The picture above shows Bill Dunn's Spitfire Mk II P7308 after he landed at Hawkinge with battle damage from a fight near Lille, France in which he shot down 2 Me 109Fs. On 27 August 1941 No 71 was part of a 100 Spitfire force escorting 9 Blenheim bombers attacking the steel works at Lille. The following is Dunn's account of the battle:

"I dived on one of two Me 109Fs, fired from a distance of 150 yards, and fired again to within 50 yards. Pieces of the aircraft flew off, and engine oil spattered my windscreen. The plane looked like a blow torch with a bluish white flame as it went down.

Tracers from another 109F behind me flashed past my cockpit. I pulled back the throttle, jammed down the flaps, and skidded my plane sharply out of this gunsight. The German overshot me by about 10 feet, and as he crossed overhead I could see the black insignia, unit markings, and a red rooster painted on the side of the cockpit.

The 109 was now in my range. With a burst of only three seconds I had him out of commission. A wisp of smoke from the engine turned into a sheet of flame. The plane rolled over on its back. As it started down the tailsection broke off. I had claimed my second victim of the day.

I fired at another Me 109 and saw smoke come from it. Just as I started to press the gun button again my plane lurched sharply. I heard explosions. A ball of fire streamed through the cockpit, smashing into the instrument panel. There were two heavy blows against my right leg, and as my head snapped foward, I began to lose consciousness.

My mind cleared again, and I realized that the earth was spinning up toward me. I tugged back on the control column and pulled into a gradual dive toward the English Channel, 50 miles away.

I checked the plane for damage. The tip of the right wing was gone. The rudder had been badly damaged. The instruments on the right side of the panel were shattered.

There was blood on the cockpit floor. When I looked at my right leg I saw that the toe of the boot had been shot off. My trouser leg was drenched with blood; I could feel the warm sticky fluid seeping from under my helmet to my neck and cheek. I gulped oxygen to fight off nausea.

Releasing my shoulder harness, I started to climb out of the cockpit. For some reason, I paused. The engine was still running all right, and the plane seemed to be flyable. I slid back into my seat; I would try to make it home.

Crossing the Channel, the engine began to lose power. I switched on the radio telephone and called May Day. Within a few moments I had an escort of two Spitfires.

They led me across the coastal cliffs to the grass airfield at Hawkinge, near Folkestone. The escorting pilot signalled to me that my landing gear had extended.

I dropped smoothly onto the newly mowed turf, and taxied to a waiting ambulance. An airman climbed up on the wing and shouted that I was in the wrong area and must taxi over to a dispersal hut if I wanted fuel and ammunition. Then he saw my bloody face and helmet and called the medical officer.

I awoke 30 hours later in a bed in the Royal Victoria hospital in Folkestone and learned that the front part of my foot had been shot away, that there were two machine gun bullets in my right leg and that another had creased the back of my head. I spent three months recuperating there and at the RAF hospital at Torquay."

The mission of 27 August 1941 was Bill Dunn's last as an Eagle. During his time as an Eagle he was credited with shooting down 5 1/2 enemy planes. After recovering from his wounds he returned to the States as a trainer but was back in England by D-Day flying with the 406th FG and shot down 3 more enemy planes.