While not advocating Head on shots, they certainly were used.
An account of a low alt dogfight in a p38 by 1st FG pilot Stub Hatch
Dan/Slack
June 10, 1944
"We were briefed that morning very early. We got up around 0400, had
some breakfast and went down to Group Headquarters for briefing. When
we walked in and sat down it was apparent that something unusual was in
the air because of all the Group brass in attendance. When they went to
the map and drew the line to Ploesti all of us kind of went 'Uh, oh.'
And then when they told us what the mission was, there was absolute
silence and utter disbelief on the part of all of us who were going to
fly over 600 miles to surprise the Germans in order to dive bomb the
Ramano-Americano refinary.
In the course of the breifing it came out that the 82nd (FG) were the
ones to do the bombing. We were selected for fighter escort. I can't
adequately describe the sense of relief that went through the gathering
when we found out that we weren't going to be the ones carrying a 1000
pound bomb on one side of the airplane and a belly tank on the other -
or that we'd be the ones to dry and dive into that unbelievable flak.
Take off at 0505 went as scheduled. We rendezvoused with the 82nd and
headed for the coast of Yugoslavia. Anyone who has flown formation at
low level knows the difficulty in keeping a squadron of 16 aircraft
together, let alone three squadrons. Nonetheless we hit our IP right on
schedule south of Bucharest. At that point we began our turn north,
dropped our belly tanks and were supposed to begin our climb to altitude
to cover the 82nd. As we completed our turn however, we flew right over
an enemy airfield and in the airfield pattern were four or five Dornier
217 bombers. Our Squadron Leader, First Lieutenant John Shepard turned
in and went after them and the three flights followed him (Blue flight
was by this time cut off) The Dorniers didn't last long. I only wasted
some ammo by firing at one of them at the tail end of the little fight.
At this point we were only 250-300 feet off the ground. As we pulled up
slightly to turn back north again somebody hollered, 'Cragmore Break
left for Chrissake!' I looked to my left and there was a whole flock of
FW 190s headed in from 10 O'clock high.
Our entire squadron broke to the left. As I continued around in my
sharp turn a lone 190 came out of nowhere and pulled right across in
front of me. He was so close -fifty to seventy five yards away- that
all I could see in my ring sight was the belly of his fuselage and the
wing roots. I opened fire with all four 50-caliber machine guns and the
20mm cannon and I just damn near blew him in half. That saved my neck
because when I rolled out to shoot at the 190 I looked to my right and
here comes another bunch of 190s from my 2 0'clock.
There were four 190s in the lead. I did the only thing I could do. I
turned sharply to my right, pulled up and fired again. The leader was
150-250 yards away, nearly head on and slightly to my left. I set the
lead 190 on fire with a burst that went through the engine, left side of
the cockpit and the wing root. The 190 rolled to its right and passed
me on my left. I didn't see him crash but my gun camera film showed the
fire and my wingman Lt. Joe Morrison, confirmed that he crashed.
Unfortunately the other three 190s in that flight went right over my
head and down on the tails of Green flight leader and his wingman. Both
were shot down.
As I continued my turn around to my right, my wingman stayed with me and
I saw another 190 right up behind one of my tentmates, Joe Jackson
flying as Cragmore white 4. I closed in on that one from about his five
o'clock and tried to shoot his canopy off from about 100 yards, but I
was too late to save Joe. By then the 190 had set Jackson's plane on
fire. Joe's plane rolled over and went in and he was killed. I finally
did get a burst into the cockpit area and the 190 followed Joe right
into the ground.
I was still turning to the right, going quite slowly by then, because I
had my combat flaps down. I turned maybe another 90 degrees to my right
when I saw on of our 38s coming head on with a 190 on his tail. We were
still only around 300 feet and the P38 passed over me by fifty-seventy
five feet. I pulled up my nose and opened fire on the trailing 190 from
a distance of about 150-200 yards. He kept coming head on and I shot
off the bottom half of his engine. He nosed down still shooting at me
and I had to dump the yoke hard to miss him. He was burning when he
went over me, by not more then three feet and part of his right wing
knocked about three inches off the top of my left rudder.
