Berlin
With the Mustang over Berlin
Up till now everything had remained relatively the German air force didn't attack Mustang groups generally. Something like that would have been very unwise. It was their task to attack our bomber squadrons; they were responsible for the damage. The P-51 was much more of a handful then a B-17, but if a P- 51 was in the way, they were attacked nevertheless.
We arrived at the meeting place and met the 'Jugs' (P-47's) leaving on their way back to England. Our group, the 354th from Colchester and the P-38's took over the escort. Since the bombers were relatively much slower, we had to fly in weaving lines above them. The P-38's flew high cover; we remained tight to the bombers with our three squadrons distributed so that the complete bomber group could be covered.
Shortly before the first way point - a turn in the flight line - a heavy anti-aircraft gun focussed on us. When the flak-shells exploded nearby, you could recognize the orange explosion in the midst of the black cloud of smoke.
The voices erupted on the radio. German fighters attacking from the front! All the pilots dropped their two additional wing tanks and pressed the handgun switch. The Germans had used everything which had two wings. There wasn't any attack focussed on me in my position. They just came from all directions in twos, threes or in fours.
My squadron leader went after a twin-engine Me-110 which was going after a B-17. I covered him and also looked after the rear. The 110 came in directly in the front quarter and we both opened fire on him, but without success; the speed and angle were still too great. A tight turn brought us back behind the Me-110, which tried to escape in a steep nosedive. We could dive faster and fired salvo around salvo but she was still too far away. We scored occasional hits and a little smoke streamed from her left engine. The bomber group was quite a number of miles behind us now and my leader decided to break off the chase and return to the real battle again.