A puff of white smoke came from Schack’s engine, indicating a hit to the cooling system. Nowlin lined up his shot in his P-51D-known as Hells Bells-and squeezed off a burst at the enemy plane. Nowlin closed in on the Me 109 flown by Schack, a decorated Luftwaffe pilot who would end the war with 174 kills on the Eastern Front. Then he waved to the pilot, leaving Schack to wonder for the next 40 years why the American pilot never finish him off. Hollis "Bud" Nowlin, at right, in his P-51 closed in on the Me 109 flown by Günther Schack, a decorated Luftwaffe pilot, and fired at the enemy aircraft. The American pilot and his group had accompanied B-17s in bombardment groups from England to a Soviet airbase as part of Operation Frantic, an attempt by the Allies to hit German factories that had moved eastward to avoid bombing. Hollis “Bud” Nowlin, leader of the Greenhouse White Flight unit from the 357th Fighter Group of the 66th Fighter Wing in the Eighth Air Force. The German pilot began evasive maneuvers as an American aircraft quickly jumped on his tail.īehind Schack was Lt. Suddenly, a squadron of P-51D Mustangs came roaring out of the sun, each with six 50-caliber machine guns blazing. They had a right to be suspicious-these planes were American, flying toward a base inside the Soviet Union.Īs Schack led his planes into the attack, he realized it was a trap. They headed out looking for a large number of “furniture vans,” German slang for the Soviets’ four-engine bombers.Īs it chased down this “big herd” on the Eastern Front, the unit was taken by surprise, mainly because the Soviet air force did not often participate in strategic bombing. From a Luftwaffe base in Lyke, East Prussia, on Aug, the German pilot Günther Schack scrambled his pursuit squadron of nine Me 109s.
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