By: Stan Jordan
We went back to the Ruhr Valley area this morning. That is a pretty good sized area, with a lot of anti – aircraft guns on guard all the time. I went down to about 500 feet altitude and made a pass across that whole valley looking for targets of opportunity. I went upstairs and looked around, and I was all alone up there, almost. From in behind me, somewhere, came a ME 262, that is a German twin engine jet airplane fighter. I guess I was paying too much attention to ground targets and this jet fighter came out of nowhere and he had me dead to the rights. Then, I felt a quiver in my plane, he shot something at me and it hit me. I looked my plane over and all I could see was a jagged whole in the aluminum at the near tip of my right wing. Right then, this jet went by me. He was doing about 550 miles an hour. All of this took place in a split second. I remember now, I pulled back on the stick and went upstairs to the right and made a circle. He went on by me and tried to make a right turn but he was going to fast. His plane was sliding through the air like a car on ice. Now looking back on all that action, I think his excessive speed done him in. Now this all happened in seconds, and as I remember he was trying to make a right turn, but his speed kept pushing him away instead of making him turn. Now, my ship was making a good run and I was gaining altitude on him. I think he realized he was going too fast to make a good turn so he slowed down a little. So when he straightened out I was above and behind him a little and diving right at his ship. He had no idea where I was, and he had his ship in a straight line. I led him to rings on my sight and I touched off one rocket then I squeezed my firing button and all four of my 50 caliber guns were throwing lead right into his plane. I wasn’t watching my rocket, I was busy with my tracers and they were going right into his fuselage. He started to smoke a little and I stopped firing. He was falling off to the right and I followed him down and watched him crash so my gun camera would record the action. I had enough fighting for one day, so I looked around and found out I was over the Rhine River by now and all alone. I shot a line straight for our air base and went home. I was very lucky today. His round hit me in right wing tip, but it didn’t explode, what luck! It would have taken most of my wing off. The crewman found his round lodged in between the struts and didn’t do much damage. I will get the morning off while the boys fix my wing. See ya!
