During the summer and early fall of 1942
the Luftwaffe were making almost daily low level hit and run raids along the
south coast of England causing
tremendous damage and casualties On September 17th Pip Powell and I were sitting
in our aircraft with the radio on when we saw bombs bursting on Bognor Regis At the same time we were
scrambled and immediately spotted two FW 190’s heading out to sea. We each took
one and began the chase. Pip’s 190 made the mistake of turning and was shot
down. Mine continued straight and level. And despite putting the throttle
through the gate as near as I could get was 250-300 yards I fired both cannon
and machine guns observing strikes. I continued the chase to almost the French
coast. The 190 was last seen streaming smoke.
Now fast forward to 1999 when Chris Goss, an RAF squadron leader writer was gathering
information for his book “Luftwaffe Fighter Bombers Over Britain” He contacted
me and at the same time Willy Wenger,
brother of the 190 pilot whose aircraft I had damaged. Wenger was one
of JG 26’s top pilots specializing in
the hit and run raids. He led 22 FW’s on
the infamous attack on Bournemouth May 23 1943, killing 128, including 51 servicemen. Wenger
was shot down and died near the end of
the war.
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| Willy gives the 20 mm shell back to Dad |
Goss put us together and we began corresponding by regular mail and E
mail. He sent me many pictures of his brother. In 2004 my wife Martha and
daughter Denise visited Willy Wenger in
their home in Bad Glichenberg. Willy said “you gave this to my brother, now I
am giving it back to you”.
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| The shell with the date September 17, 1947 |
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| Leo Wenger's German medals |
See Wave Top Battle story for newspaper article describing the battle.
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