A DEFINING MOMENT – DECEMBER 15, 1944

by John Rutherford
"On December 15, 1944 I was scheduled for the afternoon mission. The morning mission was to attack a German artillery outfit that was situated in the small town of Jackerath, a few miles west of Dusseldorf. The afternoon mission was to hit the same battery and try to wipe out the headquarters as well. Some spies had approximately located the farm house being used as the headquarters and it was described to us. The day before the mission I received a letter from Bobby Grant saying his 78th Infantry Division was forward of our base and was temporarily off the front lines. He asked me to come and see him. I hadn't seen Bobby since he was drafted into the Army in June, 1942. Bobby was a second cousin who lived with us for a few years before he was drafted. His mother died young and his father had no place for Bobby, so he lived with us. I arranged for a driver and a jeep to take me up to the 78th on December 15, but the motor pool said it could only be in the afternoon. The pilots in my squadron were not allowed to drive any kind of vehicle because we had gotten into too many accidents when we first arrived in France. I often thought about the irony that driving was too dangerous but every time we flew we put our lives in great jeopardy.
"I asked Captain Sam Marshall, the Operations Officer, to take my name off the afternoon mission and to schedule me for the morning flight. He agreed and put me in the Tail End Charlie position; that is, the last plane in the squadron of twelve P-47s. This was the least desirable spot to be in because on a dive bombing run there was no airplane behind you. When we made a bomb run we dove toward the target at about 300 miles per hour and fired our eight .50 caliber wing-mounted machine guns. The strafing did a lot of damage to the German vehicles and the artillery itself, but it also kept the flak gunners in their fox-holes so they could not shoot at us on the way in. As we pulled up after dropping the two 500 pound bombs we were vulnerable because the gunners came out of their holes to shoot at the departing plane. If there was another P-47 right behind you, he would keep the gunners in their holes as you flew out of range. But Tail End Charlie has no protection after his bombs were dropped.

"At about 11:00 am the squadron attacked the artillery that we could see in the center of the small town of Jackerath. When I, as last man, made my run there was considerable smoke and fire in the town and I aimed for the edge of the area where I saw wagons and trucks parked. As I pulled off the target at an altitude of about 3,500 feet I made a steep climbing turn to the left so I could see where my bombs struck. The best way to confuse the German flak gunners was to change speed, direction and altitude. Suddenly, there was a terrific explosion as my plane was hit by 88 mm. flak. The Germans had fired four guns simultaneously at me and cut the fuses for my estimated altitude. Their guess was good because my plane was bracketed by the four explosions. The cockpit was immediately filled with thick black smoke so I could barely see the instrument panel. We always wore oxygen masks so I immediately switched to pure oxygen to get away from the smoke, but the oxygen tube to my mask must have been cut by the shrapnel flying through the cockpit because I was still choking. The only instrument I could see was the altimeter and it was steady at 5,000 feet. I could feel that the plane had slowed down and would spin in if I didn't pick up airspeed. If it started to spin I would not be able to get out. I called the Squadron leader, Captain Richard Gibian, and said I had been hit. He replied, ‘Roger, Yellow Four I see you. You are trailing a lot of black smoke. Stay on the same course for friendly territory. Bail out after you cross the Roer River.'

"Just then my best friend, Jack Reynolds, who was on the mission with us screamed over the radio, ‘Johnny, bail out, bail out!' I immediately jettisoned the canopy, unhooked my seat belt and shoulder harness, and crawled over the side of the cockpit. I didn't delay to disconnect the oxygen tube or the cables to my earphones and microphone. They were simply torn loose when I left. I dived down toward the wing so as to avoid hitting the tail of the plane. As soon as I was clear of the plane I pulled the ripcord and the parachute opened. I looked around to see the airplane; it was fluttering down in four or five large pieces; two wings, the tail, and the engine with the cockpit still attached. Before I popped my parachute the P-47 exploded. I was in the middle of the conflagration. After the war I met Jack Reynolds and several pilots who were on that mission. They said they had never seen a P-47 blow up like mine did; and I came flying out of the ball of fire. My parachute did not fit well and when the chute opened the chest buckle rode up and struck me in the mouth, badly splitting my lower lip.

"I had never expected to use my parachute; I always thought that if I got hit by enemy fire I could manage to crash land the P-47 and walk away from the wreckage. At age 20 and a ‘hot shot' fighter pilot I believed that I would survive combat. I had already flown 45 missions without getting hit, even through I was fired at on most of the missions. This bravado also was in the face of the squadron losing about five or six pilots in combat each month. We maintained a roster of only 28 pilots in the squadron so we had a casualty loss of about 100 percent every six months or so.

"As I descended in the parachute, the Germans were firing 20 and 30 mm cannon shells at me in the parachute. I didn't think they could hit such a small target, especially since I was swinging back and forth. The pilots on the mission said it looked like the rounds were going right through the canopy of the chute and they thought I was dead because they couldn't see me moving. The P-47s couldn't linger in the area to see me land because the flak being fired at them was too intense. The silence of my descent surprised me. After the noise of getting hit, all the smoke and the explosion, the silence was stunning. In a matter of minutes after hitting the ground, I was captured.

"About six or seven German soldiers stood around me and the first thing they took was my escape kit. This held some emergency food, money, maps, pep pills, a compass, and pictures of me in civilian clothes in case the Underground tried to rescue me. Next they took my pistol and holster. No one said much, they just stared at me. In those days I smoked, so I took out my cigarette case and passed it around. I took the first one and they each had one. Surprisingly, they gave me back the case with a few cigarettes left. As we smoked one of the Germans asked how old I was. When I said, ‘Twenty' they didn't believe me, saying I was only about 16 years old. They asked my rank and I said "Oberleutnant", that is German for First Lieutenant. Again they found that hard to believe. They probably thought the United States was in bad shape if they were sending 16-year olds into combat.

"As I look back on the experience I am always surprised to realize how calm I was. Probably the adrenalin and endomorphs were flowing so strongly that nothing could have bothered me. I didn't realize my lower lip was split open and bleeding until I put that cigarette between my lips and saw the blood on it. The Germans offered no first aid. I was fortunate that they didn't kill me. A few P-47 pilots shot down in the front lines were executed by German soldiers who had suffered many casualties at the hands of the Thunderbolt pilots. But generally, the soldiers obeyed the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of captured pilots. When we reached the town of Jackerath, my captors took me around the outfit showing off their trophy. They were new troops brought in for the Battle of The Bulge that started the next day on December 16 and I was the first American soldier they had seen.

