In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

lawrence thompson meets a legend...

( sounds a little far fetched to me but interesting reading...)

"this was my first major dogfight I had in the war, in January 1945. I was flying a P-51D and we were supposed to meet with bombers over Romania. Well, the bombers never showed up! And we kept circling and wasting our fuel. When we were low on fuel the squadron leader orders us back to base, with the top group at 24,000 feet and the four bait Mustangs ordered to 15,000 feet. Now you might not really think about it, but the difference in altitude, 9,000 feet, is almost two miles, and assuming that the top flight could dive and rescue the 'bait' airplanes, it might take a full sixty seconds or more for the top group to come to the rescue. A heck of alot can happen in sixty seconds. Earlier, I requested to fly in the bait section believing that I'd have a better chance to get some scores (at that time I had no victories either) and this was my seventh mission. I have to say now that I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and my older brother flew a Jenny biplane in the late 1930s, so I learned the basics of flying even before joining the Army.

So we're all heading back to Italy when, all of a sudden, a dozen or so Me109's bounce us. From one moment it's a clear blue sky, next moment there are dozens' of tracers passing my cockpit. I'm hit several times and I roll over to the right, and below me is an P-51, heading for the deck, with an Me109 chasing him. I begin to chase the Me109. All this time I believe there was another Me109 chasing me! It was a racetrack, all four of us were racing for the finish line! Eventually I caught up with the first Me109 and I fired a long burst at about 1,000 yards, to no effect. Then I waited until about 600 yards, I fired two very long bursts, probably five seconds each (P-51 has ammo for about 18 seconds of continuous bursts for four machine guns, the remaining two machine guns will shoot for about 24 seconds). I noticed that part of his engine cowling flew off and he immediately broke off his attack on the lead P-51. I check my rear view mirrors and there's nothing behind me now; somehow, I have managed to lose the Me109 following me, probably because the diving speed of the P-51 is sixty mph faster than the Me109. So I pull up on the yoke and level out; suddenly a Me109 loomes about as large as a barn door right in front of me! And he fires his guns at me, and he rolls to the right, in a Lufberry circle. I peel off, following this Me109. I can see silver P-51s and black nosed camouflaged painted Me109s everywhere I look, there's Me109 or P-51 everywhere! At this time I cannot get on the transmitter and talk, everyone else in the squadron is yelling and talking, and there's nothing but yelling, screaming, and incoherent interference as everyone presses their mike buttons at the same time. I can smell something in the cockpit. Hydraulic fluid! I knew I got hit earlier.

.... I'm still following this Me109. I just got my first confirmed kill of my tour, and now I'm really hot. I believe that I am the hottest pilot in the USAAF! And now I'm thinking to myself: am I going to shoot this Me109 down too?! He rolls and we turn, and turn; somehow, I cannot catch up with him in the Lufberry circle, we just keep circling. About the third 360 degree turn he and I must have spotted two Mustangs flying below us, about 2,000 feet below, and he dives for the two P-51s.

Now I'm about 150 yards from him, and I get my gunsight on his tail, but I cannot shoot, because if I shoot wide, or my bullets pass through him, I might shoot down one or both P-51s, so I get a front seat, watching, fearful that this guy will shoot down a P-51 we're approaching at about 390 mph. There's so much interference on the R/T I cannot warn the two Mustangs, I fire one very long burst of about seven or eight seconds purposely wide, so it misses the Mustangs, and the Me109 pilot can see the tracers. None of the Mustang pilots see the tracers either! I was half hoping expecting that they'd see my tracers and turn out of the way of the diving Me109. But no such luck. I quit firing. The Me109 still dives, and as he approaches the two P-51s he holds his fire, and as the gap closes, two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty yards the Hun does not fire a shot. No tracers, nothing! At less than ten yards, it looks like he's going to ram the lead P-51 and the Hun fires one single shot from his 20mm cannon! And Bang! Engine parts, white smoke, glycol, whatnot from the lead P-51 is everywhere, and that unfortunate Mustang begins a gentle roll to the right.

I try to watch the Mustang down, but cannot, Now my full attention is on the Hun! Zoom. We fly through the two Mustangs (he was taken POW). Now the advantage of the P-51 is really apparent, as in a dive I am catching up to the Me109 faster than a runaway freight train. I press the trigger for only a second then I let up on the trigger, I believe at that time I was about 250 yards distant, but the Hun was really pulling lots' of negative and positive g's and pulling up to the horizon. He levels out and then does a vertical tail stand! And next thing I know, he's using his built up velocity from the dive to make a vertical ninety degree climb. This guy is really an experienced pilot. I'm in a vertical climb, and my P-51 begins to roll clockwise violently, only by pushing my left rudder almost through the floor can I stop my P-51 from turning. We climb for altitude; in the straight climb that Me109 begins to out distance me, though my built up diving speed makes us about equal in the climb. We climb one thousand fifteen hundred feet, and at eighteen hundred feet, the hun levels his aircraft out. A vertical climb of 1,800 feet! I've never heard of a piston aircraft climbing more than 1,000 feet in a tail stand. At this time we're both down to stall speed, and he levels out. My airspeed indicator reads less than 90 mph! So we level out. I'm really close now to the Me109, less than twenty five yards! Now if I can get my guns on him.........

