Read this article on an airforce magazine recalling a Squadon of Canadian P-51 encounter Me 109 Disguise As P-51, during the normandy campaign.
It was only at close did they notice there weren’t P-51, and open fire, The Me’s (confuse who was who) Decided to just ran off after one was shot down. What I like about This event was that The Me’s were really well disguise, They had the same paint scheme (including the D-day strips and RAF markings) ,and had there wing tip painted black so it would look like square wing tips.
Only air action the Luftwaffe managed on 6 Jun was Pips Priller and his wingman (Woodarzyk was his name, or something like that, IIRC) making a singke strafing pass along part of the beach… Pretty much all the Luftwaffe fighter units had been pulled back into Germany for the Reich Defense missions… That said, I won’t say it couldn’t have happened, but I’m certainly not aware of any such action on or immediately after the 6th…
My vote would be for 2 mustang flights encountering eachother and having a go not realising (or not liking eachother) This could have happened with the Tuskegee airmen as racial tensions were high. A report could then have been filed to claim 109’s disguised as mustangs to cover their asses
Yes, That where its from, Airfoce magazine (of the RCAF), thanks smoffe
I didn’t beleive it at first until I saw the article, And there there was a painting that was made of the incident, with a P-51 shooting at one of the ME 109.
The date I was not sure, (didn’t say it exactly) but Its was defiently during sometime in the europe campaign (probably still in summer), The D-day stripe on both aircraft confiment it.
are you sure it was d-day stripes and not RAF recognition stripes? I know typhoons used these but not sure about mustangs, Was it RAF or USAF? Recognition stripes were only painted on the underside and were much thinner than invasion stripes.
I don’t claim to be a aviation scholar but I have many years of studying the air war and literally hundreds of refs regarding WW2 aviation…I’ve never heard of this…I doubt it ever happened.
If this was even close to being confirmed it would be one of the most celebrated, artist-rendered, published and recounted stories to come out of WW2…Like I wrote earlier, never heard of it…
Most pilots went on the outline of the other plane when it came to a/c recognition…most of the time you can’t see markings on an a/c until you get fairly close to it—by then someone is already shooting…
I just read that story in Ed Jablonski’s “Air War.” Priller was mad as hell that his squadron had been so spread out. He and his wingman were coming off a good drunk when he got a phone call from Luftwaffe command to put all his pilots on alert. His screamed response was something like, “I’m awake! My wingman is awake! That’s about as alert as it’s going get!”
Right after I read that I saw an interview with some D-Day vets, one of whom mentioned the aforementioned strafeing pass. The Allies fired at the two FW-190’s with everything that would shoot. The troops actually applauded the two pilots who had the stones to try it and were pleased when they were able to climb out and away.
I JUST read an article on that in a magazine I purchased called “Mustang American Idol”. It told the true encounters of 109’s in D-day striping with RAF emblems. They even had the round tips of the wings painted black to make them seem straight when seen from a distance.
In the article it has several pilot accounts with the 109 encounters painted in D-day RAF markings.
One of this ilustrations was by Barry Weekley called “Not Cricket”. Pretty sure it happened.
Well, there is the illustration I was looking for.
Still with my original position that it never happened. I need more info. Like, what was the purpose? A few Me109’s painted with roundels was supposed to accomplsih what? Not to mention the pilots, if shot down and captured, would be shot. Not even during the Battle of the Bulge or during Operation Boddenplate did the Germans resort to this…What German unit did this. Who ordered it? I just haven’t seen the evidence to convince me that this really happened.
As a pilot, I can tell you that painting the edges of the wings black would not change the sillouette of the plane at a distance, as objects at a distance are typically dark against the lighter sky…that’s why German nightfighters were painted RLM 76…
At best, IMO, this was a friendly fire incident that was never cleared up…there are probably some unlucky spitfire pilots that are to this day credited as kills to some British pilot w/ poor eyesight…
I would scan the article but that would infringe copyright laws. I can verify by the article what the allied pilots saw though. It never mentioned what German unit it was from.
I must admit i am with ERIC on this one. I have read scores of books on the Luftwaffe and have never come across this story. And like he says, painting the wingtips black would just show up as black wingtips in a light sky. I know some Ju 88G’s had their tails painted black to resemble an older model C, but these were night fighters.
I am not saying it didn’t happen, but i am dubious. There are accounts of the Germans useing captured B-17’s and B-24’s to tail US bomber formations. So if this was to happen, it would have made more sense to use captured Allied Fighters.
On The History Channel: Dogfights, they did some interviews with some of the Tuskegee Airmen. One of the pilots spotted a German marked P51 in trail with a flight of bombers. He didn’t have the fuel to tangle with it. I THINK he said he made one zooming pass and then turned for home.
KG-200 used captured bombers to trail the US bomber formnations and radio speed, altitude, and heading info… There was also a story of an Italian pilot who used a captured P-38…
I believe most of the captured allied a/c that were used by the Germans to sometimes shadow allied formations carried German markings…they certailnly did when they were being evaluated.
Kind of a long flight for the 332nd from Ramitelli, which is down at the “heel” of the Italian boot…
The big hole I see in the story is that it would mean the Germans knew where the invasion was going to take place, what the a/c markings would be and considered it a worthwhile endevour to repaint some planes. With that kind of forewarning, they’d have had more pressing issues to attend to.