"When the war ended and my POW camp was liberated and I returned home I was sent to Randolph Field, Texas for discharge. By coincidence I found Jack Reynolds there also. He told me that he believed I was killed during my descent in the parachute and had noted the area where I had been shot down. When that part of Germany had been captured he went there to look for my temporary grave. For the rest of the war he wrote regularly to my mother encouraging her that I had survived.

"On December 17, 1944 my parents received a telegram reporting that I was missing in action. On December 20 they received another telegram stating that Bobby Grant, my cousin who lived with us, had been killed in action in the Battle of The Bulge on December 17. Late in March, 1945, the War Department notified my folks that I was a prisoner of war somewhere in Germany. All the time I was in the POW camp I kept wondering if Bobby had seen my P-47 go down on December 15. We would have had a lot to talk about, but it was not to be.

"About 25 years after the war I received a phone call from Richard Gibian. I had not been in touch with him since our last conversation on the radio that day. He asked if I was the John Rutherford that flew P-47s during WWII. After I said yes he told me his name and asked if I remembered him. Immediately I responded, "You are the S.O.B that nearly got me killed!" We both chuckled at the recollection. Jack Reynolds, Richard Gibian and I get together every May at the annual reunion of the P-47 pilots and they still kid Richard about me disobeying his orders. Gibian claims he was flying above me and couldn't see the extent of the damage to my plane, but Jack was under me and saw flames coming out of the turbo supercharger. He remembered a training film that said if you see flames coming out of the turbo the P-47 will explode within 30 seconds. The film was right."

"the first thing they took was my escape kit. This held some emergency food, money, maps, pep pills, a compass, and pictures of me in civilian clothes in case the Underground tried to rescue me." from the story above.

a interesting side note. i remember my dad talking about this escape kit. it had a regular compass, a couple hits of speed...bug out pills as they were known...a very drab b&w pic you could use if you were lucky enough to get a forged passport...and a fair amount of foreign currency you could pay to the locals for food and etc. pilots also carried another compass which they hid because as you see above the escape kit was usually compensated. this other compass was a very small with a string attached. the imagination doesnt have to wander far as to where this was hid. years after the war my dad had a chance to talk to one of his squad mates that had been taken prisoner and the topic of that compass came up. the story as i remember the pilot after being shot down was taken to a nearby prisoner staging area. he was searched and stripped for de-lousing. as he stood there naked a nazi officer looked him over and noticed the string. the officer demanded to know what the string was about. the pilot bends over and looks between his own legs and remarks "i dont know what you are talking about. i dont see any string." the officer insisted one was there. after a few words back and forth the pilot told the officer, "well if you see a damn string, PULL it!!" the officer hesitated and abruptly ordered the pilot on to the next stage of processing ( with out pulling the string ). the pilot was never able to use the compass to escape but the war was soon over. and of all the trinkets my dad brought home...that is one he left over there.

MY LAST COMBAT MISSION
Lt. Ruben G. "Chip" Bork
To say those were exciting and deadly times is an understatement. Within a few days after the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, we were flying off Advanced Landing Strip A-3, which had been hurriedly built by the Engineers just a short distance from Omaha Beach. All of our missions were to provide close ground support for our infantry and tanks, and to destroy any German equipment we saw trying to move up to the front.

When the breakout of Normandy began with a massive air attack on July 25 near St Lo, our Group was assigned to support General Patton's Third Army. On July 27 we got an urgent request for fighter bomber support from Third Army. During the briefing we were informed that our targets were going to be German Tiger Tanks, stray gun emplacements, and we were to strafe anything that was moving on this particular road, and to search out the hedge-rows for hidden vehicles, and any other enemy armor we might see. As I recall, we took off with eight planes around mid afternoon with Col. Haesler as our leader.

We soon got to the target area and spotted a group of tanks, trucks and other vehicles, most were moving down the road, while others appeared to be scrambling for cover. We started our bomb run. I was probably at 1,000 feet altitude when I released my bombs aiming at a tank right in the middle of the road. I did not get a direct hit on the tank, but as I pulled out of my dive and was climbing for altitude, I looked back and could see that my bombs had hit directly in front of the tank, and had left a huge crater in the road. The tank did not appear to be moving. I pulled up and circled around to come back in to strafe the tanks with my eight .50 caliber machine guns.

By this time I was probably at 2,500 to 3,000 feet altitude, when all hell broke loose! I was hit by either a 40 millimeter or 88 millimeter shell. Whatever it was, it came up through the gas tank, blew my left arm off just below the elbow, completely severing it -- I looked down and saw it lying on the floor of the cockpit. The cockpit was full of fire, and the control stick was limp in my hand. I had no control of the plane, so I knew it was time to try to bail out. I used to think about bailing out while in pilot training as a cadet, and on previous combat missions. I wondered if I would be scared or would have the courage to bail out. Well, being afraid or lacking courage never crossed my mind when I got hit. I knew I had to get out of that plane, and quite obviously I did.

The only thing about it was that apparently I was unconscious or in a sub-conscious state, and don't remember doing all of the things necessary to get out of the cockpit and away from the plane. I do remember reaching up to unlatch the canopy, and pulling it back. I do not remember unfastening the safety belt, leaving the plane or pulling the rip-cord to open my chute. I do remember one hell of a roar from the plane's engine (I can still hear that roar), as if it were in a steep power dive. I vividly recall saying to myself "Well, Bork, this is it," meaning that I would be dead in a moment or two from the crash. At the moment I thought that I was still in the plane. Then at about the same time, or so it seemed, I heard a loud pop. I was regaining consciousness, and looking up I saw that the chute was open, and I was as free as a bird floating down in the breeze -- with a tight grip on my upper left arm like a tourniquet to keep from bleeding to death.

