Protecting the USS Ohio

We arrived and some Spitfires left and so we hid around the Ohio and we were down pretty low, I don’t know why and then all at once I saw an Italian tri-motor. It was a bomber and also a torpedo bomber too called Savoia-Marchetti, SM79, flying along right low towards the Ohio but off to one side. I dived on this thing and fired at it, well the wing leader went down and he just got nicked at it but it didn’t… he carried right on and I began, lined up on the engine and it blew to kingdom come, it just blew up in a flash. They didn’t have the self-sealing tanks and it just blew to kingdom come about 200 feet off the water, I think and just crashed and burned on the water, a burning pile of fuel was spreading on the water, you see. But why it didn’t, I don’t know if it had torpedoes, I couldn’t see underneath it and why it didn’t turn in to torpedo the Ohio. It may be that he saw us up there and decided, “Well, I guess I won’t try and drop the torpedoes at this thing.” But I could never figure out what he did and five guys in a crew just blew to kingdom come. I mean they hit the water seconds after this thing burst into flames. They’d be killed instantly hitting the water.