They met high over Germany in World War II, a Luftwaffe ace who had shot down more than 70 Allied planes and an Air Force machine gunner who didn't have a single kill. They met, and then the gunner had one.
I Forty-six years after he was credited with downing a German jet, a Cedarburg man was told recently that the jet was probably piloted by Adolf Galland, ace of aces.
Henry ("we were so poor we couldn't afford a middle name") Dietz finds it a trifle astounding that nearly a half-century after he flew his last mission, he learns that he apparently shot one of Germany's biggest names out of the sky.
Earlier this year, Donald Edelen, who was a radioman on a B-26 on which Dietz was em
ployed as a waist gunner, wrote from his home In Louisville, Ky. Edelen had just read a book which mentioned the downing of Galland's plane, and the circumstances sounded the same as when Dietz downed his.
Trying to confirm the report, Dietz wrote numerous letters, including one to Galland, who never knew who shot him down. Galland was told it was a P-51. Then he was told it was a P-40. He isn't sure, but Dietz's crew members think It was this tech sergeant with a .50 caliber machine gun who shot down Galland's rocket-armed jet.
Galland knew Hitler, was a ..general In the Luftwaffe and once had Mickey Mouse painted on his plane. Apparently he thought no one would shoot Walt Disney. On the other hand, Dietz, who had this Germanic sounding name, was called "Herman the German" by members of the bomber crew.
By letter, Galland recently told Dietz wryly that as a result of that last air battle, his knee still contained "a little splinter ... owned by the United States government."
Dietz is sure that splinter was courtesy of him.
Dietz shot down the first jet he saw. On April 26, 1945, when Dietz's bomber returned to base in Dijon, France, the crew reported it had downed a German jet, a Messerschmitt 262. Everyone thought the crippled plane had landed on the Autobahn, one of the bestknown highways In the world,
Actually, Galland landed at an air base next to the Autobahn.
"We were flying as flight leader, about 10 minutes from the target," Dietz said. "I had never seen a jet before."
When Dietz saw it through his gunsight, Galland had just shot down at least one B-26, and possibly two. Then Galland slowed to count the take.
"He came back to observe and take score," Dietz said,
~'The dummy. Dummkopf," Dietz said, and smiled, referring to the fact that the jet had slowed to the speed of the B-26 Dietz was in.
"He was flying low, right in the sights of my machine gun," Dietz said. "I shot a burst. Nothing happened. A little higher, a little lower, I kept shooting."
In his book, "The First and the Last," Galland wrote, "A hail of fire enveloped me. A sharp rap hit-my right knee, the instrument panel was shattered, the right engine also was hit ... and now the left engine was hit, too. I could hardly hold her in the air."
Trailing smoke, the plane's nose tire flattened, Galland was able to land the shattered plane. It was his last flight. It was nearly Dietz's last flight, too, the last of the 57 missions lie flew.
He remembers fliers on bombers in his outfit, the l7th Bomb Groui), 34th Bomb Squadron, who didn't make it; remembers seeing a B-26 that Galland shot up, watching it for parachutes, but seeing only a ball of fire; remembers flying in a plane that sprang 100 holes with the help of flak; reniembers the bombardier mistakenly opening the bomb bay when Dietz was near it, and Dietz was saved by a colleague who grabbed him and hauled him back in the plane.
But he never got hurt in that war. And he hurt only one man.
As a result of age, Galland, who is in his 80s, can barely see.
Dietz, 73, has bad legs, has had four operations and often uses a wheelchair.