Originally posted by Guppy35
Thinking Tony Gaze was flying Spit 14s. I know he downed a 262 while flying a 14 with 41 Squadron near the end. Bent up the wings a bit of the 14.
Hmmm.
According to "Six Aces" by Lex McAuley, Gaze flew six operational sorties on 616 Sqn Meteors, firing the guns in anger against motor transport. The autobahn was near Schleswig, and the German unit there had a two-seater (apparently the Germans didn't like them, warning Gaze against flying them). McAuley speculates that the German commander to whom Gaze showed the Meteor cockpit was Kurt Welter, but again, it's not certain.
Bottom line is, Gaze never did actually fly a 262. He taxied it and was waiting to take off as a British pilot, who appears to have been the 616 Sqn C/O, came in to land in another. The latter failed to leave enough time for the nosewheel to come down, and scraped the nose along the runway, rupturing various bits. Gaze's flight was therefore scrubbed. "If he'd been two minutes later, I'd have been in the air." The 262s are said to have come from Fassberg.
