James Stewart

Major James C Stewart Keyworth White One a . Combat b . 2 4 February, 1944 c . 6 1st Fighter Squadron , 56th Fighter Group d . 1300 hours e . Kassel f . CAVU g . FW-190 h . One FW-190 destroyed i . I was leading Keyworth S quadron on penetration support to Schweinfurt. Our flight was made up of Stewart, Keen, Powers and Stauss. We made r/v with the rear box of Forts near Lingen about 1230. Shortly after r/v White 3 called in a single Me-109 going through the bombers I started an attack but the 109 had too good a start and I had to let him go. We then continued on the track again until we reached the second box of bombers a few miles SE of Osnabruck, where we made a pass at some FW-190's. But we were cut out by some other P-47's so I let them go. Lt. Powers said he was going down on 2 190's on some P-47's tail so I started to follow to give him cover when another P-47 flight crossed in front of me and I lost Lt. Powers. I then went back to the bombers looking for some other aircraft of our Squadron to join and saw 2 a/c to the right and ahead of the bombers so I headed that way for about 10 minutes before I identified them as P-47's. I started closing in toward them from their right side when I noticed them initiating an attack on 3 a/c way out in front of the bombers at about 15,000 ft. I and my wing man, Lt. Keen were at 20,000 ft. Upon being attacked 2 of the a/c turned left and dove almost immediately under me. I initiated an attack on the closest a/c diving to about 6 or 7,000 ft. gradually closing on him as he started climbing and turning to the left. He leveled out about 10,000 ft. and I started firing at about 400 yds., missing him at first then closing in a little closer and really plastering him. His belly tank exploded and he caught on fire rolling over to the right and diving into the ground. I took a quick look to the left to see how my wing man was and noticed a FW-190 about 600 yards from his tail just about ready to open fire. I called him to break hard and I winged over hard to the left to get behind the a/c. The a/c immediately broke off his attack and took mild evasive action. I was just about to get in good shooting position and range when the a/c nosed over hard, did a half roll and hit the deck. I was low on gas so I broke off my attack, climbed to 14,000 ft. and headed for home. My wing man and Lt. Barnum who made the initial attack on the a/c can confirm the hits on the a/c and Lt. Barnum can confirm the fact that the a/c crashed to the ground and exploded. My wing man, Lt. Keen saw my strikes and then took a short squirt at the a/c himself which nearly cost him his life. I claim one FW-190 d estroyed and make no claim on the other FW-190 pe nding assessment of film .