I do not know if I had gotten out of the plane while still climbing, or just what the attitude of the plane was. It was reported by someone on the mission who had witnessed me being hit that the plane was upside down, I had fallen out and the chute opened, so from that they assumed that I was alright, not realizing that my left arm was shot off. (I sure hated losing that Government Issue navigation wrist watch!) I tend to believe that report, because it does relate to exiting the cockpit in an emergency. I was taught while in pilot training that if it ever became necessary to bail out to first open the canopy, roll the plane upside down, unfasten the safety belt, and on exiting, push the stick forward in order to clear the tail section. If I did all of those things, I did so unconsciously or sub-consciously. I have no recollection of it whatsoever. The engine roar, which I distinctly remember, must have occurred after I bailed out and my chute was open, and the plane passed me in a steep power-dive.

Quentin, perhaps you and I and many others of us during our cadet training found many things to bitch about. I know that I would quarrel about doing certain things over and over, things that I felt I already knew how to do, but my instructor insisted that I do them again just to make sure that I understood and got it right. I have often though back to the day when I was shot down over St. Lo, and the sub-conscious actions I took to save my life in that emergency situation. I must give credit to heroes of mine, those very foresighted Pilot Training Instructors, for the grueling and repetitive training they put me through. I shall never forget them.

There is one other element which I feel certainly had something to do with saving my life on that last combat mission. Just before I left to go overseas, my father gave me a pocket size Lutheran Catechism and Prayer Book, which I carried with me in combat. It was lost on that mission, but I shall always believe that I would not be here today if I hadn't had it.

Now back to my story, when my chute opened, and I was floating down to earth. The weather was good and I could see clearly. There was a large field to the left of my direction, sloping downward to a large forested and swampy area on my right. I tried to maneuver the parachute in order to get closer to the trees, but my right hand was so badly burned that I could not grip the shroud lines to change my directions. My fingernails had melted off to little lumps on the ends of my fingers, and all the veins on the inside of my wrist were exposed.

I was now beginning to feel some pain. Also, I had a burned band around each leg just above my shoe tops. I had severe burns around my eyes because my goggles were up on my helmet, leaving my eyes exposed to the fire. Luckily, my oxygen mask was down over my nose and mouth, so I was not burned over that portion of my face. To this day, I still have numerous pieces of shrapnel in my left leg, the stump of my left arm, and one BB size pellet in my right thigh. They don't bother me so, that being the case, the doctors said to leave them alone, that they were sterilized from the heat when they entered my body.

Since I could not manoeuver the parachute, I just had to let nature take its course and land wherever the wind took me. As it turned out, I landed right where the field started to slope off into that swampy forested area. It was amazing to me that when I finally hit the ground, it felt as though I had landed on a feather-bed. It really was a soft landing, or so it seemed. It may have been that I was in some shock, and my body somewhat numbed, so I did not feel the real impact of hitting the ground.

After landing I had more problems. In attempting to get out of my parachute harness, I had to grab that big galvanized buckle on the front, and when I did, the rest of the skin on my hand stuck to it, not unlike grabbing a cold outdoor waterpump handle in the wintertime when the temperature is 50 degrees below zero in Northern Wisconsin.

I finally got out of the harness, but then I had another problem. I was now having quite a bit more pain, so I thought of opening that first aid packet which was attached to the chute harness. I knew that this packet contained morphine, so I intended to give myself a shot. Well, let me tell you, that first aid packet was sewed, glued, had a zipper on it, and on top of all that, it was waterproofed with some sort of heavy shellac (All necessary of course). After clawing at it, chewing at it with my teeth, and rubbing it on the ground with my feet, I never did get it open.

I felt myself getting weaker, so I had to do something. I got to my feet and managed to walk up the slight incline to higher ground. From there I noticed a house/building on the other side of the field, and three soldiers who were coming toward me with their rifles aimed right at me. When I saw them coming, I just sat down and waited. When they got close to me, and saw the condition I was in, they put their rifles down on the ground. They cut the straps off my Mae-West and made a tourniquet for my arm. As they were doing this, I asked if they were English, in the German language, because to me they looked British, even though I knew that this was German occupied France. I didn't see any sort of insignia, and their uniforms appeared to be British. They replied "No" in the German language. At that time I was fairly fluent in the German language, having learned it from my parents. My grandparents came from Germany, so that is my heritage. In addition to learning the language from my parents and grandparents, our Lutheran Church held one Sunday service of each month in the German language. So now I proceeded to talk to the soldiers in German. I told them I needed a doctor and needed one quickly. Well, to my surprise these soldiers got me to my feet and took me all the way across that field and into that empty old house. They put me to rest on a cot or bed, cut up some pillow cases or sheets, and made bandages for my arm. After making me somewhat more comfortable, they gave me a somewhat sympathetic but friendly look, and then went to the door, picked up their rifles and were leaving.

I knew that if I were left alone without medical help, I would probably die within an hour or so. I called out for them to come back, and said again in German that I needed a doctor and needed one quickly. One of them came back in and asked in German if I was afraid or scared of all the gunfire and bombing that was going on all around us, and I quickly replied in English, "Hell No Let's Go!" They got me out of that bed and into the open canvas top cab of a truck. I was on the right hand passenger side with my right arm resting on the door and my head resting on my arm. One soldier was driving and the other two were up on top of the truck bed holding a spread out white sheet. In a little while we were on the highway heading somewhere to a hospital.

As we were going down this highway, I would raise my head up every once in awhile to see where we were and what was going on. I'm telling you, Quentin, I never saw so much destruction in my whole life – burning tanks, cars, trucks, and the smell of all that burning fuel oil and rubber – and then there was the spell of my own burned flesh. This scene will be with me forever.

As we were going down this highway, I suddenly heard the sound of a P-47 coming up from behind us. The first thought that came to my mind was that we were told during the briefing for this mission that anything found moving on this particular highway was an enemy target. Well, now I was really scared. The truck came to an abrupt stop, the three soldiers jumped out and headed for the ditches. I was left alone in the cab. I had many thoughts at that moment. I didn't get killed when I got shot down, but now I was about to be killed by a P-47 pilot from my own outfit! I could feel the hair on the back of my head standing straight up. Well, that P-47 roared over the top of me sitting in that truck and never fired a shot. The only thing that I can come up with is that he knew that one of us was shot down, and the white sheet on top of that truck kept him from pulling the trigger. I guess it just wasn't my time to leave this world.

