Vaclav Jicha & Spitfire BM306 RY-E, May 5th 1942

Hi all

I doing a little research on Czech pilot Vaclav Jicha, his wartime career and his aircraft. I’ve come across a reference in the Red Kite book ‘Czechs in the RAF’ about an event on May 5th 1942, which states that he took on 6 FW190s single handed over Lille, and escaped with minor damage to his Spitfire, BM306.

I’ve found a couple of shots of Jicha and his damaged 313 Sqn Spitfire here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/MartinJicha/FLtVClavJChaDFCAFC#

A few questions:

1. Quite a few of 313 Sqn’s Spitfires had cartoon characters or slogans on the LH cockpit sides. Anyone know if BM306 had anything like this?

2. Anyone have any further info about the action on May 5th, such as which German units may have been involved – I assume 313 were either on escort duties that day, or doing sweeps.

3. Anyone know which book or magazine the scans at the bottom of the page linked above are from? Bit of a long shot, but you never know…

Any help would be very gratefully received.

Thanks

Simon