Memories

摘要

We know that memory plays strange tricks over the years, but wartime pilots can usually check facts in their logbooks, although even these may not always be right. A case in point occurs in the book Duel under the stars, first published in English by William Kimber in 1957, in which Wilhelm Johnen relates a combat which ended for him in Switzerland. A night-fighter pilot with 5./NJG 5 based at Hagenau, France, with Messerschmitt Bf 110s, he and his crew brought down a Lancaster in a raid on Friedrichshafen on the night of April 27/28,1944, and according to his own account attacked another which fell into Lake Constance. A third Lancaster was fired on, but its return fire set the Messerschmitt's port engine ablaze and after being blinded by Swiss searchlights Johnen had to land, the Swiss switching on the flarepath at Dubendorf, near Zurich.