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I
was flying Vatric leader with two flights of
four aircraft
each
at 18,000' as top cover for 36 B 26's. While
in the vicin-
ity
between Chartres and Nogent I saw about 15
Me 109's at about
20,000'
several miles east of us and immediately
called both
Vatric
flights to drop external tanks and attack.
As we broke
toward
them, the Me 109's turned and flew toward
Paris in a
shallow
climb. At 22,000' over the western suburbs
of Paris,
the
Huns broke up into two flights, a flight of
8 flying level
into
the northeast and a flight of seven breaking
southeast and
climbing
directly into the sun. I turned after the
high flight
and
closed rapidly on their last plane. As I
lined him up in
my
sights at about 200 yards he chopped his
throttle and kicked
his
plane into a spin to the right. I chopped my
throttle, half
rolled
after him and closed in rapidly. At about
18,000', I
fired
a two second burst beginning from about 150
to 200 yards,
but
I had to skid out to the side to keep from
over running him.
It
was impossible to keep a steady bead on him
as he was spinning
but
I observed some strikes in the fuselage. He
straightened out
from
the spin and dived straight down to about
10,000' as I closed
in
again. His plane then began a slow spiral to
the right and I
fought
to keep behind him until at 5,000' I
realized we were
getting
too low for a high speed vertical dive. I
horsed back
on
the stick and blacked out. As my vision
returned I looked down
and
saw an explosion, followed by a cloud of
smoke, in a block of
buildings
in the southeast suburbs of Paris. I
began a spiral
climb
and picked up my wingman at about 8,000'
directly over the
center
of the city. The ack-ack followed us with
intense and
accurate
fire from about 8,000' to 22,000' where we
joined Vatric Blue
flight
and proceeded homeward, as there were no
other Jerries
to
be seen in the vicinity. I claim 1 Me 109
destroyed.
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