Airdrop

Flight Journal, Feb 2003

On the last day or so of the War, when combat flying was on hold but the surrender was not yet official, Tony flew his Meteor to the stretch of autobahn where it was known Me 262s were parked. He landed and had a convivial meeting with the Germans, who looked over the Meteor while he looked over the Me 262. Tony declined an invitation to the last party to be held that night and flew back to his base. He did not have a camera but said the Germans were taking photos of the event. I would have killed to get a photo of the Meteor parked with 262s and to have found anyone from the 262 unit.

I checked my library, and it seems from what Mr. Czypionka related about his late-April '45 combat when he landed wheels-up at Lubeck that 130 Sqn. RAF Spitfires engaged him "early morning." This reference comes from Chris Shores' 1970 book from Osprey, "Second Tactical Air Force," page 270, and it reports that "the pilot bailed out halfway down the runway." John Foreman's "Messerschmitt 262 Combat Diary," Air Research, UK, 1990, identified the RAF pilots as Flight Lt. Stowe and WO Ockenden, for a "shared probable." No book confirms a Tempest or Typhoon lost in earlier combat with 262s as mentioned in the article.

Lex McAulay

Maryborough, Queensland, Australia

While doing research for a Spitfire project, I ran across this in the old "Aircraft in Profile No. 246-Supermarine Spitfire (Griffon engines) Mks. XIV and X VIII" by L. J. (Len) Bachelor (writing about Spit fire XIV ops toward the end of the War in Europe): "Two Me 262s were chased to Lubeck on 25th April by No. 41 Squadron, where they made panic landings from opposite ends of the runway. One enemy aircraft was destroyed by Flight Lt. Colwell (MV266) and the other was claimed as damaged. "This was written back in 1972. Colwell's victim sure sounds like Jorg's Me 262 to me. We'll have to look into this further. Thanks for writing.

Tom Cleaver

FORMER HELLCAT DRIVER

I enjoyed Corky Meyer's article on the Hellcat (April 2002). In the training command, I went through primary in the SNJ, transitioned to the F8F for formations and cross-country and then to the F6F for weapons and CAQ. The F6F was like a kiddie car after the F8F. The F6F's forward visibility was lousy coming aboard unless you closed the cowl flaps. If you had to take a wave-off and didn't get them open, you could fry the engine. [email]

Jim McNerney

CREDIT OWED

In our December 2002 issue, we gave the CarterCopter flight shots' photo credit to the EAA's Jim Koepnick; it should have been to the EAA's Arnold Greenwall. Our apologies to Arnold.