Harry Mallo
17th Squadron
Debden
July 23

1 Claim
+2 min WEP

Put in my first claim today. Another scramble down to the SE, it's all we get lately. As I went to start up the engine, I accidentally let slip "Split formation!" over the comms, which is of course what I say instead of cursing... Well wouldn't you know that after that the rest of my flight wouldn't even talk to me for the duration of the mission? Unbelievable! It's like I hit some key by mistake that rendered me invisible to them for the rest of the flight or something...
Anyway, I made my way on my own down to the coast and established a pattern at a comfortable remove from the rest of the squadron and waited for the fun to begin. It was about fifteen minutes until the call of "Bandits below us!" rang out. I never did see the bombers, although I did spot a couple of stricken ships later on, but I managed to attach myself to the tail of a 109 attacking "A" flight. He twisted and turned and spun away as I sent a tremendous volume of rifle rounds his way until we were down to about 1000 feet out over the middle of the channel. At that point his engine quit on him and he settled into a rather smooth water landing. I gave him a wave and radioed in his location before heading back to file a claim, which I have just done!