After the P-47 flew by, the three soldiers got back into the truck and we drove on. Over the next several hours we stopped at a couple of German field medical units, where I received additional treatment. Late in the afternoon of 28 July 1944, we arrived at a big hospital in Paris – I believe it was named the Hospital DeLaPitie. I was placed on a gurney when I arrived, and was met at the door by three doctors or medics in white uniforms. They all seemed to be so eager and in a hurry. I was wheeled into a small room where they were preparing to work on the stump of my left arm, and the burns on my face. They gave me an anesthetic and I don't remember a thing from that time on, until about 10:00 o'clock that night, when I came out from under the anesthesia. The first thing I noticed was that my left stump was bandaged and taped to a long board, and the board was strapped to my left leg. Then I heard accordion music and laughter. I thought for a moment or two that I was back home in Wisconsin, because my dad played a concertina for many ears, so I was hearing familiar music that had me a bit confused. I listened for awhile, and then I noticed a door ajar to another room. I struggled a bit, and finally raised up on my right elbow. Then I saw people dancing, and could see there was a party going on in that room. My mind was now starting to clear up, and I realized where I was.

There is much more to the story, and the aftermath of these events, but that remains for another time. On August 26, 1944 the American and Allied scouting teams found us. The German hospital personnel and the less wounded prisoners had been evacuated from Paris shortly before we were liberated.

As I look back on those sudden, violent moments on 27 July 1944, when that German flak shell tore through my plane, severing my left arm and setting the cockpit on fire, and my bailing out successfully under impossible circumstances, I consider it a miracle that I survived. I can still visualize seeing my left arm on the floor of the cockpit, and remember the thought flashing through my mind that I wanted to take it with me when I bailed out. These were moments in my life that I will never forget – they will be a part of me for as long as I live.

"This picture was taken in Normandy around mid-July 1944. I was shot down about two weeks later. This is the last photo ever taken of my left arm."

A shame what happened to his arm.

I was in a Yak9T the other day and shot a FW190 D-9 in the cockpit. One hit from the 37mm was a kill, and I'm sure that pilot must have gone through alot if it was real.

"Lil' Herbie" Stachler.
The First Fighter Pilot To Land In France After The Invasion?

Like so many of us, Herb Stachler's path to becoming a fighter pilot was filled with obstacles. In 1940 the draft had been implemented, which required young men to serve one year in military service, after which they would return to civilian life. In early 1941, Herb was advised by his draft board that he would be called to active duty in about six months. Rather than start his career as a toolmaker and then have it interrupted in a few months, Herb decided to enlist, and get his year of military service out of the way. Then along came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and all men on active duty were frozen in place "for the duration."
Around mid July 1942, the Army Air Corps started accepting applications for pilot training from men currently on active duty. Herb immediately applied, and was accepted pending his passing the Air Corps physical. The problem he faced was that he was 5' 3½" tall, and the Air Corps would not accept anyone who was less than 5' 4" tall! So Herb embarked on a process of "stretching" himself. He would hang from a horizontal bar every day in an effort to let gravity help him stretch his body, and help him "grow" that additional half inch. Standing as tall as he could when he took his Air Corps physical, Herb passed, and was accepted into the cadet program.

The process had now begun. He successfully completed pre-flight training, then primary, basic and advanced flight training. He received his pilot wings and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant at Marianna, Florida, on July 28, 1943. The long and challenging goal of becoming a fighter pilot had now been realized, as 2nd Lieutenant Herbert Stachler was now assigned to an air base at Richmond, Virginia, to be introduced to the mighty P-47 Thunderbolt! All 5 feet 4 inches of him!!

At the end of fighter transition training, Herb was assigned to the 366th Fighter Group at Wilmington, North Carolina, and he shipped overseas with them in January 1944. The Group was sent to Thuxton Air Force Base near Andover in southern England, and after additional training, they started flying combat missions over western Europe in March 1944.

Herb had been assigned his own P-47, so he had to decide what to name it. Back then, there was a comic strip called "Lil' Herbie" about a little boy and his many adventures. One guy in the 366th was quite an artist, so he painted the comic strip character on the nose of the plane, holding Hitler's head and a bloody axe, with the title "Lil' Herbie" above it. That, coupled with the fact that Herb was one of the smallest fighter pilots, made "Lil' Herbie" the perfect name for the plane.

During the next 12 months, Herb Stachler was involved in brutal, intense war, and before it was over, he had flown 102 combat missions. He participated in every major campaign on the Western Front, including the invasion of France on June 6, 1944, the breakout from Normandy, the Ardennes, and the Battle of The Bulge. During the time he was with the 366th Fighter Group, 90 of his fellow pilots were lost to enemy action. But during this period, he had made a substantial contribution to the outstanding results achieved by the 366th in the European Theater of Operations. He had flown missions with them from England, then landing strip A-1 in Normandy, then near Dreux, France, A-70 near Laon, France, and Y-29 near Maastricht, Holland. By the time he was sent back to the States in March 1945, he had seen it all and had done most of it.

On the night of June 5/6, 1944, along with other personnel of the 366th Fighter Group, he had watched and listened to the massive armada of C-47s carrying paratroopers, or towing gliders loaded with paratroopers, as they went over the airfield on their way to Normandy for the invasion. Then as dawn came, he was part of the first mission flown by the 366th over the invasion area. He knew he was seeing history in the making, and he was glad he was able to be so heavily involved.

At the opening of this story I have written ". . . The First Fighter Pilot To Land In France After The Invasion?" Let's look at the circumstances that lead me to considering this possibility, as described in Herb's own words:

"On June 11, 1944, five days after D-Day, we were flying top cover along Normandy Beach at about 4,000 feet, when there was a loud crack and pieces of shrapnel flew back into my cockpit. One piece went through my pant's leg. I looked out and saw damage to the wing. Just then my element leader shouted on the radio, ‘Herbie, there's a German on your tail!' At the moment I was flying ‘tail-end Charlie' and enjoying the scenery, when this FW-190 sneaked up behind me and tried to pick me off. If that guy is alive today, he is probably wondering why I didn't go down – he had a perfect shot at me. There was no evasive action on my part, since I did not know that I was being attacked. In an instant he had disappeared, and then I noticed that my oil pressure was dropping and that I was losing hydraulic pressure as well. Next, I noticed there was fluid on the floor. My first thought was gasoline, since my main 300 gallon tank was right below me. It proved to be hydraulic fluid though, but I knew I couldn't make it back to England.
There was an allied air base under construction atop the cliffs, inland from the beach. I told my element leader that without oil and hydraulics I would have to land now, so I set down on this runway. This got pretty tricky, because without hydraulic fluid I had no brakes and no flaps. Fortunately – even without hydraulic pressure – the landing gear fell down and locked into place, but without flaps I had to land at 180 mph. It took a little ‘bump' of the plane to make sure the gear locked, but this was standard procedure. The base was a ‘chicken-wire' airstrip, our pet name for wire landing mesh that looked like large hardware cloth. After I landed and parked, I got out of my plane and looked it over carefully. When I saw all the damage, I started to shake, and I shook uncontrollably. I had been that close to ‘buying the farm.'

