WW2 Pilot Recalls A Morning Patrol In Front Of Son's School Class

A grade school teacher, who was doing a unit on World War II heard that the father of one of her students had been a fighter pilot during the war with one of the Scandinavian Air Forces. She invited him to come in and speak to the class. The guy was more than happy to talk, and began with a story about a morning patrol where he had been nearly shot down.

"We had been up for about 20 minutes flying over enemy held territory, when we noticed, just in time, 3 fokkers diving on us from above."

At the first mention of `fokkers' the class giggled a little bit.

"Our group broke formation, and began the dog-fighting. As we fought, we noticed 2 more fokkers coming at us from above and 2 more fokkers, fresh from the landing field, come to join the battle".

At this second and third mention of `fokkers' the class was almost laughing openly, and the teacher interrupted the story to ask the pilot to explain to the class that a 'fokker' was a particular type of plane flown by the German Air Force.

He replied, "Ya, dat is true, but these fokkers were Messerschmidts".