means of communication between them and the Wing. Daylight operations, however,
continued though tasks were very few. One sortie is worthy of special mention
and occurred on Sep 13th when
Charles Butt
and his navigator,
F/Sgt Richardson
,
flying a
Mosquito
on daylight operations was attacked by two
ME 109
's and one
engine put out of action before the enemy aircraft were seen. Several more
attacks were made by both 109's but, owing to the excellent directions given by
Richardson and Charles' evasive action, no more hits were scored and both 109's,
having presumably run out of ammunition, formated on the
Mosquito
which was still
flying on one engine. The Germans indicated to the pilot that he was to make a
landing in Germany but a signal was returned telling them to "get stuffed" as
Charles was now flying roughly in the direction of home and had about enough
petrol to get there. One of the enemy aircraft then decided to go home but the
other attempted to force the
Mosquito
down by making dummy attacks and, during
one of these, a collision occurred as a result of which some of the
Mosquito
's
wing tip was lost but the whole of the port wing of the 109 broke off, and he
spun to earth completely out of control. The
Mosquito
, after being fired at by
flak in the Rotterdam area, got back to
Brussels
, where a belly-landing was made
in the dusk and both members of the crew escaped unhurt.
The Wing remained at
Amiens
for rather less than three weeks when they were
ordered to
move to
Melsbroek
Airfield
about seven miles north-east of
Brussels
and the move was completed by Sept 27th.
Brussels
itself was not fully recov-
ered from the Liberation and the Wing were once again under a roof more solid
than canvas, though there were many leaks. However, we set about making ourselves
comfortable and preparing for the Belgian winter, with the result that most
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