Little more than a week after being promoted to the rank of Oberstleutnant, on 15 April 1941 Adolf "Dolfo" Galland the Geschwaderommodore of JG 26 took off in his brand new Bf 109 F-0 from Brest to visit Jafü 4 leader Theo Osterkamp's 49th birthday party at Le Touqet.

Before taking off, Galland put some lobster and champagne in the cockpit as a birthday gift to "Uncle Theo". Always up for action, Galland and his wingman Westphal took a detour toward the coast of Great Britain in hopes of catching some British fighters unawares.

They got lucky and came upon a group of six Spitfires in the air near the cliffs of Dover. Galland attacked, later claiming two confirmed and one unconfirmed kills.

In fact the Spitfires claimed by Galland this day according to British records reveal that all off them belonged to the No. 266 Sqn, the first that Galland saw "going down in flames over Dover" was flown by Wing Commander W E Coope, he however manage to limp back to Manston crashing the machine while attempt to land at Manston.

The second Spitfire was flown by Sgt H Whewell, who was wounded, and also crash-landed his machine at Manston. The third Spitfire was flown by Sgt. R V Barraclough, who also was wounded in this battle and also ended up in crashing his crate.

However the ordeal was not over for "Dolfo" as when preparing to land roaring in at low altitude he saw red flares shooting up and an agitated ground staff frenziedly waving him off.

He made a second approach. More red fires. The implications of the frantic wave-offs slowly seeped into Galland´s mind. His landing gears was now up, while during the frantic dog-fight it must have been down.

He had come close to ending wheels up, in no way for a Kommandeur to arrive with a cargo of champagne. Galland's claims that day represented his 60th and 61st confirmed victories.

It's notable that Luftwaffe claim regulations required either gun camera footage or an eyewitness's testimony that the enemy aircraft either exploded, was seen to crash, or the pilot was seen to bail out. As the all three Spitfire which crashed did so while attempting a landing at Manston, none of these claims met these strict criteria.

After the war the accuracy of Galland's claims have been assessed, concluding that 44 of his 54 claims over the Channel can be verified through British records and five definitely could not be reconciled with RAF losses.

It is interesting to note the squared intake for the supercharger, similar to that of the earlier Emil subtype.

Please note that during the last week I have been able to write 30 captions for my next profile book, Book No 16. This profile and caption (later edited) would be included in this book,