Frank McCauley

a . Combat b . 4 October, 1943 c . 6 1st Fighter Squadron , 56 th Group d . 1 1 3 0 - 1135 hrs . e . East of Aachen f . Clear – 2/10 strato-cumulus g . Two Me-110 h . One Me - 1 1 0 d estroyed , one Me-110 probably destroyed i . I was flying Keyworth Yellow three. Our squadron was just making a turn in front of the last box of bombers when I spotted two Me 110's to the right of and parallel to the last box of bombers. We were at 27,000 ft., and they were about 5 or 6,000 feet below. I called Yellow leader and told him to make a 180, that I was going down. I made a diving turn to the right and came around on the tail of one of the 110's, opening fire at about 400 yds., closing rapidly to 150 yds. I saw strikes both on the wings and fuselage. Smoke started coming out of the starboard engine. The plane went into a slight diving turn and flames could be seen. The rear gunner was firing at me at first but stopped after a couple of bursts from my guns. I claim o ne Me 1 1 0 probably d estroyed . I pulled back up to 22,000 to rejoin the rest of the formation when I saw another Me 110 down around 16,000 ft. and flying parallel to the bombers. I was right above him and did an aileron roll down to get on his tail, but ended up going too fast and too close to take a shot. I went underneath and pulled up into the sun back over the top of him. I circled once and then did two aileron rolls down meanwhile chopping my throttle, and ended up dead astern. I started firing at 300 yds. closing to less than 100 yds. observing strikes all over the plane. The rear gunner of this plane was also firing but was knocked out shortly. I saw smoke and fire coming from the plane, he went into a verticl e dive and later crashed and exploded. In both cases the planes took no evasive action. I claim one Me - 110 destroyed. FRANK

E. MCCAULEY, 1st Lt. , Air Corps .