Spitfire of 322-Sqd

Two Spifire`s During the period from june 18th to august 11. 322 had some success in operation Crossbow downing 110 1/2 V-1's in 1932 flying hours and 1761 flights. On june 18., due to lack of ammo, Flying Officer tries to tip a V-1 with his wingtips, to make it crash. He fails, but a few days later Flying Officer F.J.H. van Eijk tries the same and succeeds. This trick will become widely accepted untill the germans make buttons on the V-1 to detect the wing tipping. on juli 12. J.A. Maier is killed by an exploding V-1. Fighting V-1's still was a dangerous task: sometimes the pilots shot while flying too close to the bomb. This resulted in damaged or black Spitfires. Often the pilot had to open his canopy because he couldn't see a thing anymore. One pilot got killed when an American Mustang shot the V-1 he was trying to down with the well known wing tip. The V-1 exploded, taking the Spitfire into it's destruction. R.F. Burgwal became the top scorer with 18 kills, unfortunately he was missing on august 12. after escorting a raid on Orléans. On juli 30. N. van Beers soorts the 100th V-1 it is his own 11th kill.