WWII Veterans Recall Meeting the German Messerschmidt Me 262

it was a Martin Marauder designated as b-26 it was medium bomber our plane was heavy and we carried 4,000 pounds of bombs and 965 Kellen's of gasoline and a crew of six I was a co-pilot it was my job to watch for fighters and to communicate with the crew and fly the formation when it was on my side of the of the aircraft when one instance I looked up above and the plane had dropped out of formation that was ahead of us that bomb Bay's were open and it was just about time to drop the bombs so needless to say we were glad to cut back the power and get behind that plane that was right over us towards the end of the war it was either the last or next to the last mission I flew I think it was a 30th mission we had bombed a munitions depot and after coming off the target we saw this measure Schmidt 262 the new jet that they had just developed coming towards us and to my knowledge I did not see any bullets being shot at us but he had to fly a very long pursuit curve because they flew at approximately 600 miles per hour the Germans were much ahead of us in the in the technology of aviation at the time and the weapons making a lot of the things in base so they were able to get this well in advance of us and we the us took several ideas that the Germans had in this me-262 and it was incorporated in the fighter airplanes that we made in the Korea and the early part of the Gulf War during World War two I was a pilot of a Martin b-26 Marauder flew a 42 missions over Germany and and in northern Italy during war - and just think for a minute i'm i'm 18 years old flying an airplane with a crew and we're middle of the South Atlantic and I find myself said what am i doing out here I've never been out of Greg County before specifically the first attacks against our formation or my units formation was 17 April 1945 then again on the 24th and 26th of April our first attack they shot two of us down but we were able to shoot two of them down

Channel: Tyler Morning Telegraph

Views: 277,510

Keywords: world war ii, Ww2, german, american, veterans, tyler texas, loyd george, bill halbert, airplanes, airport, Messerschmidt Me 262, Martin Marauder, pilot, aviation

Id: QxeTwVEVDTk

Length: 3min 11sec (191 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2013