I had a little altitude on the German, and I was gaining on him. The German got nervous and racked that Focke-Wulf into a tight left turn. Friend, I thought, you ain’t about to out-turn this Spitfire. I knew he couldn’t. I cut inside of him and fired. One of my 20mm cannon jammed and the other cannon, in the other wing, gave my Spitfire a see-saw action. I don’t know if I hit him or not, but he snapped over on his back. I thought if I passed over him, he’d do a split-S and come up behind me. I rocked the other way to keep him in sight. And then I saw him hit the ground and explode. He was doing about 350 or 375 miles per hour when he hit the ground. I was so scared that I’d forgotten we were only twenty or thirty feet above the ground. When he snapped, he rolled his airplane right into the ground. I don’t know if I even hit him, but it doesn’t really matter. The adrenalin was flowing through this twenty-three-year old. I had just seen my buddy hit the ground and explode a couple of minutes earlier. And now that German fellow had exploded and was on fire. I didn’t know where I was. I was still at full throttle, but I knew enough to turn in a westerly direction, because that’s where the Allies were – somewhere out there. At least I had to get away from German territory. I calmed down, l dropped down to about ten feet or so, and pulled the throttle, fuel mixture, and RPM back. All of a sudden, from my 10 o’clock to my 12 o’clock , I saw this airplane flying along at about 600 or 800 feet. There were clouds above me and I was in a light rain. I thought the other airplane looked like a Spitfire, that maybe it was Merlin Mitchell or Mitch’s wingman. But I didn’t say anything on the radio, and I stayed right where I was. By the time the other airplane got to my 12 o’clock, I was close enough to see a swastika on the tail. It was an Me-109. I thought I could stay down where I was and stay directly underneath him. I could advance the throttle, mixture, and RPM, pull up, and just let him slide right in front of me. He’d never know what hit him. And that’s what I proceeded to do – to start to do. As I turned underneath him and advanced the throttle, he still hadn’t seen me. I knew that by the time I pulled up to 500 feet I would be behind him and probably close enough not to miss. And that’s when a Britisher back in England saved my life. You can call it luck if you want. But I remembered this Britisher saying, “Chaps, remember this always: Where there’s one, there’s quite often two.” I didn’t look back; I just did a 180-degree turn, while I was still on the deck. As I got turned around, the German’s number two man passed right over me. Neither one of the Germans ever saw me. If I had pulled up on number one, number two would had had me as a beautiful sitting target. The adrenalin was flowing again. I headed west. I was going to fly west until I ran out of fuel or found an airfield. I came across Thelepte. We didn’t have it – Rommel had kicked us out – but I knew where I was. I picked up a northwesterly heading, flew back to Kalaa Djerda, and landed. Merlin Mitchell never made it back. He was shot down and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Germany.