Pierre Closterman opens his score

27th July 1943: The Free French, fighting with the RAF, face down the Luftwaffe in a sortie over northern France

‘Spitfire IX, the latest improved model of the famous British fighter, proves itself more than a match for the fastest Axis fighter types. Spitfire IX is fitted with a Rolls Royce Merlin engine and is a little longer in the nose than the earlier model. She has a four-bladed airscrew, two radiators under the wings, a long-range tank under the centre section, and is formidably armed with two cannon and four machine guns. Her dimension and performance details are not released. (Picture issued 1943) A formation of Spitfire IX fighters of R.A.F. Fighter command returning to a South of England base after a sweep over enemy-occupied territory.

Wing Commander "Dicky" Milne, DFC & Bar, who has destroyed 13 and who has two probables and five damaged to his credit, in the cockpit of his Spitfire IX (latest improved type of the famous British fighter). Biggin Hill, February 1943.

Pierre Closterman¹ had joined the Free French, No.341 Squadron in the spring of 1943. Now based at the famous RAF station at Biggin Hill in the south of England, under the leadership of Henri Mouchotte, they were as experienced as any squadron in RAF Fighter Command.

Led by a magnificent Fw 190 A-6 painted yellow all over and polished and gleaming like a jewel, the first were already passing on our left, less than a hundred yards away, and turning towards us. I could see, quite distinctly, outlined on their long transparent cockpits, the German pilots crouching forward.
‘Come on, Turban Yellow, attack!’

A USAAF image of a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190A in replicated Luftwaffe insignia.

Twenty-two-year-old Closterman had spent time developing his skills under the tutelage of the older pilots, including Mouchotte and Martell, but he had not yet made a name for himself. When the time came for him to open his score, he did so in dramatic fashion.