Robert Cherry

A. Combat.

b. 5 July 1944.

c. 62nd Fighter Squadron.

d. Approximately 1600 hours.

e. 20 miles West of Paris.

f. Cloud.: Broken Base at 4000 feet.

g. F w 190.

h. One F w 190 claim ed destroyed. i . " On 5 July, I was leading Platform Red Flight. Platform leader saw a 190 on the clouds and chased him underneath where he was bounced by two. They were on his tail and he called for help, just as I saw them. I got on the second one and was waiting to get to 150 / 200 yards, so I could make the e/a explode, when White Three cut in front of me and shot him down. This action occurred on the deck and when the 190 exploded I was unable to miss the explosion and had to fly through part of it. White Three pulled up at this point and I continued after the one on the tail of platform leader. I chased him all the way to Paris, using water injection until all my water was gone, and I could not gain on him. At Paris, I pulled up, and started home with my wingman. They boxed me with Flak before I could get to the clouds and I hit the deck for about 5 minutes before pulling up again. My wingman s e lectrical system went out and he had gone on up through the clouds and started home. I was about 3000 feet, alone as usual, doing 140 mph, climbing as fast as possible, when I looked back and saw 5 Fw 190 s coming down on me. Due to my slow air speed, a very foolish thing, I was forced to break down and hit the deck. One Jerry overshot me and continued turning in front of me. He must have been crazy, but that didn't bother me at the time . I gave him a short s quirt with as much deflection as I could pull and observe d strikes, but they were very scattered. I fired again and there were a few more strikes. I fired once more, with no results, and then, f or no reason at all t he e/a straightened up. I was about 100 yards behind him, so I rolled out, too , and started firing from dead astern. This time the strikes were well c oncentrated and he exploded. I had to break fast but a piece of his plane hit mine anyway and cut the main spar in the horizontal stabilizer completely in two . The remaining 4 were still on my tail and I started making climbing turns again to get into the clouds. They couldn't hit me in the turn, and they even missed when I straightened out to fire the final burst at the other 190. When I got into the clouds I did a 180° turn and a 90 ° shortly afterwards, but they seemed to outguess me and every time I came out they would bounce me. I think I fired at another one on top of the clouds but I'm not sure. My fuel warning light was on before I could see the coast, so I just leaned it back and flew instruments. They lost me when I stayed in the clouds. A P - 51 bounce d me over the channel and fired a short burst but he missed and I didn't waste my fuel by breaking. I landed at an Advanced Base an d the damage to my plane was such that I could not fly home. These F w 1 90s were blue and g ray and were unusually fast. They were definitely 1 90s but had the speed of a 290 . I claim one F w 190 destroyed. "