield was still in enemy hands.
Recently, the airfield had been surrendered to Allied troops. But German bombers had just cratered the runway. We landed anyway and successfully dodged around the bomb craters, except for our Colonel who smashed his P-38 ' flat as a pancake, ' but crawled out with only bruises.
Winging that far to North Africa had set a distance record for fighters. But after flying across the North Atlantic in mid-winter, it was easy.
[ And that was an interesting deal-so let's back up a bit-and consider the threats of that scenario. ]
In case the Japs attacked the West Coast, after striking Pearl Harbor, our squadron of fighters was rushed to California to ' head them off. '
It was a lucky break for us, when that it did not happen. Our P-38s were so new, nobody knew how to effectively fly them in combat. Now, we had time to work out a new system of battle tactics, and learn how to use the P-38's strong points.
Formation flying in weather over the ocean was the most dangerous flying I have ever done. Sometimes. Our formations were so tight that our wingtips were only three feet apart. Less than that, it turned out . . when someone jammed his wing into my rudder. But we both got down okay. Another day, I watched two Lightnings fold together-canopy to canopyy-then plunge into the ocean. Not long after that, in the fog, a pilot smashed up into me from below and ' knocked out ' both of my engines. He had to bail out, but I chose to pancake ' dead stick ' into a small field. I didn't get hurt.
Then, we were given new P-38s equipped with jumbo belly tanks. And rumors quickly spread that we were heading ' overseas.' We felt good about it, because we now had confidence in the P-38s' strong capabilities.
Our squadron flew from California to Maine, where we practiced long flights in thick soup over the Atlantic.
Labrador was our first leg, but it was frequently buried in low cloud. So, each day, a Flying Fortress carrying our squadron's navigator, would take a look.
We got in there okay. However, the world's best weatherman could not predict the weather waiting for us in Greenland. After several false starts, we ' hovered closely' around our ' mothership' and headed for it.
With icebergs and mountains all around, our navigator in the B-17, was able to locate the tiny runway. We all got down alright. But, fighters taking off behind us, headed for a different airstrip in Greenland. Their navigator could not find it so they all bellied in on the ice cap-stayed there for a long time. We pushed on to Iceland.
That flight out of Iceland still gives me dreams more terrible than any aerial dog fight I've ever been in. In thick soup, with each Fortress 'mothering'~ four Lightnings, we headed toward Scotland.
The soup became thicker. And then thicker . For five incredibly tense hours, we were forced to jam ourselves closer together under the Fortress' wings - with our wingtips nearly touching one another.
It seemed more like 50 hours !
Through a small hole in the clouds, we finally saw land. But it flashed by so quick- we didn't have a clue whether the hole was over Scotland or Germany.
We made contact with a radio station in Northern Ireland and asked them for a homing assist. We couldn't understand their instructions- and inn our frustration, we cussed them out. They said : "Don't worry old chappies. Just stay up there and we'll have you down in a jiffy !" They sent up a ' night fighting ' radar-equipped Beaufighter. And we fastened on that plane [ like fleas on a hound dog. ] And its crew ' mothered ' us into an airfield just in the nick of time. I had only enough gas for maybe thirty more minutes.
The British gave us combat training from the hottest combat squadron in Great Britain-the 303rd Polish Pursuit Group. Those Spitfire-flying Polish kids taught us everything they had learned flying while against the Jerries. We went along with Poles on seven of their combat sorties. But were we never jumped by the ' Jerries.' Those Poles were the best dog fighter pilots' I have ever seen. By the time we reached Africa, we thought we could ' sweep the skies of Jerries and Eyties.'
Our squadron's first home was actually a goat pasture. And when it rained, we had to land without making a three-point landing. If we did, the P-38's nose wheel would bury itself in the mud and we would flip over on our backs.
We were our own ground crew, at first. We flew all day, then worked six or eight more hours at night, cleaning and loading our guns and filling our tanks from hundreds of five-gallon gas cans.
