Strange Aircraft

The first time the 262s were encountered over Europe was one of the squadrons on our wing they got one and they reported a strange aircraft smoking black smoke and going like hell, but anyhow they somehow got him. And up to this point no one had known about a 262, a German jet or that the Brits had jets, but we heard about this 262 being shot down, but that was just about the end of it. They brought out a few pictures of the air craft, black and whites, that were drawn from what source I don’t know, but what really brought it to a head and blew the lid off it was one of our chaps, not in my squadron, but one of the chaps from one of the air fields was flying, taking a Spitfire back to England, we always flew armed in or out of the theatre, was were taking a Spitfire back to England for repair and overhaul and a jet, according to the description, you know, streaming black smoke and going like hell. Only this one wasn’t dark, it was white and it jumped him just as he was coming in over the channel. So he gave a quick 360, a quick turn around and get on the tail and he damaged this. And it turned out to be a Gloster Meteor. Nobody had told us about Meteors. Nobody had told us that there were British jets in the air. Well the next day the intelligence people had diagrams and schematics and everything else with the 262s and the Gloster Javelin or Meteor. All of a sudden all these things came out from under wraps, great intelligence.