Walter Heidenreich Memoir

Walter Heidenreich Memoir

Walter shot down George's aircraft. This is his memoir of the action.

One printed sheet

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Walter Heidenreich also remembers his personal success that night:
'The one I shot down was number two or number three. There were
bombers above and below. We had often been infiltrated into the bomber
stream before, and we had seen one or two, or even single ones, but this
time there were bombers all over the place. It was fantastic. I had fired at
Viermots myself on several occasions, but each time my guns had jammed
after three or four rounds. He came into sight, and Isaid to my pilot,
"There's one there in a fantastic position. Let me have a go. Throttle back."
I had a stoppage on that occasion too, but only after I had got off ninety-
four rounds in one long burst. Then the port wing began to blaze. I can see
it to this day. .-
'That night he was the only one who fired at us. He went down like a
blazing torch. It was my only personal kill during the whole of my
operational flying.
'That night we were unable to call up our comrades and bring them into
the stream. That hadn't been organised. If only we had had Very lights or
something like that we could have done so, but we were quite alone. It
would have been so easy to bring other fighters into the stream, and many
more bombers would have been shot down. We just couldn't miss.'
Jung's eight victories in one night put him in third place on the final list of
multiple-kill aces, behind Martin Becker and Wilhelm Herget. That night he had
made his twenty-eighth and last kill of the war. His aircraft, 4R+AN, never flew
again. It was blown up by German troops when American gliders landed on the
airfield at Zellhausen nine days later.