You've no idea how many gas cans are needed to fill a P-38's tanks. When the ground crews finally arrived, there were so many empty cans, they filled them with earth, then stacked them into ' walls ' for make-shift shacks. Rain or shine, we had been living in canvas ' pup tents.' Early on, we lived on chocolate bars and emergency rations. I weighed 175 pounds when we arrived-four months later, I was a stringy 135 pounds.
Lockheed Lightnings were built to fly and fight at 30,000 feet plus and our main task was as high altitude escort for the Flying Fortresses on their forays over North Africa and Italy.
Nobody had any idea that the P-38s would be good for combat down to ten feet. And Buddy, I really mean-TEN feet-to include a lo low-level mission on the strategic but enemy-held : Faid Pass.
GHQ assigned us fly into it and ' clean out ' Jerry's tank and gun positions, so our troops could push through. The pass was just wide enough, to allow four P-38's-with near overlapping wings-to ' squeeze ' between its steep walls.
We were ordered to do the job between 7:20 and 7:25 a.m. No earlier than 7:20 a.m. - BUT -absolutely NOT LATER than the ' exact time hack ' of 7:25 a.m.
On the ' dot ' we roared into Faid Pass-shooting-then climbing and di diving and-shooting-as though we were on roller coaster rails.
Every time we dived, we shot a burst into a gun position or a tank, then zoomed up to gain a favorable position for the next dive. At 7:25 our ground troops charged through. The remaining Jerries were dead, wounded or hiding out. Our coordinated attack was so successful, we cleaned out the Kasserine Pass, on another day. It was a tricky operation for a plane designed for-wide-open skies at 30M-travelinling along at 400 mph.
The big advantage in buzzing in at the tree tops, was to let ' them have it ' before their flak could be set up. And with that same devastating effect, we zoomed in on a target where the Jerries had converted the town's sports arena into an military airdrome. We roared just above the main streets ' roof top's to side-step most of the ack-ack. The P-38 wasn't designed as a bomber, but we often carried a couple of bombs on our strafing expeditions. During one of those sorties, we dropped our bombs, then zoomed up to be in position for aerial fighting. While zooming up, I saw several Me-109s take off from the edge of a woods. I couldn't tell how many there were for the dust. But I told my flight : " Let's take them on. I'll take the first one." My wingman said : "I'll take the second." Lovell and McWhorter picked out their own.
One Me-109 pulled around ' head-on ' into me. Twice before, I'd had been flown into ' head-on. ' So talking to myself I said [ maybe shouted ] : " If you can take it, Jerry-I can." Both of us were just 200 feet off the ground, when I gave him a squirt. He blew to pieces and I made a quick turn left to avoid the debris. Continuing in the turn, another Me 109 came into my sights. I was quickly on his tail. When I gave him a burst-he dove straight in.
My squadronmates were getting in their bursts, also. There were alot more Jerries than I expected. But we had the position and the speed.
I heard someone yell : "LOOK OUT ! THERE'S ONE ON YOUR TAIL ! " I looked back in a hurry. But the Jerry wasn't on me-he was on my wingman Jack Ilfrey's tail. Jack was asking : " Somebody -please come do something ! "
It's funny how things just come out of your mouth in a ' pinch ' like that.
I dived to shoot the 109 off Jack's tail. And as quickly as I got the Jerry in my sights and pressed the trigger-nothing happened.. In all the excitement-to do . . is to- R-A-M - this guy ! "
So I swerved hard into the Messerschmitt. As I swerved in, the German ' veered away ' to avoid the mid- air. But he veered into the gunsights of Bill Lovell. Bill's quick burst brought the Jerry down.
Mac's plane vanished in the skirmish. One of Jack Ilfrey's engines was out, so while Lovell and I hovered above his limping plane, we headed for home as the Jerries decided to break it off, also.
In about three minutes of fighting, the four of us had shot down nine ( 9 ) Me-109s, with our apparent loss of one pilot. Later that afternoon, with one of his engines sputtering . . Mac's plane limped in.
After being chased out into the desert, Mac was low on gas and landed on a village road. Scouting around the town, he located some auto gasoline, tanked up and flew home.
