May 5, 1945. Flying at 8,000 feet and at just over 200 mph in his personal Spitfire Mk XVI TD240, Group Captain Aleksander Gabszewicz, the Commanding Officer of No. 131 (Polish) Wing, led 11 heavily laden, bomb-carrying Spitfires of 302 Squadron towards their target, an enemy troop concentration in a German village. Navigating by a handheld map to the map reference he had been given, he identified the target some distance out and ordered the other Spitfires into close echelon starboard formation.
He judged the best direction of approach so that the final dive would not have a difficult crosswind component and would take advantage of the sun, and then he flew over the target so that it ran just outside his port cannon barrel and disappeared under his port wing. When it reappeared behind the trailing edge of the wing, he rolled his Spitfire onto its back and let the nose drop through the vertical, using ailerons and elevator to position the target in the center of the gunsight (the Spitfire never had a bomb sight), settling the aircraft into a screaming dive about 20 degrees off the vertical (a 70-degree dive angle).
This story is from the January - February 2021 edition of Flight Journal.
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This story is from the January - February 2021 edition of Flight Journal.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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Scourge of the Allied Fighters
IT HAD TO BE THE MOST HELPLESS FEELING in the world: you're at 25,000 feet over Europe knowing that your primary function is to drop bombs-or flying escort for the bombers while being a slow-moving target for some of the world's finest shooters. However, you have John Browning's marvelous .50 caliber invention to give some degree of protection. Unfortunately, you're absolutely helpless against flak. Piloting and gunnery skills play no role in a game where sheer chance makes life and death decisions. For that reason, the Krupp 88 mm Flak 18/36/37 AA cannon could be considered WW II's ultimate stealth fighter. You never saw it coming.
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