*When the author interviewed Ed Ruppel in the 1980s for the first edition of this book Ruppel described this incident to me without the benefit of any records to refresh his recollection. When I later obtained the combat report for this incident and compared it with the description which Ruppel had given me on tape, there was virtually no difference between what was on the tape and what Ruppel had told the combat interrogator over four decades earlier.