“Several bombers were called out as shot down. Schall called one, and Nowi called out one, then another, and finally a third kill. Then Nowotny radioed that he was approaching and had damage. The flight leader on the ground, [Oberleutnant] Hans Dortenmann, who had landed after engaging for rearmament, was ready to take off again, and requested permission to take off to assist, but Nowotny said no, to wait. The defensive antiaircraft battery opened fire on a few Mustangs that approached the field, but they were chased away, from what I could understand, and the jets were coming in.”{1}
The Mustangs Galland mentioned were a combined escort force of P-51s from the 20th and 357th Fighter Groups. The attacking force of B-17s was in fact attacked in waves by the jets, after already running a gauntlet of flak, Fw 190s, and Me 109s on the way in. A major air battle had taken place, and the rattle of the guns could be heard on the ground far below.
The Mustangs had engaged the German fighters, as described by Haydon: “Well, we had just finished a bad skirmish with a lot of German fighters, up in the middle part of Germany, and it was time to go home. I was at around thirty thousand feet with the rest of the flight, watching for enemy fighters, which came up regularly. Since they were concentrating on the bombers, we were not expecting any trouble, and I was just daydreaming, thinking about what a bad day it had been.”{2} Galland continued the commentary on the events:
“One Me 262 had been shot down [Schall’s jet, and he bailed out], and Nowotny reported one bomber kill [which was believed at the time to be a B-24, but records show was a Boeing B-17], possibly a Mustang kill [which fits with the known losses for the day], and hits on another bomber over Dummer Lake, which was a B-17, that did not return to base. He was returning and he reported one of his engines was damaged. He was flying on the right engine alone, which he reported to be on fire, which made him vulnerable. I knew he was in trouble. Schall had already bailed out, but this was unknown to us at that time.”{3}
Haydon continued recalling the events, which paralleled Galland’s and Eder’s interviews: “I was just glancing over the side when I saw this 262 jet below me at about ten thousand feet. Since there were a lot of German planes around, I broke the loose formation after calling him out. I dropped the nose and slipped a bit, and I watched the jet as I descended, never taking my eyes off of him. My aircraft was faster than that of my leader, Capt. Merle Allen, so I closed faster. I almost made no adjustments to get squarely on his tail, and he took no evasive action whatsoever, but stayed on that vector.
“I noticed that the 262 was not going as fast as it should have been, that there was a problem. I should not have been able to close on him so quickly. Well, the jet dropped to the deck on that same heading and leveled off, making no corrections, with me closing in with an altitude advantage. I was almost ready to fire, waiting to close in and shoot this sitting duck. Suddenly, off my right wing at great altitude I saw two Mustangs from the 20th Fighter Group that had arrived late but were diving, converting their altitude into speed.
“They were way out of range when the lead P-51 fired—I saw tracers fall short as much as sixty percent to the target—and there was no way he could have hit it. That pilot was Capt. Ernest Fiebelkorn, as I later discovered. Well, the Germans were alerted, and I knew what was coming. So I called to the flight to break hard right and away to avoid the flak while I went hard left to the deck, which was safe to some degree because the larger guns could not depress elevation to hit you. They could only shoot below the horizon with small arms, but I slipped in anyways. Suddenly I flew into everything they had. The jet pilot was good. He knew what he was doing. In case he had anyone on his tail, he would lure them into the flak zone, so he could drop to the flak free zone and land. No one would have voluntarily flown through that to get down to the jet. But see, I was already below this height at his level and made the turn.”{4}
Galland then continued his description of the events: “I was outside with Eder, Korten, and other pilots, including Karl ‘Quax’ Schnörrer, Nowi’s best friend and wingman for many years, and the ground crew personnel to watch his approach to the field, when an enemy fighter, clearly a Mustang, pulled away not far from us. I remember being surprised because rather than coming in from altitude, this Mustang was low [Haydon’s fighter].”{5}
Haydon continued his statement: “I still had plenty of speed, and I thought for sure I would never see that jet again. I turned no more than twenty to fifty degrees, because I was receiving no fire, and rolled level. I was just trying to scoot across the field and either find a place to hide or rejoin the group. Directly in front of me appeared this 262 again, slowing down as if on a downwind leg, one hundred eighty degrees from his previous position, and he did not see me. I chopped the throttle, cutting power, sliding it back to the right a bit.
“Remember that when you cut power on a propeller driven plane, you lose speed quickly. I ended up in the perfect position, and let her drift right into him, just like shooting a student out of the traffic pattern. [I was] below two hundred yards and closing quickly, since he was slowing down. I was going faster, but I did not observe my airspeed, probably three hundred knots or less and falling… [at] about one hundred feet [altitude] or so—I was right on him… He may have lost the other engine, I don’t know, but it was at this time he saw me. I was so close I could see right in the cockpit: I could see his face clearly.
“The moment he saw me he had a startled look on his face. He was totally animated, as if he thought, ‘I have really screwed up.’ He started thrashing around in the cockpit, as the jet appeared to stall. Then he suddenly snapped right in, falling no more than a half rotation to the left, and I was so enchanted with what was happening I never fired a shot, which would have given me the kill by myself. I thought about that a lot later, knowing that if I had fired, the gun camera would have recorded it, but Merle was watching from higher altitude. The jet snap rolled right in, with me following close behind, and I pulled up as he crashed into the ground.”{6}
Galland, one of the two German eyewitnesses, continued his recollection: “Eder called out some Tempests as well, which I did not see. I heard the sound of a jet engine, and we saw this 262 coming down through the light clouds at low altitude, rolling slightly then inverted, and we could not see much as the forest obscured our view, but then came the sound of it hitting the ground.
“The Mustang I saw pulled up and away and around the tree line, so I lost sight of it, but I remember the markings on the nose. I later learned [after speaking with Jeffrey Ethell in 1982] that it was the same fighter unit that American ace Charles Yeager belonged to, which turned out to be the 357th Fighter Group. We had very good intelligence on enemy air force units, and the information gathered from crashed aircraft and captured pilots also gave us great information. There were two other Mustangs that approached from altitude, perhaps a kilometer or so further away. The explosion of the jet rocked the air, and only a column of black smoke rose from behind the trees.”{7}
Georg-Peter Eder recalled what he saw that day: “Galland, Korten, Keller, and I watched, we could hear everything, mostly drowning out the speakers that allowed us to hear what our pilots were saying. There was so much chatter you could hardly tell which pilot was saying what to whom. I saw this Mustang come out of nowhere from above the trees, maybe a hundred meters, no more, and then I heard the crash, and the smoke rise. That was Nowotny, I learned shortly afterward.”{8}