Don't remeber exactly the date, Fighter Group or much else but I believe a lone P-51 defended a squadron of B-17s by himself and was awarded the CMH for it. Even though the Luftwaffe was on its heels, still not a tasty prospect by yourself.
That would be this engagement that you're thinking about.....
MAJOR JAMES HOWARD, USAAF
9th Air Force Ace and Medal of Honor Recipient
The Oeschersleben mission on 11 January, 1944
"Here is his own story of the fight in his own words:
Our group was assigned to provide target support for boxes of bombers. "A" squadron was sent to the forward box and I later discovered that this was where all the activity was centered, but at the time I was unable to do anything about it. I just had to use what fighters I had to the best advantage that I could. The bombers passed over the target and there we met our first attacks. Flights of Mustangs were dispatched to engage the attacking enemy aircraft and I began attacking with my flight. On the first encounter, which turned into a melee, my flight lost me, The newspapers headlined "I got lost and I got busy." Well, that wasn't quite accurate. Because, naturally, in a fight like that, you can get separated from the other fellows and that's what happened. But I just don't get lost and neither do our other pilots. When I regained bomber altitude, I discovered I was alone and in the vicinity of the forward boxes of bombers. There was one box of B17's in particular that seemed to be under pressed attack by six single and twin-engine enemy fighters. There were about twenty bombers in a very compact formation and the fighters were working individually.
The first plane I got was a two engine night fighter. I went down after him, gave him several squirts and watched him crash. He stood out very clearly, silhouetted against the snow that covered the ground. I guess we might have been over Magdeburg. Anyway we were over or nearly over some German town. I could follow that fellow down because with the snow on the ground like that you don't have to worry about miscalculating distance in figuring out the proximity of the earth. I wouldn't do that if the ground was just a brown blur, as it so frequently is if you can see it at all while you're fighting. Well, anyway this fellow went down in a cloud of black smoke and fire and hit the ground.
Shortly after I regained altitude an F-W came cruising along beneath me. He pulled up into the sun when he saw me. I gave him a squirt and I almost ran into his canopy when he threw it off to get out. I saw him bail out.
Then I circled, trying to join up with the other Mustangs. I saw a Messerschmitt 109 just underneath and a few hundred yards ahead of me. He saw me at the same time and chopped his throttle, hoping my speed would carry me on ahead of him. It's an old trick. He started scissoring underneath me but I cut my throttle and started scissoring at the same time. Then we went into a circle dogfight and it was a matter of who could maneuver best.
I dumped twenty-degree flaps and began cutting inside him, so he quit and went into a dive with me after him. I got on his tail and got in some long distance squirts from 300 or 400 yards. I got some strikes on him but I didn't see him hit the ground. I pulled up again and saw an ME-109 and a Mustang running along together. The P-51 saw me coming in from behind and he peeled off while the Messerschmitt started a slow circle. I don't remember whether I shot at him or not. Things happen so fast it's hard to remember in sequence when you get back. And by the way, I never did see thirty or forty of those planes all at once the way the bomber people tell it. I'd see one, give it a squirt, and go up again. There were an awful lot of them around; it was just a matter of shooting at them. But you can be sure I never stopped what I was doing to count them. In slang words, I just seen my duty and done it.
Back up, now, with the bombers, I saw a Messerschmitt 110. I shot at him and got strikes all over him. He flicked over on his back and I could see gas and smoke coming out white and black smoke. (Major Howard did not claim this ship as a "kill.") Bomber crews say they are sure this ship crashed but it could be that the fellow had some sort of smoke equipment to make it appear that he was damaged more than he was.
I climbed back up again with the box of bombers which seemed to need me most. And right away I saw another Messerschmitt tooling up for an attack on the Forts. They often slip in sideways, the way this one was doing. We were both pretty close to the bombers and I was close to him. I gave him a squirt and he headed straight down with black smoke pouring out.
Now I could see that each box of bombers was being harassed by attackers but the majority of them were out of range for me. I had to choose the most opportune target and dive on him before he was able to get within range of the bombers.
Each time I would climb back up to bomber level only to find another enemy aircraft lining up for an attack. I was quite busy in a constant merry-go-round of climbing and diving on attackers, sometimes not firing, my guns but presenting a good enough bluff for them to break off and dive away.
On the first encounters and combat all four guns fired. On the third I had two guns and on the fourth and fifth encounter only one gun. When I got down to one gun I was still engaged in this dive, attack and climb game for another two or three attacks. The enemy aircraft and I would estimate that there were about 100 plus attacking aircraft throughout all the boxes during this period-seemed reluctant to stay and fight and would dive out. The reason for no other friendly aircraft being in the vicinity or with me was that other squadrons had been sent off to deal with attackers, and as I say, it's hard to estimate the number of enemy aircraft present during the major portion of this running fight, but all boxes I could see had some activity around them.
We were supposed on this trip to be with the bombers for about an hour. We had already gone over that time. But I had been using my ammunition sparingly and with one gun working I climbed once more to the port side of the bomber formation. I saw an ME over on the starboard side getting into position for his dirty work and I just dived on him from where I was. I got strikes all over him with my one gun. He turned over on his back and skidded out. He thought he had lost me with the skid and he pulled out into a forty-five degree dive, I followed him down and kept on shooting."