Apparently it's time AKAK.
"One of my favorite 'furball' stories.
June of 44, 1st FG P38s and Rumanian IAR80s that were misidentified as 190s in the mass of confusion. Quoting "Stub" Hatch who was in the thick of it.
If this isn't a furball, nothing is.
"...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...."
