Subject: P-38 mid-air collision over Remagen bridge This is written by a real WWII P-38 pilot that now lives in Killeen. This story only recently was told and yesterday he finally wrote it down _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _______________________I have been urged to write this story for years, by many, before I get any older. I had a mid-air collision with my wing man while flying patrol over Remagen bridge in early 1945. the Germans were trying to dive bomb the bridge and the 474fg and my 429fs of P-38s were trying to keep them from it. Our Sqdn Comdr Maj. James Cobb was Sqdn. lead as Red 1, I was 2nd element leader as Red 3 and LT Ralph Byres was Red 4, my wing man. We were circling at about 18000 when a flight of 4 FW-190s crossed below at about 15000. They split in twos, Maj Cobb dove on the right pair and I took after the left pair. I was closing fast. Began scoring a few hits when "WHAM", Byers hit me from behind and above. The impact was so great, I couldnt breathe. My seat back had knocked the breath out of me even with a backpack parachute on. Our two aircraft were stuck together. I couldn't see outside, all I could see was the greasy belly of an engine nacelle that had crushed my canopy down on my head while my left prop was chewing on his airplane. The vibration was terrible. I instictively yanked all the power off, throttles, prop & mixture. This caused us to break apart. I never saw the other P-38 again. Others in the Sqdn watched it tumble, burning, to the ground. Byers never got out. When we broke apart we were going straight down in a left spiral. I pulled up to a shallow glide with the left engine on fire, quickly turned off gas and ignition and prepared to bail out. The big old Rhine river under me and I assumed everything west of it was friendly territory. To be sure, I punched up 9th TAC fighter control; they came right back with a "YES". Now the left engine fire was almost out. I had tried to feather it, but the prop blades were bent up into grotesque shapes and kept flipping around, causing the airplane to sort of corkscrew thru the air. All the while, the right engine and prop were windmilling smoothly. I turned on the gas and ignition, put the mixture back up and that sweetheart was running like a top, so I headed west toward home base, A-78 at Florenes, Belgium with the mag-compass swinging from side to side as the bent prop continued to flip over and over. Soon the Sqdn caught up and lead me home. Maj. Cobb stayed with me while I dropped the gear. He flew under and said it looked ok. Now I worried about how the left wing damage would behave in a stall. After everone else was on the ground, I pulled up and got a wicked stall at about 130. A pleasant thought, the prop and engine quit turning over and I had a stable platform. I smoked it on at about 150, climbed on the brakes as hard as I dared and slowed enough to make the turn-off at the end. Now coasting, the first hardstand was empty, so with a little left brake I spun around and parked it on the spot. "WHAT A RIDE" this beautiful P-38 had saved my butt one more time.
