May 31—World War II in Europe was in its waning days when Lt. James A. Zweizig of the 404th Fighter Squadron broke formation in pursuit of a strange looking German fighter plane on April 17, 1945. The strange thing was that the German aircraft had no propellers, unlike Zweizig's propeller-driven P-47 Thunderbolt. When the smoke cleared from two blasts of the P-47's eight 50-caliber machine .