When Rommel's army was still in Tripoli, I was doing reconnaissance, and I'd dropped down to 5,000 feet over a peaceful place named Casa Bonita. There wasn't a German plane in the air. No one seemed to be shooting at me from the ground. And I was curious as to -WHY THEY WERE NOT shooting at me ? I kept peering down. In a flash, I saw blotched silhouettes-and I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Directly below, I could make out a very skillfully camouflaged airstrip that was stacked, wingtip to wingtip, with dozens of planes. Only intuition and pure luck had revealed them. Maybe ' Desert Fox ' Rommel, had been stashing them as an unpleasant surprise party for us. I immediately thought : "Robbie, you'd better high tail it . . out of here ! "
At a bomber base, the B-26's loaded up. Bombers had led me across the Atlantic and down to Africa. This time I led them. And we swept into Casa Bonita to unload bombs so quick that only three of Jerry's fighters had time to respond. Later, Intelligence counted 128 Axis aircraft destroyed by the raid. After Rommel evacuated Tripoli, our squadron strafed his communications center, then using difficult to guess figure-8's, we swooped in on the lines of trucks, locomotives and rail cars . . and let them have it with bombs, cannon and machine guns. Our missions with the Fortresses were at high altitude, with six to twelve Lightnings attached to each set of twenty B-17s. We flew high fly above them, so when the Jerry tried to get set to dive on them, we were positioned to dive on them.
As long as they let the bombers alone, we let them alone. They might even send a couple of Messerschmitts down to make non-firing passes. We stayed where we were . . unless they actually attacked the bombers.
That's how ' businesslike ' it was. But it took plenty of nerve for the Jerries to attack our bombers. From the bombers defensive formation, at least nine Fortress' guns would be shooting at them. Meanwhile, our Lightnings would be attacking them with all we had.
Usually, the only time we broke formation was when a Fortress was struck by ' ack-ack ' or gunfire . . then it fell behind.
The Jerries always waited like buzzards for this to happen. But it would be our our task to hover above the injured bomber, and fight off any attacking Germans while the bomber ' limped' home.
After a battle, I was protecting a shot-up bomber, as he was limping along at about 150 miles an hour. As I was trying to get in a better defensive position above him, two Me-109s attacked me.
All the other P-38's were spread out across the sky, so the Germans stayed on my tail. And the three of us circled around in a Lufberry at 15,000 feet. I couldn't gain on them; they couldn't gain on me. So I called on my radio : âEUR I've got two Me-109s that need some help [ can you give 'em a hand ! ] " Lt. Murdock heard me. Soon . . he swooped in ! I gave him a squirt. And down that Jerry went in . . trailing a long black streamer of smoke.
Over Tunis, our bombing missions were low-level. Our total mission distance was short enough to allow us to carry bombs, defend the bombers and still make it back home.
On one mission, I was flight leader for a dozen Lightnings, protecting two dozen Fortresses. After we completed that part of our mission, we headed down to drop our bombs on some railroad yards . . where I almost twisted my neck off . . looking around and up for Jerries on my ' tail.
Just as our bombers warned us by radio, I saw this bunch of Me-109s coming up behind us.
I called my planes together, and I began making a fifteen-degree bank join- up turn into the attacking Jerries. During the turn, I looked in the cockpit of the closest Lightning and saw its pilot munching on a chocolate bar. I guess he was distracted by his hunger and was not listening to his radio. Or he was not looking around. When I turned my head to look at him again . . he wasn't there. Jerry shot him down.
They must have thought he was such easy meat . . they could shoot down the rest of us. So, going round and round about fifty feet off the ground -- eleven P-38s and fifteen Me-109s, fought for nearly 100 miles. The Fortresses soon disappeared as we battled.
We lost two men . . the fellow who went down eating the chocolate bar and Bill Lovell. Bill shot down one Messerschmitt before he was also killed.
That fight explains why the next day's battle communique read :
"All our bombers returned safely."
Newell O. Roberts. M.D. 94th Pursuit Squadron
[ Abridged from Collier's magazine, September 3, 1943 ]
