Word: messerschmitts
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Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitt 109-Fs had run head-on into the terrible fire power of 50-caliber heavy machine guns, which outrange the German fighters' 20-mm. cannon. Beside the Fortresses were Liberators (four-engined B-24s), making their debut in a Western Europe mass raid. With a lower ceiling than the Fortresses, Liberators fly faster, carry four tons of bombs on their extreme range of 3,000 miles to the Fortresses' three tons over 3,500 miles. Redesigning will give both planes room for an even greater load, which they already have the power to lift...
...sake, open fire.' A machine gun started clicking and shell cases flew all over the place. I looked at Jorgensen [the pilot] and thought he was hit, but it was only muscular contraction as bullets whizzed past. One of the gunners shouted that he had knocked down a Messerschmitt and Frost [a gunner] got a second one. Over the interphone I heard Frost tell Jorgensen: 'I got him, sir. There he goes on fire...
...Russians said the Germans had a new fighter over Stalingrad, the Messerschmitt 109-G, powered by a liquid-cooled motor, mounting three cannon and two machine guns, effective as high as 40,000 feet. Such a plane would be formidable against Britain, too, because the British Spitfire's efficiency declines above 30,000 feet...
They found what they were looking for. Four of them were jumped up by 25 of the Germans' new Focke-Wulf 190s and Messerschmitt 109s. They fought them on their own. And one page of what will have to be a book of proof, was complete. Gunners in the Fortresses knocked down three German planes, damaged at least nine more. But U.S. airmen and especially Bomber Commander Ira Eaker were interested in something more than that the Fortresses had beaten off an attack against overwhelming odds. They were most interested in the fact that again all the Fortresses...
British Hurricane planes piloted by South Africans were ordered up to meet the attack (the cooperation between the R.A.F., the S.A.A.F. and the ground troops is as close as the cooperation between Hitler and his satanic majesty). There were 15 German dive-bombers, protected by a screen of Messerschmitt 109 fighters-both Germany's best. The South Africans shot down 13 out of the 15 German dive-bombers and wiped out one Messerschmitt for luck...