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THE DRAGON: Who’s he that seeks the Dragon’s blood, And calls so angry, and so loud? That English dog, will he before me stand? I’ll cut him down with my courageous hand. With my long teeth, and scurvy jaw, Of such I’d break up half a score, And stay my stomach, till I’d more. -- Christmas Play of St. George and the Dragon, as collected by William Sandys, F.S.A., in Christmas-tide - its History, Festivities and Carols, 1852 This shall bestride the sea and ride the sky. Thus shall he fly, and beat above your nation The clashing pinions of Apocalypse, Ye shall be deep-sea fish in pale prostration Under the sky-foam of his flying ships. When terror above your cities, dropping doom, Shall shut all England in a lampless tomb, Your widows and your orphans now forlorn Shall be no safer than the dead they mourn. When all their lights grow dark, their lives grow grey, What will those widows and those orphans say? -- G K Chesterton, The Turkey and the Turk,1925 Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house, she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not fly away. -- Hesiod, Works and Days "A cross-Channel invasion was not, as it happened, how I had visualized the war would be won... If anything, I had imagined some gigantic, climactic duel of aircraft, in which Spitfires without number would have overwhelmed the Germans first in the sky and them on the ground. But if a cross-Channel invasion it was to be, that was an end to it... They were going to win. The Germans were going to lose." -- John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy From 1941 to possibly as late as 1943, the Luftwaffe's dragon, their butcher bird, their Würger (shrike), the Focke-Wulf 190 was the terror of Europe's skies. You don't need me to tell you that. If you're here, you already knew. Small, fast, heavily-armed and armored, it was a formidable foe for Allied fighter pilots and bombers alike. In a head-on attack, the Fw190A-8 brought four 20mm cannon and two 13mm heavy machineguns to bear; the eighteen-year-old nose gunner of a B-24 (like the one flown by my great-uncle on D-Day) could reply with two 0.50in machineguns to defend not only his own life, but the lives of his ten crewmates. For a horrible year and a few months beyond, the Fw190 seemed to have finally ended the Spitfire's ascendancy, but of course, as it ultimately proved, and as anyone who knows birds could tell you, the merlin is larger, more beautiful, and more deadly than the harsh-voiced shrike. The aircraft I'm building is Werknummer 170393/Yellow 11 of 6./JG1, flow by Fw. Alfred Bindseil, who had five victory claims (B-17, Spitfire, two P-51s, and a B-24), including a P-51 whose tail he severed with his prop. Bindseil survived the destruction of Yellow 11 when he force-landed it after encountering marauding P-47s on 31 May 1944, but met his destiny near St. Lo on 20 June 1944 in Werknummer 731091/Yellow 4, or SO I THOUGHT. Eduard has Bindseil's death as 20 June, so I pulled the combat reports for that date from the National Archives, only to discover he was killed in action on 20 JULY, probably in combat with Spitfires of 441 and 602 Squadrons (among them the great J E "Johnnie" Johnson, my boyhood hero, a dragonslayer for the 20th century and a man who I regard, without a trace of irony, as a great man and a genuine hero). 20 July was a bad day for JG1; though a total of three Spitfires were awarded to Oblt. von Kirchmayr (two) and Obfw Flecks (one), bringing their scores to 20 and 14, respectively. Let me emphasize here: no Spitfires were lost. However, ten JG1 Fw190s were destroyed and seven pilots were killed in combat with British and Canadian Spitfires on this day.. Now, all this being said, I did some archival research on 20 June , and it would be a pity for it to go to waste. On 20 June a low altitude patrol of Spitfires from 317 (Polish) Squadron, operating with 131 Wing, encountered Fw190s, possibly part of a Frie Jagd from I and II/JG1. On this date and in this place, Wing Commander Julian Kowalski (a Battle of Britain veteran of 302 Squadron) claimed a probable Fw190 as did Flight Sergeant Longin Winski, though the latter's claim was upgraded to a confirmed victory based on eyewitness testimony from a USAAF Lt. Gamble (possibly P-47D pilot Richard C. Gamble). Kowalski settled in Britain after the war and died in 1986; Winski appears to have died in May of 1946, apparently in the crash of P-47D 44-20867 in Austria; he was twenty-five. "I noticed a FW.190 breaking cloud on my port and flying East to West. I attacked and the e/a then turned South. I was then astern and at 200 yards: [sic] from him. I fired two long bursts from all armament from dead astern and level with the FW.190 and he started to burn. I saw black smoke coming from him and gave him two more long bursts. Then another Spitfire got between the e/a and myself. I was forced to break off the engagement. A moment later I saw the e/a turn on his port wing and dive vertically apparently out of control. The height of combat was 2,500 feet. The e/a dived into clouds which were at 2,000 feet, leaving a heavy trail of black smoke behind him. I did not follow him owing to low base of cloud...I CLAIM 1 F.W.190 PROBABLY DESTROYED." -- W/CDR Julian Kowalski, AIR 50/127/13 "I then looked around and saw another FW.190 on my port, I was flying south at the time, and I followed him in and out of cloud. I got in a long burst of cannon and m/g from 5-10 degs: from 250 to 200 yards: I saw hits along the wings and fuselage and he began to emit black smoke. He again dived into cloud and I followed. When he came out again I gave him another long burst from all armament and still more black smoke came from him. He turned left towards No. 3 landing strip (USA) and I lost sight of him in cloud." -- F/Sgt Longin Winski, AIR 50/127/34 It would have been nice if Eduard had given me the proper date, since each combat report PDF from the National Archives in Kew costs about $5 US, but it was still very satisfying to read about Fw190s getting shot down. I'm using the Eduard 1/72 kit, from their Royal boxing -- it has a confusing set of sprues to enable you to model different types of Fw190A-8, but some careful reading has what I need ready to go. I should be starting pretty soon, I hope.