Heinz Knoke, a German ace that after the war wrote of his experiences in "I Flew for the Führer". Unfortunately, I lended the book to a friend who never returned it, but from memory, the German pilots called the heavy bombers "heavy babies" and were fond of taking souvernirs from downed enemy bombers.

Knoke himself writes in one section that he preferred to go up against B-24s, as they "burned more easily", is impressed with the bombing skills (a formation that has managed to keep in formation drops its entire bombload straight down on a production yard) and often tries to crawl together to make sure his engine and his back armour protects him against the defensive fire of the bombers .50 machine guns.

At one time when he is hit by several rounds of .50 machinegun fire, he describes it (with excuses, this is translated from German to Swedish and from Swedish to English) as "being in a barrel which someone empties a sack of potatoes into".