The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

A pattern had emerged in this latest phase of the air battle. The
Luftwaffe’s planes would assemble and set course for London. The
Tommies, meanwhile, warned of the approaching raid, would climb up high
and wait for them. They would then patrol the sky, and just as the German
formations turned for home at their tactically weakest point and at the limit
of the fighters’ range, they would pounce, from height with the sun behind
them. Now, as the moment to turn for home approached, Ulrich waited for
the order with increasing trepidation.
The Jabos began their attack, the radio suddenly full of chatter until
there were so many different voices that the noise merged into a jarring
whistling. Moments later and the formation was turning, but to the left,
rather than the right, as they had been expecting. The eight machines of
I/JG 52 quickly manoeuvred into their Rotte position, Ulrich’s wingman,
Lothar Schieverhöfer, moving in beside and behind him. Suddenly someone
shouted, ‘Out of the sun! Out of the sun!’ and Ulrich swivelled and craned
his neck upwards to see a number of Spitfires diving down towards Lothar.
Ulrich shouted out a warning and tried to move to protect his tail, only to
see him doing the same. Behind, at least four Spitfires were stepped up,
each lining up to fire. Ulrich now dived away, his revs way too high, so at
22,000 feet he levelled out, eyeing a safe-looking bank of cloud below. He
was wondering whether Lothar had got away when suddenly there was a
loud bang as something exploded on the left side of his machine, and as
something clattered into his elevator his stick shook in his hands.
Frantically looking around, he could see no sign of the enemy so decided it
must have been his supercharger that had blown. Glancing at his instrument
panel, he saw everything still appeared to be working, but his oil pressure
was dropping dramatically. Air speed was around 400 mph in his shallow
dive and he was still able to weave from side to side, so he pushed the stick
forward, put the nose down, and dived down towards the cloud layer,
reaching the milky mass at around 6,000 feet. Moments later he was out
into the blindingly bright sun, but at least it enabled him to get a fix. If he
was on course for home, the sun should have been ahead and slightly to the
right, and so it was, so he slipped back into the protective shroud of the
cloud.
He checked his instruments again and everything still seemed to be in
order apart from the oil loss, but just as he was beginning to breathe a little
more easily, he slid out of the cloud again and was horrified first to see the