As the 190 went over my head I saw three more making a pass at me from
my left. I turned so fast I lost Joe Morrison. I missed my shot that
time but when these three went over me they went after Morrison. I saw
three 190s diving on another 38. I snap shot at the leader from about
90 degree deflection. I hit his left wing and shredded the aileron. He
fell off on his wing and went in. He was so low there was no chance for
him to recover. I kept on going around to my left and shot at the
second one with was going away from me on my left. I hit him, but I am
not sure if he went in. I know I knocked a bunch of pieces off his
cowling and fuselage but I didn't have time to see what was happening to
him.
I looked to my 2 o'clock and here comes another 190 right at me. It was
too late for me to turn. I just shut my eyes and hunched down in the
cockpit. I thought I had bought the farm right there. But he missed
me, he never even hit my ship. I think he missed me because I was going
so slowly. He overestimated my speed and was overleading me. I started
to turn his way and when he went behind me I continued on around. There
was another one out there so I closed in on him. I took aim, fired but
my guns only fired about ten rounds and quit. I was out of ammo. I
damaged him a bit but he flew away.
I cannot over emphasize what a melee that was. There were at least
twelve P38s in that little area, all of them at very low altitude.
Somewhere between 25 and 30 190s were also there. None of us were at
more then 200 or 300 feet and some were quite a bit lower. The
topography was kind of a little hollow with hills on each side. It was
by far the wildest melee I saw in sixty odd combat missions I flew. I
heard one guy who had been wounded pretty badly, scream until he went
in. It was a wild, wild few minutes. And a few minutes is all it was.
According to the mission report from our debriefing the whole fight took
something like three to six minutes. I had no inkling of elapsed time
while it was going on. I was too damned busy trying to stay alive.
When I woke up to the fact that I was out of ammunition, 600 miles into
enemy territory and all alone, I broke out of the area and went looking
for some company. In only a few minutes I found one of the other planes
in my squadron headed in my general direction. I called the pilot, Carl
Heonshell, on the radio and we joined up. About that time I heard my
wingman Joe Morrison hollering for some help. He was on single engine,
pretty badly shot up and would someone please come help him. So
Hoenshell and I turned back to look for Joe. We finally found him down
around 200 feet. After we got him headed in our direction we started to
climb out of there to the west.
Joe's airplane looked like a lace doily. The two 190s that I had not
had time to turn into had gone over the top of me and down onto Joe's
tail because he had broken right when I had broken left. Joe's ship was
flying but just barely. Hoenshell and I were both out of ammo. The
three of us tried to make ourselves as small as possible and headed
west. Four or five minutes later another P38 joined with us. It as Lt.
John Allen, a 94th Squadron pilot. We hoped he had some ammunition.
When we called to ask we found his radio was out and we couldn't talk to
him.
Another 25-30 miles west just as we were gaining some altitude we ran
into a bunch of flak. Unfortunately Morrison became separated from us
again because he couldn't maneuver, as quickly to get out of the flak,
so we had to turn around and go back and get him again. We nursed Joe
along for a long, long time. Finally we got out of Rumania and into
Yugoslavia and had climbed to about 12,000 feet. We were S-ing back and
forth over Joe because he couldn't fly as fast as we could on his single
engine. As I was turning from one of our S's I spotted 6 Me109s about 8
0'clock. I hollered to Hoenshell "Bogies high at 8' o'clock!" He saw
them too and cautioned. "Hold it, hold it, Joe hit the deck." Joe
didn't lose any time. He stuck his nose down and headed for the ground.
Car, Allen and I held the turn ad best we could and when the 109s broke
formation and came at us from 6 o'clock we turned into them hoping to
scare them off by looking like we were ready for a fight, but they
didn't scare worth a damn. (This with no ammo) When Hoenshell, who was
leading hollered on the radio, "Hit the deck Hatch!" I didn't waste any
time doing just that. I rolled my airplane over on its back and
split-essed out of there.
One 109 was chasing me with a couple of others going after Hoenshell,
but I don't know where the others went. There was an undercast beneath
us and I didn't have the faintest idea where the mountains
were-Yugoslavia is full of them-but there was no choice at this point.
The Me109 was chasing me and I had nothing left to fight with so I went
through that undercast so fast I didn't even see it. I was hitting
close to 600 mph when I came through into the bottom into a valley
between two high ridges. The Lord sure was with me that day."
