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"The Japanese pilots immediately began strafing the surviving crewmen, apparently killing some of them and grazing Lieutenant Baggett's arm. The pilot who had hit Baggett circled to finish him off or perhaps only to get a better look at his victim. Baggett pretended to be dead, hoping the Zero pilot would not fire again.

In any event, the pilot opened his canopy and approached within feet of Baggett's chute, nose up and on the verge of a stall. Baggett, enraged by the strafing of his helpless crewmates, raised the .45 automatic concealed against his leg and fired four shots at the open cockpit. The Zero stalled and spun in.

After Baggett hit the ground, enemy pilots continued to strafe him, but he escaped by hiding behind a tree. Lieutenant Jensen and one of the gunners landed near him. All three were captured by the Burmese and turned over to the Japanese. Sergeant Crostic also survived the bailout. Baggett and Jensen were flown out of Burma in an enemy bomber and imprisoned near Singapore.....

... a commander of the 311th Fighter Group told Baggett that a Japanese colonel said the pilot Owen Baggett had fired at had been thrown clear of his plane when it crashed and burned. He was found dead of a single bullet in his head. ...."

On the lighter side.....My father was a WWII paratrooper in the
Pacific. Part of his Div (11th AB) rescued civilian prisoners of the
Japanese at Los Banos prison camp on Luzon. Thru reunions in the 80’s
my parents became friends with Jerry and Margaret Sams who lived
w/in 5 mi in rural NorCal. Jerry and Margaret had been prisoners
of the Japanese at Los Banos. Margaret wrote a book called Forbidden
Family about her and her family’s experience as POWs of the Japanese.
One story was about her being removed from Santo Tomas prison
camp to have a baby in a Manila hospital. She awoke one AM to the
sound of much Filipino laughter from the gardeners outside the
window to the nurses in the hallway. The local Japanese run paper
had a front page story that AM about a Japanese fighter pilot
who had shot down four US fighers. He ran out of ammo w/one
more Yank to kill so he opened his canopy and threw his lunch,
a rice cake, at the enemy. The surprised Yank flew his plane into
the ocean.

This is the first time I’ve read of a man in a parachute downing an enemy plane but I have read of a number of men who shot down low flying enemy planes with a single rifle shot. I seem to recall reading about a soldier/marine on either Guam, or Wake that brought down a low flying Japanese plane with his Thompson submachinegun.

In the Great War the biplane jocks shot at each other with pistols a number of times so there could have been some shootdowns then.

Many years back I read an account of a Jap fighter found bellied onto a beach in the Solomons with a single 30-06 round through the cockpit that hit the pilot coming; apparently from an invidual rifleman.

Baggett’s foe was more likely an Army pilot flying an Oscar I would guess.