Thanks for the nice comments guys. The cool part is that Mierzejewski's sons might be joining us for a trial of AH.
Yes the Spitfire IX and XVI were used extensively for ground attack. There were several wings of Spitfires in the 2nd TAF, which hit tactical targets all over Western Europe from early 1944 through the end of the war. After Overlord most of them, including 308 Sqn, were based on the Continent, moving forward as the Allied forces advanced into Germany.
I think the Spitfires assigned to 2nd TAF were originally intended for air superiority, but since the Luftwaffe was all but extinct by that time, they ended up doing a lot of bombing and strafing. During this time 308 Sqn destroyed 536 ground vehicles (anything from a Kubelwagen to a Panzer), 17 railway engines, 109 rail cars, 45 ships/barges/boats, and 28 buildings.
Frenchy guessed it right - 137 is the total number of combat missions that Mierzejewski flew during the war. I believe the single bomb mark in the log signifies a centerline bomb and the second bomb mark signifies wing bombs. The wing bombs were dropped together, so the number of bomb marks is the number of "pickles" on that sortie.
Mierzejewski did not see a single German aircraft in any of his 137 missions. That gives you an idea of the kind of air superiority that had been achieved over Europe. The biggest scrap 308 got into during that period was on 1 January, 1945 when the Luftwaffe launched the "Bodenplotte" offensive. 308 Sqn. and 317 Sqn. were just returning from a bombing sortie when they found their airfield at Ghent under attack by dozens of Fw 190's of Jagdgeschwader 1. The 18 Spitfires pounced on the attackers, destroying 19 of them in 20 minutes while losing only one aircraft. Mierzejewski was on leave that New Year's Day (RHIP) so he missed out.
Here's a photo of what the Germans did to the Ghent airdrome:
And here's a photo of Tadeusz Szlenkier with the 190 he shot down during that fight:
Mierzejewski survived the war, and settled with England and raised a family. He has passed away but his twin sons and wife survive. Many of the pilots in the Squadron settled in the same area, including Szlenkier and Link who are pictured. Most of them are passed away also, but it seems quite a few of them remained close friends forever.
Yes there were some problems with doing ground attack in the Spitfire. If you can see the panel lines under the nose in the photos below, that whole area in front of the carb intake scoop was the glycol tank. And the radiators and oil cooler are hanging out in the breeze under the wings. So they were quite vulnerable to ground fire. A bullet hitting the underside of the plane from the nose back to the trailing edge of the wing had an excellent chance of knocking out the cooling and/or lubrication system. Many aircraft were lost in that way. It was risky business, and at low altitude there was not a great chance to bail out or find a safe landing spot if you lost power. But quite a few of the pilots were able to crash land or bail out, and there are some stories of 308 Sqn pilots walking back from behind enemy lines.
Here are some other photos as requested:
Mierzejewski (at right) with his ground crew before that final mission to Flushing.
Same photo session. Standing are pilots Dolicher, Josef Mierzejewski, Witold "Jimmy" Link.
Mierzejewski's last flight with 308, postwar. Spitfire Mk. XVI. Witold "Jimmy" Link, Josef Mierzejewski, Unidentified Pilot.
This is my favorite one. Jack Mierzejewski has a great caption for it: " an evocative portrayal of what must be
the summer of 44, in a front line field in Belgium (it's still obviously
warm), with preparations for a party. US, UK and Polish flags on the tree,
camouflage net half-heartedly draped over the wing (enemy attack obviously
not a concern), female company obviously present."
I like these guys. In a war zone and they've got chicks and beer.
There are more photos of 308 aircraft and personnel (not from Mierzejewski, mostly scanned from books) on our website:
www.raf303.org/308/photos[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: funkedup ]
