Quiet flight until we crossed the German border and we were picked up by a ME-110 coming in from 6 o'clock. "Cork Screw Port Skipper!" I yelled out as I gave him a good burst. He quickly passed down and to starboard … That got us really looking hard into the night as we flew on. Over the target we had acouple of fighters close in but no damage done as we managed to get 10% on target. With a hard turn to port we cleared the target area and quickly headed home. Crossing the German border we were picked up by another ME-110 who got in on me and managed to pepper the starboard wing pretty good, knocking out the #4 Eng and damaging the starboard landing gear. Skipper and Flt feathered and cut fuel to the Eng as we heard our bomb aimer have a go and got some good hits on the bugger forcing him to break off the attack. As we neared our home field we found out that the starboard gear was stuck so the Skipper decided to do a wheels up landing. The mid upper gunner came and got me out of the turret and we all sat in the middle of the ship as the Skipper brought us down on the grass. A few bumps and bruises but we got down ok. We got out and watched as the fire crews came up to check and we got a lift back to the debriefing hut. Chiefy is not going to be pleased.
C Trimble