Hubert Zemke

63 rd Fighter Squadron, 56 th Fighter Group Approximately 0845 hours Northwest of Romilly-Sur-Seine Clear and unlimited with few high thin cirrus clouds FW 190 One FW 190 destroyed On the mission of this date, I was acting as Group Commander leading the 63 rd Fighter Squadron. We had been escorting a large box of bombers for sometime and had past to the west of Paris enroute to target. The 63 rd Squadron was immediately over the rear of the bombers when suddenly it was noted that four enemy aircraft were going through the bombers on a head-on attack. These four enemy aircraft after going through the bombers, recovered well to the left hand side of B-17 formation, and turned in the general route to the target to climb and fly to a position for another attack. As they regained altitude and began to fly up ahead, I continually kept my eye on them. At a point five miles ahead of the bombers and well to the left, these four aircraft had reassembled, and were flying in line abreast in preparation for another head-on attack. At this time they must have been five to seven thousand feet directly below the position of my squadron. It was then that I rolled over and dove to make an astern attack. I was followed down in this attack by Lt. Jansen and Capt. Goodfleisch. The enemy continued to fly in a straight line directly ahead and my closure on their position was quite rapid. At a point approximately 600 yards from the enemy, I noticed that tracer ammunition was going past my right wing. Believing that Lt. Jansen had opened fire, I gave to cease firing, as we were still out of range. At this same time, I hastily glanced back and noticed on airplane to my rear going down. This airplane was probably the one Captain Goodfleisch shot off my tail. At any rate I closed to within 400 yards of their number three man, who was somewhat behind and opened up with a long burst, at about a ten to fifteen degree deflection. No results were seen. Again I opened to at approximately that range, or a bit less with two more bursts and no evident strikes were seen. Just after the final burst, the underpart of this airplane began to belch black smoke and the airplane began to slowly turn to the left. It recovered to the right slightly, then fell off slightly to the left, nosed down and finally went into a vertical dive toward the ground, streaming black smoke, in flames. Capt. Goodfleisch saw this airplane go down and in. Immediately thereupon, I concentrated my fire on the number two man of the formation and gave him a -1- (Personal Combat Report Cont'd) Several second bursts at 300 yards. He had probably sensed my position and broke for the deck in a half roll. The number one man also broke for the deck so I recovered in a left climbing turn to try and engage the number four enemy aircraft. This aircraft circled once below me and rolled over for the deck. I recovered to 22,000 feet where I found that I was by myself, so I continued back to the bomber formation where I tacked onto a flight of the 61 st Squadron, and returned home. Until the time of landing, I did not know that I had been hit by enemy aircraft, which I had not seen behind, when going into the initial dive. However it was through the help of Captain Goodfleisch that these aircraft were dispatched with disastrous results from my tail. I claim one FW 190 destroyed.