I just noticed that U-242 shooting down a Soviet plane on 10-10-44 isn't on U-242's "attacks on the boat and other events" page at uboat.net. I'm still pretty skeptical about the whole event. It makes for good propaganda, but the idea that a manually operated gun with a low muzzle velocity, on a pitching, rolling U-boat, could score a direct hit on an incoming enemy plane, even if it was manned by the finest gun crew in the entire Kriegsmarine, really stretches credibility. I've seen the plane described as an IL-2 in a couple places, which is even harder to believe. Unfortunately, U-242 was sunk a few months later, and I'm certain the Soviet Union never kept indepth records of every plane they lost during the war, so we'll probably never know for sure.
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