The engine is attached to the fuselage with four tubular frame motor mounts, one of which was shot through. The ground crew at the landing strip was unable to repair it, but they did fix the oil lines and the hydraulic lines. They also patched up the fuselage where the 20mm explosive projectile came through. The holes in the wings could wait until I got back to England. When I was finally able to return to our base at Thuxton a few days later, I found that the outfit was in the process of moving to Normandy, Landing Strip A-1, the runway where I had made my forced landing!"

Was Herb Stachler the first fighter pilot to land in France after the invasion? And get back to England with his plane? I have researched all this, and I do not find anything that would indicate otherwise. There were planes that bellied in and the pilot survived, but I find no record of anyone who landed a fighter plane in Normandy prior to June 11, 1944, and then after his plane was given temporary repairs, flew it back to England.

Herb Stachler arrived in England as a 2nd Lieutenant, and when he returned to the States on the Queen Mary in March 1945, he was a Captain. I flew with him on several combat missions and can attest to his skill as a fighter pilot. He was one of the smallest fighter pilots in the Air Corps, but he had one of the biggest hearts. He flew with courage, and he never backed off on a mission.


Lt. Glenn Horwege
Luke Field – Class of 44-A
I first got to know Glenn when we were both assigned to Luke Field, Arizona, for Advanced Flight Training. While he was down the alphabet some distance from me and, therefore, we were housed in different barracks, we became good friends during the time we were there. Our flight training started in At-6s, then moved up to P-40s -- our first actual combat fighter plane. On January 7, 1944 we marched up the same platform to receive our pilot wings, and to be commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants. We then were assigned to Harding Field at Baton Rouge to transition into P-47 Thunderbolts. In early May 1944 we shipped out for England on the U.S.S. Brazil, heading for the war in Europe.

I was assigned to the 366th Fighter Group, and Glenn went to the 362nd Fighter Group, 377th Fighter Squadron. We both ended up flying from landing strips in France shortly after the invasion of Normandy. The following notes were made while I was talking to Glenn by telephone in 1996:


"From the time I first went into combat, I could see that the odds were great that I would ultimately be shot down. Each night while lying on my cot, I would review the procedure for bailing out. I wanted to have everything clearly fixed in my mind, so the process would be as close to automatic as possible.
"On August 8, 1944, I was flying at 13,000 feet on a mission near Paris, when I was hit by 88mm flak. Oil covered my canopy, and it was apparent I was going down. Doing things exactly as I had planned, I trimmed the plane to roll left, then dived head first out the right side. The next thing I knew, I was trapped in a vacuum under the belly of the plane – which was apparently created by the prop wash and air coming over the top of the wing. Oil was all over me and the plane, and I had to get my hands and knees against the belly of the plane and push myself off. I landed on a small haystack, and within a short period of time I was picked up by the Germans. Unfortunately, they were members of the SS, and instead of being sent to a POW camp, I was sent to the concentration camp at Buchenwald.

"Eighty-one other American airmen were held there. On two occasions I was told that I would be shot the next morning; they would go through the whole process of preparing for the execution, then change their minds. At the end of three months I was nothing but skin and bones, and felt I was approaching death. Then the Luftwaffe interceded, and all of the Americans at Buchenwald were transferred to Stalag Luft 3. With the approach of Russian and American forces in late April 1945, we were all able to walk away to safety. But I am still haunted by those events in 1944 and 1945."

I last saw Glenn on July 10, 1996, when I went to Sacramento, CA to have dinner with him and his family. We had a wonderful evening, reviewing those days so long ago. For those few hours we were once again young fighter pilots, remembering the buddies we had lost and the amazing events of our wartime lives. The photograph below was taken by Glenn's wife, Sandy, on that evening of July 10, 1996 at their home.

Glenn had been fighting cancer, and a few months later it again struck him. He died about six months later. But I will always remember him as he was, when we went through flight training and shipped overseas together. His incredible stories about bailing out of his P-47, and his time in Buchenwald are truly unique. Such was the world in which we lived.

galland interview trailer..

this place i think has a bunch of ww2 shows and interviews you can watch for a price. there is a triler for their galland program.

http://aerocinema.com/component/cont...galland-1.html

Captain 'Alfie' Sutton

Captain 'Alfie' Sutton was a Fleet Air Arm observer who was the last survivor of the raid against the Italian Navy at Taranto.

Sutton , who has died aged 96, was the last survivor of the 42 young naval airmen whose attack in 1940 on the Italian fleet at Taranto, southern Italy, altered the balance of power in the Mediterranean and changed the nature of naval warfare.

As an observer (the Fleet Air Arm equivalent of an RAF navigator), Sutton and his pilot, "Tiffy" Torrens-Spence, flew to Malta from the carrier Illustrious, then picked up reconnaissance photographs of the port, where the entire Italian battle fleet lay.

The first striking force of 12 Swordfish took off at 20:40 on November 11, six carrying torpedoes, four carrying bombs and two illuminating flares. An hour later Sutton and Torrens-Spence set out in Swordfish L5K with the second strike of nine aircraft; each Swordfish carried an overload tank of petrol in the observer's cockpit, displacing the observer to the air gunner's rear seat. The extra petrol enabled the aircraft to remain airborne for five hours, but Sutton was uneasily conscious that his head and back were resting on the tank as the aircraft dropped down to attack.

He recalled that the enemy was well alerted by the previous attack, so that battery after battery of anti-aircraft fire opened up as they followed the coast; from 60 miles away he saw a greenish coloured cone of anti-aircraft fire and searchlights over the port. To deliver a successful torpedo attack the Swordfish had to fly level at a height of less than 150 ft to within 1,000 yards of the target. As the Swordfish went into its screaming, whistling dive he saw the aircraft in front spin away out of control, almost hitting the water, and then felt a terrific jolt when Torrens-Spence pulled out of the dive. With tracer and incendiaries streaming up at them, Torrens-Spence called out, "The one to port is too close. What's that ahead?"