At this range, the gunsight is more of nuisance than a help. Next thing, he dumps his flaps fast and I begin to overshoot him! That's not what I want to do, because then he can bear his guns on me. The P-51 has good armor, but not good enough to stop 20mm cannon hits. This Luftwaffe pilot must be one heck of a marksman, I just witnessed him shooting down a P-51 with a single 20mm cannon shot! So I do the same thing, I dump my flaps, and as I start to overshoot him, I pull my nose up, this really slows me down; S-T-A-L-L warning comes on! and I can't see anything ahead of me nor in the rear view mirror. Now I'm sweating everywhere. My eyes are burning because salty sweat keeps blinding me: 'Where is He!?!' I shout to myself. I level out to prevent from stalling. And there he is. Flying on my right side. We are flying side to side, less than twenty feet separates our wingtips. He's smiling and laughing at himself. I notice that he has a red heart painted on his aircraft, just below the cockpit. The nose and spinner are painted black. It's my guess that he's a very experienced ace from the Russian front. His tail has a number painted on it: "200". I wonder: what the "two hundred" means!? Now I began to examine his airplane for any bullet hits, afterall, I estimate that I just fired 1,600 rounds at the hun. I cannot see a single bullet hole in his aircraft! I could swear that I must have gotten at least a dozen hits! I keep inspecting his aircraft for any damage. One time, he even lifts his left wing about 15 degrees, to let me see the underside, still no hits! That's impossible I tell myself. Totally impossible. Then I turn my attention back to the "200" which is painted on the tail rudder. German aces normally paint a marker for each victory on their tail. It dawns on me that quick: TWO HUNDRED KILLS !! We fly side by side for five minutes. Those five minutes take centuries to pass. Less than twenty five feet away from me is a Luftwaffe ace, with over two hundred kills. We had been in a slow gradual dive now, my altitude indicates 8,000 feet. I'm panicking now, even my socks are soaked in sweat. The German pilot points at his tail, obviously meaning the "200" victories, and then very slowly and dramatically makes a knife-cutting motion across his throat, and points at me. He's telling me in sign language that I'm going to be his 201 kill! Panic! I'm breathing so hard, it sounds like a wind tunnel with my mask on. My heart rate must have doubled to 170 beats per minute; I can feel my chest, thump-thump and so.

This goes on for centuries, and centuries. The two of us flying at stall speed, wingtip to wingtip. I think more than once of simply ramming him. He keeps watching my ailerons, maybe that's what he expects me to do. We had heard of desperate pilots who, after running out of ammunition, would commit suicide by ramming an enemy plane. Then I decide that I can Immelmann out of the situation, and I began to climb, but because my flaps are down, my Mustang only climbs about one hundred feet, pitches over violently to the right and stalls. The next instant I'm dangerously spinning, heading ninety degrees vertically down! And the IAS reads 300 mph! My P-51 just falls like a rock to the earth! I hold the yoke in the lower left corner and sit on the left rudder, flaps up, and apply FULL POWER! I pull out of the dive at about 500 feet, level out, (I began to black out so with my left hand I pinch my veins in my neck to stop blackout). I scan the sky for anything! There's not a plane in the sky, I dive to about fifty feet elevation, heading towards Italy. I fly at maximum power for about ten minutes, and then reduce my rpm (to save gasoline), otherwise the P-51 has very limited range at full power. I fly like this for maybe an hour, no planes in the vicinity; all the time I scan the sky, check my rear view mirrors.

I never saw the Me109 with the red heart again. At the mess I mention the Me109 with the red heart and "200" written on the tail. That's when the whole room, I mean everybody, gets instantly quiet. Like you could hear a pin drop. Two weeks later the base commander shows me a telex: "....according to intelligence, the German pilot with a red heart is Eric Hartmann who has downed 250 aircraft and there is a reward of fifty thousand dollars offered by Stalin for shooting him down. I've never before heard of a cash reward for shooting down an enemy ace ... "

[bobbysocks]

