Part 2. Keep in mind the 190s were actually Rumanian IAR80s
Dan/Slack
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.
Carl, 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.
I kept going. When I was sure I'd lost the 190 I pulled back up over the
overcast and started looking around for Hoenshell, Allen or Morrison,
anybody. I heard Joe hollering for help but my fuel level was getting down
to the point where I couldn't afford any longer to turn around and go back.
I continued on toward Foggia.
When I landed back at home base I was the first member of our squadron to
return from the mission. It was noon and my elapsed time was 6 hours 55
minutes. I don't think I had enough gas to go around again if I hadn't
been able to land on my first approach. There was quite a welcoming
committee at the revetment when I parked the aircraft. Shortly after I
landed Cragmore Blue flight came in, all four of them. They hadn't been in
the fight at all. Much later that evening, long after debriefing and after
we seven survivors had imbibed a bit of the medicinal alcohol that the
flight surgeon had been kind enough to put out, who should come wandering
in but Joe Morrison, my wingman. He had gotten that lace doily across the
Adriatic but had to dump it on the field at Bari."
Sadly Carl Hoenshell was shot down and died of wounds the next day. The
1st FG lost 14 P38s that day and the 82nd lost 9 in that one of a kind
experimental attack on Ploesti with P38 dive bombers