"Dead ahead is Littorio," Sutton replied.

"Right! I'll take that b******."

The battleship started to fire, wreathing the aircraft in smoke and making it stink of cordite. When Torrens-Spence let the torpedo go at 700 yards the battleship seemed to fill the horizon, and Sutton thought he could see down the muzzles of the close-range guns. Immediately after the release L5K turned steeply, hit the water, bounced, and staggered between the tethering buoys of two barrage balloons into the air.

Suddenly the aircraft was out of the cauldron of fire, and everything seemed quiet. Taranto was in chaos: the battleship Conte di Cavour was sunk, and the battleships Littorio and Caio Duilio heavily damaged. British losses were two Swordfish, one crew killed and one captured. In one night, the Royal Navy had inflicted more damage on the Italian fleet than it had on the German High Sea Fleet in the daylight action at Jutland in 1916; it also gave the Japanese a model for Pearl Harbor. With others, Sutton and Torrens-Spence were awarded the DSC.

Alan William Frank Sutton, known in the Fleet Air Arm as "Alfie", was born on May 21 1912. His father was killed on the Somme, and Sutton was educated at Christ's Hospital, Sussex, before joining the Navy as a special entry cadet in 1930. He trained for one year in the monitor Erebus at Devonport and then served in the battlecruisers Renown and Repulse and the destroyer Basilisk before specialising as a naval observer in 1937. Before the war he flew in Swordfish in 823 and 825 naval air squadrons in Glorious and Illustrious.

On September 4 1940 Sutton and Torrens-Spence led a dive-bombing raid on Calato airfield in the island of Rhodes, having taken over leadership of the strike after their commanding officer's aircraft suffered an accident on deck. Two months later Sutton was flying with Lieutenant-Commande r "Ginger" Hale, who led a torpedo strike against an enemy convoy off Sicily, sinking two merchant ships. Early next day the Swordfish crews took off on a bombing raid over Tripoli. Sutton was twice mentioned in dispatches for these operations.

When Illustrious was bombed by the Germans on January 10 1941 and had to be repaired in Alexandria, the remnants of the squadron operated for several weeks with the Army on the desert front. Next Sutton became naval liaison officer to the RAF in Greece, planning nightly operations by 815 naval air squadron, which flew against Italian shipping in the Adriatic from a hidden airfield in the mountains of Albania.

When their location was betrayed by the unexpected arrival in a Junkers of King Peter of Yugoslavia, who was being hunted by the Germans, Sutton withdrew first to Maleme, Crete, and then, after German paratroopers landed, organised a platoon of sailors and RAF groundcrew to fight alongside the New Zealanders in trying to retake the airfield. Three surviving Swordfish out of 22 flew on to Egypt, while Sutton tramped over the White Mountains to the island's south coast.

At Sphakia, where the defeated Allied forces were being evacuated by the Navy, he appointed himself beachmaster and, after several thousand men had been taken off, got away himself in one of the last boats. He was awarded a Bar to his DSC for his outstanding gallantry, fortitude and resolution. After a few days in hospital for repairs to his feet which, having worn out his shoes, were like "horse's hooves", he quickly returned to duty.

Admiral "ABC" Cunningham was accused of parsimony in his praise for Taranto, but he described Sutton's efforts in Greece and Crete – where he had lived for several weeks on a diet of gin and bully beef, developing the early symptoms of scurvy – as "an example of grand personal courage under the worst possible conditions which stands out brightly in the gloom".

As staff officer (air) to the admiral commanding the eastern task force during Operation Torch, Sutton helped plan the taking of Algeria and Morocco from the Vichy French in 1942. The following January he was air staff officer of 846 squadron, flying Avengers from the escort carrier Ravager in the Battle of the Atlantic. Promoted acting commander a year later, he became operations officer of the fleet carrier Implacable, and prepared the operation when the Fireflys of 1771 squadron located and photographed Tirpitz at Tromsø, in Norway, and made the Fleet Air Arm's last airborne torpedo strike of the war on October 28 1944.

In March 1945 Sutton sailed for the Pacific, where he planned attacks on targets in the Tokyo plain before the war ended.

Immediately afterwards he became second-in-command of HMS Nabcatcher (Kai Tak), the air station at the edge of Hong Kong harbour. After staff appointments he commanded the frigate Bigbury Bay from 1951 to 1953, which included a spell in the Antarctic and as guard ship in the Falkland Islands. He was chief staff officer of the carrier Squadron during Operation Musketeer, the Suez invasion, and finished his naval career as Director of the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, from 1962 to 1965.

Sutton was aide-de-camp to the Queen in 1964. On retiring, he was a graduate of the Naval Staff College, the Joint Services Staff College and the Imperial Defence College; he was also appointed CBE. In addition he held a unique record in having won the Admiralty's Naval History Prize essay competion in 1939, 1947, 1949 and 1956.

After the Navy Sutton worked for the chemical division of the Distillers Company and then for BP until 1977, when he retired to devote himself to the gardens and woods at his home, Northanger, in Surrey.

Alfie Sutton, who died on November 6, married, in 1940, Peggy Cazeuax de Grange. She survives him with two sons and two daughters; another daughter predeceased him.

First 8th AF Piggy Back Rescue


Colonel Royce Priest USAF (retired)in a letter to Bill Marshall dated December 2002

I ran away from school before I graduated, and lied about my age to enlist in the Army Air Corps. I wanted to fly more than anything else in the world but pilots weren’t being accepted into the Air Corps unless they had at least a couple of years in college. I couldn’t afford college and my current employer (United States Army) didn’t see anything extraordinary in a wet behind the ears enlisted man to cause them to break the rules and send me to flight school. But I had a dream. My first Sergeant and my CO took a liking to me and let me know that United States Military Academy took one or two qualified enlisted men from the ranks based on passing the Entrance Exam – and informed me they would help me prep for it.

Two years and two failures later, I took the exam one more time and volunteered for Glider School, thinking it would bring me one step closer to my dream. At the time I was a Non Commissioned Officer. I graduated from Glider School at the top of my class, and learned at the same time that the Army had enough and probably would not form another squadron or fill replacements any time soon. My Colonel at the school asked “Would you be interested in going to Flight School as a Pilot Candidate?”. What a question!

