Assigned to 654BS, 25BG, 8AF USAAF. Graypea mission from Watton to Hamburg, 20-Mar-45, along with RF988, RF999 and RF996 flew line abreast dispensing chaff in front of the lead B17 formation, intercepted by Me262's. Crew - Roger Gilbert[Pilot], Ray Spoerl[Nav]. Transferred to Armee de l'Air, 4/7/46.



Roger Gilbert: "As I recall, we were not quite line-abreast and I was on the right and a little lower than the lead ship of Lt. Magee to my left. At this time I remember hearing three radio transmissions about Luftwaffe jet aircraft in our area. On the last warning from Magee, the situation was becoming tense. Lt. Spoerl who sat slightly behind me, unbuckled his safety belt, turned around and poked his head up into the observation bubble in the canopy roof to inspect the rear. He reported shortly thereafter that an Me262 appeared coming at our aircraft from six o'clock high. A few seconds later he shouted the jet was firing at us and to break. I immediately broke as hard left as I could to turn inside the jet and get out of his line of fire.



"After turning 45 degrees in the bank, 30 mm shells from the jet ripped into the aircraft. Four rounds struck the instrument panel while others shot out the radio and punctured our dinghy. Another burst tore off four feet from the outer left wing -- I was startled, watching pieces of the wing fly off in the turn. This momentarily jammed the aileron -- I had elevator and rudder control but no ailerons -- they were in full, left-turn position and jammed.



"The damaged wing enabled me to make a tighter left turn. The Me262 flashed by closely on my right. When I initiated the sudden sharp break, Lt. Spoerl was immediately forced to the floor by centrifugal force. The cannon fire punched a hole right through the observation bubble he was peering out to check behind our aircraft. I glanced down at him sprawled on the floor and thought he had been shot. But as the centrifugal force decreased he attempted to recover to his position next to me. He was all right.



"I became greatly concerned with being unable to recover from this very tight spiral with a damaged left wing. We were rapidly descending with 240 indicated air speed and pulling a lot of 'Gs'. Finally, I broke the ailerons loose and they worked partially in one direction only. I then applied differential throttle by retarding the right throttle lever while advancing the left. I was able to recover from the spiral at around 20,000 feet.



"The radio was shot out, eliminating communication with anyone. I turned and banked the Mosquito, returning to England. Both engines operated smoothly and with the higher engine power settings, I maintained aircraft control. Once the Mosquito was trimmed properly I did not experience any further control problems until speed dropped to 170 mph. which caused the aircraft fall off toward the left. As we proceeded towards the North Sea thoughts of having a punctured dinghy worried us."