In July, when a bomber group took over Horsham Saint Faith, Zemke's men relocated to a half-built base at Halesworth Suffolk. Upset with the second-rate treatment his command seemed to be experiencing, Zemke joined a group of Eighth Air Force bomber commanders in a gripe session. The 4th Bomb Wing's Colonel Curtis LeMay (chief of the postwar Strategic Air Command) complained that the only fighters he had seen so far "all had black and white crosses on them," but declared his bombers would carry on "with or without fighter escort." Later, in the officers' club, another bomber general stated he "wouldn't pay a dime a dozen for any fighter pilots." Zemke hurled his pocket change at the man's feet: "Here, General, this is all I have handy at the moment," he responded. "Any time you have a couple dozen fighter pilots handy send them my way. We can sure use them." Then he jumped in his Jug and buzzed the place.

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The bomber crews had good reason to be edgy. They were about to depart on one of their bloodiest missions, the first Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid. After escorting the B-17s part way to Schweinfurt, the 56th returned to Halesworth and took on 200-gallon, pressed-paper ferry tanks converted for combat use. These upset the Jugs' handling and did not feed well in the low air pressure above 20,000 feet, but they gave the Thunderbolts enough range to meet the bombers over Germany.

The Thunderbolts proceeded to teach a Staffel of twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf-110 night fighters (Me-110s to American fighter pilots) not to venture out in daylight. "The 61st Squadron came screaming down from the front and caught an Me-110 right over the last box of bombers," Zemke recalled. "Two P-47s shot at this guy at the same time–sixteen guns firing–and both of them hit him simultaneously. That Me-110 blew up as I've never seen anything blow up and fell, on fire, directly through the bomber formation…without hitting one of them."

One of the Bf-110 shooters was Jerry Johnson, who downed two more Germans in quick succession–the 56th's first triple kill, except that he had to split credit for the Messerschmitt. (Two days later, Johnson got a Bf-109, which could have made him the 56th's first ace. Instead, his score stood at 4 1/2.)

Zemke, having gotten a Bf-110 himself, estimated the combat at no more than seven minutes long, but at that distance from base, fuel was already running low and he ordered a return home. From well to the north, however, Captain Bud Mahurin called back, "We've got 'em cornered. There's plenty for everyone. Come on up this way."

Soon after Zemke's run-in with Bomber Command, Mahurin had gotten a little too close to one of the new Consolidated B-24 Liberators in formation and his Thunderbolt's tail had been sucked into the bomber's props; the four-engine B-24 had straggled home, but Mahurin had barely escaped from his falling Jug. Now he saw his chance to make amends–he had spotted a Focke-Wulf above the bombers, preparing to turn down into them. Mahurin recalled, "I sneaked up behind it and started to fire from about 300 yards, closing to 200 yards. It blew up."

Mahurin and his wingman circled up through the bomber stream onto the tail of a second Fw-190. "We followed him until he started to make a turn into the front end of the bombers," said Mahurin, "when I took a deflection [angled] shot at him and watched him blow up."

Not one to hold a grudge, Zemke recommended Mahurin for the Distinguished Flying Cross. Later it turned out one of his kills was none other than the commander of II Gruppe JG 26, Oberstleutnant (Lt. Col.) Wilhelm "Wutz" Galland, brother of the famous Luftwaffe General of Fighters Adolf Galland and himself a 55-victory Experte (ace). His body was found in his aircraft two months later, driven by the force of impact 12 feet into the ground.

Bomber Command lost 60 of the 375 bombers on the mission. But the 56th, scoring 17 confirmed, one probable and nine damaged, prevented even more slaughter. "We had certainly broken up several German attacks," Zemke said.

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