I had just graduated, been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Class of 43-J at Craig Field, Alabama, when another piece of good news came my way. I had just been accepted to West Point as a cadet! I looked at the Gold Wings, looked at the appointment and realized that the Gold Wings outweighed the Point.! Maybe, someday..

I went to advanced Fighter Training and then on to Steeple Morden, England and the Mighty Eighth. I was assigned to the 355th Fighter Group, 354FS, on June 2nd or 3rd a day before your father, Captain Bert Marshall, Jr.

Bert was my personal hero from his days as a star quarterback with the Greenville Lions, and the only quarterback in Texas to ever make All State three years in a row (I suspect you know this). I even followed his career when he went to Vanderbilt. That record holds to this day. Now here I was with this kind, gentle warrior as my leader!

Anyway, it was obvious that Bert Marshall brought a lot of talent and charisma to the 354th.He also brought a lot of experience, having logged over 2200 single engine time while stuck in Training Command.

As a new fighter pilot he shot his first German down on his second total mission, on D-Day, then shot down two more two weeks later, saving two of our own pilots from being shot down. He became Squadron Ops officer before the end of the month, bypassing many seasoned combat veterans in the squadron. Nobody was displeased – it was the nature of the man he was, that enlisted men and officers alike had a deep affection and respect for him.

By the time August 18th rolled around, Captain Bert Marshall had become Major Bert Marshall, and 354 Fighter Squadron Commander and an ace fighter pilot. He was already getting a well deserved reputation for not matching wheels down landings with take-offs. He had already bellied two Mustangs in with severe damage, the last one just a couple of days before.

As a side foot note, he would bend two more (with German help) before I rotated home. I was flying his wing on one of the times just before the end of his first tour…and I heard he had another during his second tour. Getting shot up so badly you have to crash land the airplane worries most people when it happens ONCE!

The mission on The Day was a low level Fighter Sweep to attack German rail and marshalling yard targets northeast of Paris in the Soissons area. Our job was to disrupt the flow of men and supplies to the front and raise as much hell as we could.

I was in Red Flight of the 354th Squadron with Bert as the Squadron Commander and overall mission commander for the 355th . I was flying number three with Woolard was my wingman and Wood was Bert’s wingman as number two.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived at our primary target, a large marshalling yard at Soissons, loaded with targets. It was loaded, but quite a few of the rail cars had red crosses on the roof so Bert took us further east to see what we could find, just following the tracks.

Pretty shortly we came upon another rather large concentration. I can’t recall for sure but I think it was near St. Etienne, maybe 20 miles further east. Standard operating procedure for us in a situation like this was for the leader to dispatch a flight for a closer look – but not Bert, he designated himself and told the rest of the group to orbit out of range while we checked it (flak defenses) out.

As we made our first pass on the rail traffic my particular target car and locomotive dropped side doors and we were staring at very ugly 20mm and 40mm snouts. I saw a flash to one side and looked over towards Bert’s ship.

Bert took one hit under the exhaust stack and a big hit behind the radiator scoop, apparently just missing the fuselage fuel tank, because he didn’t blow up… but he was burning and smoking heavily and I knew for sure that P-51 wouldn’t come home.

I called the damage in to him and heard him edly tell us to wave off while he looked for a place to belly it in. I got back on the radio and suggested that he head for a field about a mile away and I would land nearby to pick him up. He told me in very clear and concise language that I was to take the squadron and get the hell out of there.

While I observed Bert’s Mustang limping away, still badly smoking I could see his prop rpm slow even further and knew it was just a matter of minutes or most before he went in. As he flared out over a plowed field by a tree lined road, I told Woolard that I was going to land in a wheat field next to Bert. Bert heard the R/T traffic and immediately and profanely told me ‘to NOT land nearby – and that is a Direct Order!”. There were a few more adjectives that I can’t remember, but I did understand what he said..

Using some observational skills that I learned as a glider pilot trainee (see, I told you it was important) I could see the plowed field was too soft but the wheat field about 600-800 yards away was big enough. I made one pass length wise to size the field up for a possible landing.

It was a large wheat field about half a mile away from Bert's crash., which was occupied and being worked by a number of people, along with a team and wagon and some pieces of heavy equipment. Much of the field was still uncut, waist high wheat, and most of the remainder consisted of shocked wheat bundles sitting in geometrically precise rows, but in one corner there was a small cleared area where men with pitch forks were loading shocks onto the wagon. I reasoned if I could full stall the airplane into that small clearing and then keep it aimed between two rows of shocks, along with fair braking action, the combined effect would not only get me down safely, it would also clear a runway for takeoff

As I passed overhead I could see Bert had gotten out and was tossing a thermite grenade into his Mustang to finish it off.

I waggled my wings in the direction of the field and proceeded to set up for the tight landing, noticing that he was shedding equipment and then started to run in my direction when he saw what I was doing. The farmers scattered as I made my final approach.

Just before I brought it down I thought I could see Bert about a quarter mile away coming my way.

The landing worked out fine. With full flaps, minimum airspeed, nose high, and power on, the airplane was sort of hanging on its propeller as it came over the field boundary. As I eased power all the way back, while holding the nose up, the Mustang gently whomped down and went clattering off between the neatly stacked rows of wheat shocks. In fact, natures arresting gear was so effective that I decided to lengthen my "runway" a little before turning back to look for Bert. I could now see that a haystack I had all but ignored in the air was somewhat larger than I had perceived it to be and, indeed, could in fact become a factor on takeoff. (In fact, it did become a factor during the takeoff roll, when cockpit overcrowding had limited my ability to move my legs far enough to apply adequate rudder correction to overcome the full effect of torque buildup during engine acceleration on the initial segment of the takeoff roll.) . Then I swung it around facing back down the ‘runway’ with the haystacks behind me

I stood up in the cockpit to see if I could spot Bert and was shocked to see a truckload of German infantry coming my way about a half mile away to the north west. I got Woolard and Wood on the horn and told ‘em to “kill the truck” They replied that they were already swinging in bound to shoot them up

Simultaneously Woolard and Wood flew low over my head to hit the tree lined dirt road., shooting at the truck and let me know there were more about a mile further north on the main road. All I could see where the truck once was, was a hunk of burning metal and a cloud of dust where the .50’s were chewing up the dirt road. Vaguely, I was speculating that they (survivors, if any) were going to be in an ugly mood if I was still around.

