FRANKLYN GREENE

I was leading Handspun Blue Flight in the top squadron. Two or three minutes after leaving the bombers, twelve bogeys were sighted. They were up sun of us, approximately level with my flight, which was at 30,000. Two of the bogeys broke off from the main formation and maneuvered into position for a bounce. Being fairly certain that they were bandits, I called for a turn into them. While in the turn, I noticed that three more E/A had broken away from the main formation, and were following the general path of the first two. I swung in on the tail of this three ship flight, which immediately went into a steep climbing turn. I followed them around - -outturning them and holding my own in the climb, for about a 360° turn. At this point they joined the main formation. By this time I had definitely identified the E/A as Me 109s. Up to this point, the main formation had been stooging along on the up sun side, but now employing different tactics, they split up into two ship elements and scattered in all directions. Foreseeing a neat little trap being formed, I called my flight and gave the order to dive and head for home. My second element had been whipped off from my flight in the steep climbing turn, leaving me with only my wing man. We dove to 24,000 feet, leveled off, and picked up a heading for home. When I pulled out of the dive my wing man, Lt. Marshall, was slightly behind and in trail. We had proceeded along the homeward course for approximately a minute when Lt. Marshall called over the R/T, "Frankie, I'm being attacked." I broke right, in a steep turn, and spotted Lt. Marshall taking violent evasive action, with a Me 109 on his tail, within firing range. By the time I had completed my turn, Lt. Marshall with the 109 still on his tail passed me going in the opposite direction and about 4,000 feet below me. I rolled my ship over and split-s'd down onto the 109's tail. I fired a short burst from 500 yds, hoping to distract the Hun pilot from his attack. Closing in steadily, I fired another short burst at 350 yds. I could see no apparent results from my first two bursts. However, they did cause him to break off his attack on Lt. Marshall. Breaking off his attack, he continued turning to the left, while I continued to out-turn and close him. At 250 yds, I fired a third burst. I immediately observed pieces flying from the enemy aircraft's canopy, accompanied by an explosion on the left side of the cockpit near the wing root. The E/A went down in a steep spiral, apparently out of control. He was in flames and leaving a trail of black smoke.