A Disoriented Fighter Pilot
Armin Faber’s blunder began on June 23rd, 1942. Assigned mainly to administrative paperwork duties, he asked for and got special permission to fly a combat mission with an Fw 190 squadron. The squadron was scrambled to intercept British bombers sent to attack Faber’s home base, Morlaix Aerodrome in Brittany. Spitfire escort fighters fought Fw 190s over the English Channel, and in the middle of that aerial melee, Faber got disoriented. He and his fellow Germans got the better of the Spitfires, and shot down seven for the loss of only two Fw 190s. During the dogfight, a Spitfire got on Faber’s tail. To shake it off, he flew north, and ended up over Devon, in England.
Eventually, Faber managed to turn on and shoot down the British fighter. By then, he was close to the Bristol Channel, which separates Devon from Wales. Faber was thoroughly disoriented by his narrow escape from the Spitfire. He mistook the Bristol Channel that separated Devon from Wales for the English Channel that separated England from France. He also mistook north for south. Rather than fly south across the English Channel towards France, he flew north across the Bristol Channel to Wales. That was not his biggest blunder of the day.