Dora vs Temp ,on other forums translated by Alex Voicu
"""i tried to translate this from an article in a romanian magazine. It's a fragment from the book "Une sacree guerre" by P. Clostermann:
On 25 of April 1945, just before the end of the war, i was on combat patrol with another 5 Tempests along the Osnabruck-Breme highway, over the great Dummersee lake. I was flying the best RAF fighter and the war was almost over; in short, i was in a sort of state that English call overconfidence. Nevertheless, in the last few weeks 1/JG26 shot down 14 of our Tempests. An entire allied squadron!
Suddenly, a Long Nose FW190 comes out of a cloud; i see him with the corner of my eye coming like an arrow, and before i can even move, the Tempest on my right explodes...then another explosion on my right, a wing floats like a leaf and the Focke Wulf vanishes into another cloud, only to show up somewhere in front of me, just above the lake surface. I called one of my pilots on the radio and asked him to take over: "Cover me, i'm going, i'm going after him, keep your altitude". Then i said something to remember: "Leave it to me, it's a piece of cake!"
I would like to add here that RAF issued every month a confidential magazine, with advice and information considered useful for pilots, which included the most stupid mistakes we did, of course with the intention of avoiding them in the future. In one of these issues, under the "Most famous last words" headline (i could have removed the sentence of course, i had the power, it was the last wartime issue, but i didn't) my words appeared: "Leave it to me, it's a piece of cake!"
So i'm really pushing my Tempest, and while diving the speed builds up like crazy: 750, 800 Km/h...I'm now flying just above the water and i'm closing in at about 400 m behind the german. I say to myself it looks pretty good, i have the sun behind me, the FW is in the shade... I reach out to adjust my gunsight and unlock my four 20 mm cannon, then i look up... the german is not there any more! Good God, where is he?! I can't believe this, this old fox let me come close behind him, rocking his wings gently to send me to sleep and, right at the moment when i leaned over the gunsight, he sprung out vertically like a rocket! I did't really have a choice, i went up after him, pulling hard on the stick, crushed against the seat and with my head whirling, trying not to let him out of my sight. I could see the tail of that plane climbing and climbing, but suddenly i felt my Tempest shaking and buffeting. I am completely bewildered... i'll probably spin, and the spin, which is forbidden for the Tempest under 3000 m, will surely make me crash into the ground... So i panicked, breaking the seal and pushing the throttle to emergency power. Then i did a completely stupid maneuver, trying to regain control of my plane but succeeding to build up some speed though. But againg the FW disappeared! Where is he?
Bang!
The first projectile bounces off the cowling. Bang! Another one. I feel the shock. The engine suddenly stops, and so does my heart... the propeller hangs like a cross in front of me and black smoke comes out of the exhaust pipes. You can't imagine what it feels like. The whole universe crumbles in a split second! You feel like everything inside you drains off, you no longer have a heart, stomach, brain, saliva... Just a terrible fear that replaces everything else.
It was, as usual with fighter planes, a matter of centimeters: the first projectile bounced off the armor plate of the fuel tank, filled with 1000 liters of fuel... I tried to glide, well, as good as at Tempest could glide! I realised with horror that i was too low to bail out; what was i supposed to do? I completely panicked. I opened the canopy, but it jamed, i pulled the jettison handle but it wasn't working, when, completely astounded, i see flying close, very close to me, maybe less than 20 m away, the fuselage of the D9, painted brown with green spots and wearing the red and yellow bands of JG301. A fabulous machine... He didn't want to get ahead of me and closed his throttle, probably worrying i'll try to play some tricks on him before going down. I even have the time to admire him in detail! And he has more than enough time to finish me off. He doesn't... there's no point in doing it. Was he trying to teach me a lesson? He goes around me in a half-roll, i saw -i can still see- the face of the pilot looking at me, but suddenly the ground is right in front of me!
I crash-landed. 100 meters of sliding in a thick mud - a coal quarry. That saved me, absorbing the shock in a cloud of black mud. I rushed out of the smoking plane, ignoring 2 things. The parachute harness somehow got tangled into the seat, and that stoped me for a moment. I set it free, forgetting that the mask was coupled to the oxygen bottles with a flexible tube and a fitting. The tube extended, only to come off a moment later and the fitting hit me hard in the face. Seeing black before my eyes from the hit, i jumped on the mud covered wing, slid and fell on my butt in the mud. Then i heard the specific sound of a german engine. As beautiful as their planes looked, their engines always sounded like a wreck. I can still see the black propeller hub coming towards me, with the white rotating spiral... Is he going to shoot? No, he rocks his wings gently and pulls up. I continued to lie there, dumbfounded and scared, until two americans, too stupid to recognize an allied plane, stuck their machinegun barrels under my nose...
An US Stinson brought me back to my base. I was saved! All this time, the other squadmates thought the german was the one shot down and they were congratulating me on the radio. I explained them later! That evening, at the officer's mess, all my pilots ironically applauded when i walked into the room. A bilboard, which seemed much too big, was hanging from the ceiling: "Leave it to me, it's a piece of cake!"
The check that night cost me the pay for a whole month."""""""""""""