In the meantime, I still had not spotted Bert, but the farm laborers were moving toward me with farm implements in hand, my coolant temperature was in the red and I knew I couldn’t just shoot at the farmers with my sidearm, I couldn’t wait much longer, and I couldn’t leave unless I knew Bert was incapacitated for sure, and last but not least I would have to leave if the larger main road force remained unscathed.

While these thoughts were passing through my head, I pushed throttle forward to get some high speed airflow going to try to cool off and kicked the rudder so that the prop wash blew rocks and dirt at the farmers. That did the trick as they backed away quickly

I had gunned the engine fairly hard to get the airplane rolling fast toward Bert's crash site in the adjoining muddy plowed field, in the direction from where I thought Bert should show up. Deliberately taxiing the airplane at high speed on the surface of the wheat almost turned out to be disastrous! As I approached the wheat field's northwestertern boundary, rolling at a fairly high rate, I barely discerned a wide, deep ditch. It was almost totally concealed by a heavy growth of brush and vegetation, and rapidly coming up directly ahead of me. Heavy braking only seemed to make me go faster on the ice-slick wheat stubble. Instinctively, I slammed full rudder and stood on the brake, which broke the tail wheel out of its centering detent and sent the airplane into a wide skidding turn. It came to lurching stop just feet short of putting a wheel over the edge of the ditch, which would have put an end to the affair.

Just about this time, I spotted Bert, he disappeared in the deep ditch I had just avoided, then re-appeared running for me. I taxied over to meet him. He was red faced, streaming sweat, livid that I had disobeyed his direct order, and repeated the order “Go home now, before you get us both killed or captured”, then refused to climb on. Many vituperative words were sliced out of the recollected tirade!

I didn’t know what to do or say, so I got out on the wing with parking brake locked, pulled off my parachute and dingy pack and just stood there, then I pulled the ripcord spilling the chute. Bert then just shook his head and climbed up on the wing. He insisted I fly, I insisted he had more experience and he should fly, so he ended the argument and sat in the seat, forcing me to do most of the flying!

It was incredibly cramped, my head was just above the gun sight and pressed forward to allow the canopy to close and very awkward to manage the throttles and rudders. I could just press far enough back to enable me to get enough stick control to lift us out of here. I couldn’t see the instrument panel and probably for the best – as I really didn’t want to know that my coolant was dead, if it was, at this late stage of the game.

My recollection of my orientation for take off places me on a southerly heading, at the northern boundary of the wheat field, at about 500 feet or so to the east of the field's western boundary. The enemy vehicle had been attacked by the wingmen as it was proceeding south along the road/ditch at the wheat field's western boundary. (For your information, five members of my family have visited the Wheatfield during recent times, and have been royally greeted by the local citizenry, some of whom witnessed the entire event back in 1944. One of them, currently a local senior citizen, was then a 14 year old boy who was hiding in the mentioned haystack during the happening, wrote and asked me whether I had been aware of a number of German soldiers who were hiding in the road. I was, after they started shooting at us!)

Just after starting the take off , the canopy flew back and clonked me on the forehead.

When the canopy slid back, I had just started applying takeoff power and we were just barely into the roll. As the canopy struck my head, I immediately retarded power and started braking to a stop, at which time Bert said, "I got it, Coach", then reached around me and closed/locked the canopy, after which I resumed the takeoff roll. As I recall, at this point in the adventure, there were a few farmers now standing some 25-50 yards off at about my 8:30-9 o'clock. The Germans were some several hundred feet behind me at about my 4-5 o'clock, at the start of takeoff

While I clearly recall the loud noise of hitting wheat shocks on the landing roll (a real clatter!) I don't recall hitting wheat on takeoff -- just the sheer damned panic of trying to get enough rudder/aileron travel in to avoid hitting the haystack. Cockpit crowding limited my ability to extend my leg enough to suffficiently override takeoff torque was a problem. My lower leg was hitting the bottom edge of the forward panel until increasing speed required less rudder offset for directional control. Bless the Mustang's sweet heart!

Just after we got off the ground I had just enough control to dip my left wing and miss the haystack – just barely.

In the meanwhile, while we were blissfully worrying about getting the Mustang off the ground, several German soldiers from the shot up truck were firing at us from behind me as we climbed out. Red Flight had thoroughly chewed up the second convoy. I made a full power climb out to get some distance from any more flak that might be in the area.

With no oxygen equipment, we flew back to Steeple Morden at 12-14,000 feet, Bert managing the trim and then the landing gear controls when we got back to the base. I radioed in an emergency landing. The tower responded by asking the nature of the emergency and I responded “We have two on board and it’s a little cramped for a safe landing”. They responded “Say AGAIN?” to which I repeated the situation.

When we landed I pulled off the runway short of the assigned parking revetment for WR-E Eaglebeak, to give both Bert and me a moment to collect our thoughts. As we got out to stretch, he shook my hand and quietly but sincerely expressed his thanks, as well as his feeling for me.

I took that opportunity to tell him what a great inspiration he had been for me, personally, and what an inspiration he was for the Squadron, as a leader and a man. I told him he was too important to the Group to not take a chance on getting him back.

I must admit that I was very concerned regarding my own fate, having disobeyed a direct order, in combat – twice. I wondered if I would be transferred out, taken off combat operation, etc. I did not expect to be decorated.

I found out later that I was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but when news of the DSC came, I was simply delighted with the Distinguished Service Cross. When General Doolittle presented me with the medal he looked me in the eye and told me he struggled with his decision but downgraded the award to a DSC, simply because he didn’t want to set a precedent that would risk more pilots and aircraft.

He went on to say that he “had never thought about issuing a regulation to ‘Not land behind enemy lines to attempt a rescue’… “Who would be that stupid,” he grinned., “because what you just did was just crazy to even think about!”

But, shortly afterwards Lieutenant General James Doolittle issued a sternly worded order prohibiting any more such attempts.

Bobby - i take my hat off to you fella for taking the time to search and post these accounts its breath taking reading some. I dont have the time to post some more!!!



many thanks



Scotty :)

THE REICH'S EX-LEADERS EXPLAIN WHY THEY WERE BEATEN

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/...s/nazidbrf.htm