There was no hesitation about taking them on. “So we went after twenty and all of sudden there were eighty. Was that a thrill,” Dahlberg says. “It’s a good thing we didn’t know there were that many. But you can only see so many at a time, you know. I do recall there were a swarm of them. When you’re flying at that 10,000- to 12,000-foot level, you’re going in and out of clouds, and you have to be very careful, because it’s easy to be shooting at someone you shouldn’t be.”
He first attacked a German plane that was trailing a group of four 109s. The plane went down immediately, trailing smoke. Dahlberg found a new target in front of him, and let loose with his .50-calibers. The plane blew up in front of him, splashing his Mustang with oil.
At about the same time, Dahlberg noticed his own oil pressure was dropping. He had apparently been hit. As he wheeled around and dropped altitude, hoping to make it back to his own lines, another 109 appeared right in front of him. His gun sight was covered with oil, but he managed to direct his aim by using the tracers from his guns. Another German aircraft was destroyed.
By this time, four German fighters were behind him. Dahlberg ducked into a cloud and was safe, but his engine quickly overheated from lack of oil. He bailed out.
“The first thing you do is release the canopy. You want to slow down if you can. I had ducked into one of those puffy, little clouds so they wouldn’t hit me. Obviously, you’re a pretty good target when you’re slowing down and you’re not taking evasive action. You’re pretty naked. Then I turned the plane on its side, and I unhooked my harness. Now, you want to make sure you’re unhooking your harness and not your parachute. We did a lot of drills on that. Then you get out of the airplane.”
Shillelaugh preceded
Dahlberg to the ground, crashing into a field near the estate of Baron Denis
Baudoin and creating a large, debris-strewn crater. Dahlberg followed a few
minutes later, landing on the Baudoin estate, but a little more gently.
He nearly landed on Madeleine Baudoin, who, after her initial surprise, asked in perfect English if he was an American. There were quite a few parachutes coming down that day, and most of them were German. She told him to hide himself in a nearby pond because there were German soldiers on the estate.
