"The main body of the group was proceeding toward home when Major Joel was heard calling for help from far behind us. Lt. Gilbride and I turned back to help but it took several minutes for us to reach the fight. As we drew near we could see five P-38s engaged and each had from one to three Me-109s on its tail. Just before we went into the fight one P-38 rolled over and went down with its left engine leaving a very long and very heavy trail of black smoke and with a 109 directly behind. As my wingman and I flew into the middle of the engagement the E/A were surprised into rolling away from the ships they were attacking and we were all able to take a heading for home. At this time there were four P-38s left besides my wingman and myself. As we started home we were followed by E/A and we tried to out run them. One of the four P-38s ran away from the rest and disappeared. The five of us remaining were eventually caught by the E/A and engaged again."

"After we saw the one P-38 go down smoking I did not again recognize Major Joel's voice on the radio. The five of us that later were engaged by the pursuing E/A were, Capt. Ayers, Capt. Beaird, Lt. Erickson, Lt. Gilbride and myself. On this attack I lost one engine that had been going bad and when I recovered the only other P-38 visible in the area was piloted by Lt. Erickson. We came out together."

"In view of the circumstances it is my personal opinion that the P-38 we saw shot down was piloted by Major Joel and the one that ran away from us was piloted by Lt. Garvin, who did not return."