Clostermanns Tempest

When the Germans had conquered France in 1940, Pierre Clostermann fled to Great Britain. There he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) to become a fighter pilot. In early 1943 he earned his "wings" and was tranfered to the 341st squadron "Alsace", which coonsited of only Frenchmen. This squadron was led by the famous Major René Mouchotte. In august, Clostermann earned his two first victories in the same day as he downed two Focke-Wulf 190. During this mission, Liutenant Martell downed the famous German fighter pilot Major von Graff, who was severly injured.

Shortly thereafter, Major Mouchotte is shot down and killed in action and Clostermann gets tranfered to the 602nd squadron "City of Glasgow", where he finds his good old friend Jaques Remlinger from flight training. These two would be flying constantly with eachother for almost a year. In the "Alsace" squadron, "Clo-Clo" (thats what his friends called him) had flown Supermarine Spitfire IX. Now he would be flying the older Spitfire V for a while. The 602nd consisted of a gang of international pirates as they liked to call themselves. Belgian, Scottish, French, Australian, Norwegian, Canadian and English fighter pilots, they were all in there.

Now followed a period of many escort missions, among them was the attack on the German freighter "Münsterland" where they escorted Typhoons to the target. January 17 1944, the squadron was tranfered to the Orkney Islands where they would be defending Scapa Flow (Great Britains major naval base) from German recon planes. For this task they were equipped with the eminent Spitfire VIII which was specifically built for these kind of missions. February 21, Clostermann and Remlinger managed to down a recon plane, a Messerschmitt 109, which led to big headlines in the British newspapers. Remlinger was credited for the kill. Some weeks later they were tranfered back to southern England with the task to divebomb targets in the Normandy area in preparations for the D-day.

Clostermann had always feared anb hated the anti-aircraft (AA) guns of Germany and during these divebombing missions he got closer and closer to the dreadful fire. He now began to suffer from a great nervousness due to these AA guns. Despite this, he and Remalinger made a succesfull attack on the airdrome of Saint-André. which led to many positive comments among the higher ranks of RAF (though not by their squadron commander, Max Sutherland, who hated losing pilots to AA fire).

June 6. Clostermann and Remlinger was the first two Frenchmen to land on French soil after the occupation. Clostermann was beginning to get more and more nervous and the squadron doctor gave him some benzedrin to make him more calm. Clostermann was now better than ever and managed to bring down three German fighters in one day. After that, he was awarded the "Distinguished Flying Cross" by RAF. At the same time he was taken out of active duty due to his severe nerve problems. He was very disapointed but could do nothing about it.

Clostermann got a deskjob within RAF but didn't like it and in december 1944 he requested to get back on active duty. High French officials opposed this (Clostermann "belonged" to France now, after the liberation). But one of Clostermanns friends within RAF saw how Clostermann was suffering behind his desk and managed to get Clostermann back on active duty. He bacame commander of A-flight, 274th squadron which was an elite squadron equipped with Hawker Tempest V. This squadron was based in Volkel, Holland. He entered the air theatre of Europe yet again in january 1945. His friend Remlinger, who now had a deskjob in France, had told him that the AA fire had become fiercer than ever.

Now came a tough period for the 274th. Many of its pilots got shot down and after two months, only Clostermann and two other pilots was left of the ones Clostermann had met when he joined in january 1945. But "Clo-Clo" was better than ever and managed to bring down one German plane after the other in his lethal Tempest. May 3rd, Clostermann was promoted to commander of 122nd Wing, which was apart of 274th squadron. He also received and extra "bar" to his DFC. May 9 the war ended and a few months later, Clostermann quit as an active fighter pilot. By then he had managed to shot down no less than 33 German airplanes. He had the highest score among all Frenchmen during World War two.