WALTER COOK

"I was leading Yellow Flight on a sweep from Blankenberghe to Calais, when 2 flights of four Fw 190's were sighted. They were in a diamond shaped formation and were flying northeast, in the vicinity of Ypres. Major Schilling's flight attacked one flight of four and I kept my flight above making a 280 ? turn. The enemy apparently observing Major Schilling's attack, made a 180? turn and when finished, they were below and in front of me. I dove out of the sun from 20,000 to 15,000 feet and lined up a F w 190 in my sight. It was a dead astern attack with no deflection. I withheld my fire until I was from 300 to 325 yards away and fired , closing to 200 yards before ceasing. I could plainly see pieces flying off the right side of his fuselage and, as my g u ns raked his ship, pieces from the left wing were also visible. One large piece broke off and it is my belief that it was part of the aileron. Suddenly I noticed a big ball of fire appear on his l e ft wing and then black smoke poured out. Apparently his ammunition had exploded. His ship rolled to the left, went over on its back in a gentle half roll and then fell into a violent spin with smoke pouring out from the fuselage and wing. At no time did the pilot take any evasive action and I believe that he was killed. I also believe that he considered me to be friendly since he waggled his wings several ti m es as I approached him out of the sun. His ma r kings were as follows: the fuselage was a bluish -gray overall. The bottom sides of the wings were yellowish-orange with a bluis h gray border on both the landing and trailing edges. Silver stripes were painted on the tail, closely resembling the markings of our P-47. Several of my pilots s a w my attack and could follow the E/A down to the clod base which was approximately 5,000 feet. Both they and I are of the opinion that it was impossible for the pilot to recover from the spin , even if alive, and I therefore claim one Fw 19p definitely destroyed. "