The florist remembers the call. Make a silk arrangement suitable for a grave. Deliver it to the
country cemetery south of Arnold on Nov. 11. So Lisa Geiser, owner of Pretty Petals Floral, set
it on the grave of Lt. Roland C. Potter, an American pilot who died in combat Jan. 14, 1945.
The arrangement was ordered by a former German fighter pilot named Theo Nau. Six decades
ago in the skies over Germany, Nau and Potter met briefly as enemies.
He’s not sure if the memory is his, or if the story was told to him. Either way, what happened
feels like a memory to him now.
It was 1948, and Roland K. Potter was 5. The boy everyone called by his middle name, Kerry,
was dressed up, standing with his mother and other adults. The boy asked why everyone was
crying.
“She said, ‘When you get a little older, I’ll explain it to you.’”
Over the years, he would understand they were crying at the funeral of his father, Roland
Potter. After his P-47 Thunderbolt went down, the remains of the 23-year-old were buried in
Germany. Then they were moved to France. Finally, three years after his death, the pilot’s
father brought them back to the Sandhills.
Roland C. Potter was born Sept. 4, 1921, and grew up on a farm outside of Arnold, but he
knew he didn’t want to spend his life tethered to the ground. In the early 1940s, he took flying
lessons in Chadron while he was a student at the local college.
His life moved quickly after the United States entered the war. He enlisted in the Army in May
1942 and was assigned to the Air Corps. He married Betty in November and, a month later,
was assigned to active duty.
Their son was born Sept. 1, 1943, while the pilot was learning to fly P-47s in Texas. The
mother waited to name him until her husband made it home on leave, so for a time, relatives
called him P-47.
When he returned to Arnold, Betty snapped a photo of her husband holding their son. Family
legend says the name Kerry came from a character in a comic strip, a pilot.
By November 1943, the father was flying combat missions in the European Theater.
Theo Nau learned to fly when he was 14. After he joined the German Luftwaffe, he eventually
was put behind the controls of one of their primary fighter planes, the Messerschmitt 109.
On Jan. 14, 1945, Nau was flying with a squadron of German fighters who had a lone P-47 in
their sights. The 19-year-old pilot engaged in the battle and hit the American plane above
Heltersberg, Germany.
The Thunderbolt trailed smoke and appeared to be attempting a crash landing. Nau wanted to
follow, to learn the pilot’s fate, but he only had time to note the plane’s tail number before
realizing another American plane was firing behind him.
Bullets struck the tail of Nau’s plane, then just behind the cockpit. Nau pulled into a turn but
couldn’t lose the Thunderbolt, which stayed about 50 yards behind. After about five minutes,
one of the American pilot’s machine gun bursts struck the Messerschmitt’s engine.
Smoke poured out of the plane. Nau bailed, but not before he saw the numbers on his adversary’s plane.
He severely broke his arm and was hospitalized for three months. Later, he was taken prisoner
by Americans, who turned him over to the Russians. He escaped from a POW camp and when
he made it back to his hometown, he found bombs had destroyed his family’s home and killed
his father.
The war was over, but the pain was just beginning.
Back in the Nebraska Sandhills, Betty Potter worked at the bank in Arnold to support her son.
She rarely spoke of her dead husband but made sure her son knew Roland Potter was a good
man who died for his country.
In 1950, she married John Nelson. Together, they had two daughters, Sandra Jespersen, who
now lives in Lincoln, and Susan Nelson, who lives in Arnold. John Nelson raised Kerry like his
own and today they share a father-son relationship.
As a kid, Kerry Potter built plastic models of P-47s and collected books about the Thunderbolt.
He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he studied geology and enrolled in the
ROTC program. After college, he joined the Air Force and trained as a pilot.
He married his sweetheart, Elizabeth VanSickle of Lincoln. In May 1969, he left behind his wife,
pregnant with their first child, to serve in Vietnam. He flew more than 200 missions in F-4
Phantoms and returned about a year later to his wife and daughter.
He made the Air Force his career and was stationed all over the world, including Germany. He
retired as a colonel and lives with his wife in Wasilla, Alaska.
For a period in the Air Force, he was assigned to pilot an A-10 jet, also called the Thunderbolt
II.
Nau spent his working life running his family’s wine and brandy distillery in Germany. Now
retired, he and his wife live in Bacharach, on the Rhine River.
For decades, he wondered about the fates of the Americans he met Jan. 14.
Over time, he made friends with former American pilots who helped him track down U.S.
military records of the dogfights that occurred that day. Using the plane numbers and times and
locations of the fights, they eventually came up with the identities.
He learned the pilot who shot him down was an ace fighter named Capt. Joe Cordner, a Native
from North Dakota who died in 1965.
Just months ago, he learned the pilot he shot down was another ace who had survived 80
missions and brought down three enemy aircraft.
His name was Lt. Roland C. Potter of Arnold, Neb.
So Nau contacted a friend, Carl Kahn of Lincoln, who flew American planes in World War II. At
his friend’s request, Kahn made the arrangements to have flowers placed on Potter’s grave.
“I was a very young kid then and Lt. Potter was a young kid then,” Nau said, explaining his
gesture. “We loved to fly. We did not love war.
“The war was terrible ... it was terrible and I hope we have no war in the future.”
When Kerry Potter heard about the flowers from a friend in Arnold, he was shocked. Then he
felt touched by Nau’s gesture.
Fighter pilots, regardless of uniform, share an unwritten code of respect. They know what
happens in the skies is duty.
Nothing personal.
“This particular pilot did not set out that day to kill Roland Potter,” he said. “I think it was nice of
him and an honorable thing to do.”
Still, Potter said, he has no plans to talk to the old German pilot.
Not because he harbors hard feelings, but because he’s concerned it would be difficult for Nau
to hear what the war forced him to take away 61 years ago.

[McQ59]

Thanks for posting bobby. I really appreciate these stories.