Transcript
Fifty years, half a century after that happened I met the German who shot me down.
He told me a few things which answered a few questions in my mind that I'd had there for fifty years and similarly for him, we corresponded and used to send cards to one another, he said he didn't mind corresponding with members of the crew provided they didn't bear him a grudge.
I said 'Well look, you know, it was either you or us. If our turret had been working we might have killed you.'
So anyhow, the interesting thing that he told me or one of them, but the most interesting I think, was that it was his first attack on an aircraft.
He was a new chum. He went on to shoot down 42 aircraft. He became an ace, very highly decorated but this was his first and he told me that he was so excited he forgot to arm his cannon and the only thing that was armed was his machine gun and when he fired he only fired machine gun bullets and had he fired those cannon it would have blown us out of the sky. So I was very lucky from so many points of view.
