[bobbysocks]

the one that got away...

Lt. Dale E. Karger
14 Jan. 1945

I was flying Greenhouse Green Four position on an escort mission to Berlin. Our squadron was sweeping out in front of the bomber stream when 100 plus enemy fighters were spotted coming from at least 2 directions. The squadron was still in a fairly close formation and still had our drop tanks on. I was in the tail end Charlie position in the formation. For some reason i glanced to my starboard side and was very much surprised to see a Me 262 jet opposite me up behind Greenhouse Two. The 262 was in so close in our formation that I was completely taken with excitement, and my thinking clouded up a bit to say the least. Up until this time we were on radio silence except for someone calling out the incoming bogies. I yelled on the radio, "There's a jet job on your ass!" which probably caused everyone in the group quickly check their 6. I was so excited I couldn't think clear enough to identify myself or the aircraft being trailed. I have no idea why the German pilot didn't hit his guns and take out the number 2 man. He had creeped in to a point blank position. One of the first things you are taught as a fighter pilot is to look more behind you than ahead, but I think the reason for me not doing that this time was the fact we were still in a pretty tight formation and it is rather difficult to look around as much when in closer.


The only thing I could think of to do under the circumstances was to swing my plane over and get behind the jet. The German must have anticipated this and immediately gave it full throttle straight ahead. By this time I was directly behind him lined up for a perfect shot. I squeezed the trigger anticipating to see tracers fly through the air....NOTHING happened! I squeezed again and again no guns. Gun switches ( heaters) were kept off as a precautionary measure to keep you from accidentally pulling the trigger and hitting one of your own people. Caught up in the excitement of the moment i didn't turn on my guns or drop my tanks. By now I was flustered and as I looked at the controls I drew a complete blank as to what switch to turn on ( yes, they are all marked). In the meantime due to his superior speed the jet was pulling out of range fast. After smacking myself on the side of the head a couple times, I regained enough composure to get the right switched on and let go a few quick bursts but to no avail. He was too far out of range.


I told this story to someone before and told them how lucky the guy was that I lost my cool because there is no way he could have out run my six 50 cal machine guns had the switches been on. The person I told the story to had another view of the whole thing that I had never thought of, He said maybe I was the lucky one and that maybe that jet could have pulled up behind me and shot my ass off first. Needless to say, I pondered that for a long while.


Well being as this whole thing was a fiasco from the start you would think nothing else could go wrong! As fate wold have it while I was above and out to the side of the group after the jet, the whole bunch turned left leaving me as we would say, "fat, dumb, and happy all alone at 25 to 30,000 feet." I figured I would make the best of a bad situation and so dropped my tanks to get ready for whatever would come next. Looking below me about 5000 feet I could see a big dogfight starting as everyone was turning left in a circle with lots of shooting going on. My next mistake was that I thought I would dive right in the middle of this mess and get some. As I did this I knew right away it was a bad, bad move. There were bullets flying and burning planes everywhere so I got out real fast! I figured I would sit on the outside and wait for a straggler to come out. It wasn't long before a lone Me 109 came along heading for the deck. I think he had his fill of what was happening and decided the easiest thing to do was go home. Anyway, in the meantime, Greenhouse Two ( the guy who originally had the jet on his ass) joined up with me as my wingman. As I started after the 109 at about 20,000 feet he made a slow decent East. I closed very quickly and throttled back, even had to drop a few degrees of flaps to keep from running over him. Still I ended up flying beside him almost wing tip to wing tip. When I dropped behind him to fire I was so close that I think most of the bullets were going around both sides of the cockpit and converging in front of him because I couldn't see too many hits. But enough of them found their mark. He may have been having engine or some other problems because he made no attempts at evasive maneuvers. When the 109 finally bellied into a field I made one quick pass and fired setting the craft on fire.

In spite of all the goofy things that happened this particular mission it ended up being pretty spectacular for the 357th Fighter Group. The sky was a perfect clear blue and any direction you looked you would see a couple burning planes going down. We were credited with shooting down 55 German aircraft and were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation and a commendation by General Doolittle. Our losses for the day were 3 to 4 as I best recollect.

This is probably one of the few stories my father ever wrote down and would comment on it saying that sometimes you you survive despite all your screw ups. Then again when I think of it, he was one month shy of his 20th birthday. When i think of the momentous decisions I had to make as a 19 year old...they pale drastically in comparison.