Finnish fighter pilot Erkki Pakarinen asks from Ilmari Juutilainen in autumm 1943:
"What does it feel like to shoot at an enemy plane with a cannon"
Juutilainen answers:
"Like showing a red hot poker up someone's ass."
The first Messerschmitt 109 G-2s had arrived to Finland in early 1943. Mr. Pakarinen was still flying the Brewster B-239 fighter with its 4 .50 machineguns, and wanted to hear from his old squadmate how the cannon compares to machineguns. Juutilainen had scored the first ever Messerschmitt victory in Finnish Air Force by shooting down a Russian Pe-2 reconnaissance bomber - and damaging his own plane in the progress, as debris from the Pe-2 struck his own plane. Juutilainen was used to close shooting distances of 30-50 meters with the .50s, and now the cannon blew whole chunks off the enemy plane.
Mr. Pakarinen finished the war with 4 aerial victories and lives at Tampere, Finland.
Mr. Juutilainen finished the war with 96 credited victories but has unofficially mentioned a score of 128 victories, when counting all the victories with no witnesses.
