[bobbysocks]

Col. Harold Rau Remembers
The 20th. Fighter Group

"...Some of the outstanding missions that I recall being involved with in the 20th. Group... well, of course the big show at Salsbury*, where we took off in the afternoon after the bombers had already been there and were on the way home. We were able to sneak in and pull off a pretty good strike on the airport at Salsbury and too also to shoot down a few krauts on the way in and the way out, and bang up a few locomotives.
We found out that the P-38 was a pretty good low-altitude airplane and from there on, up through D-Day, we concentrated very heavily on low-altitude attacks. We did alot of skip-bombing, dive-bombing, strafing and also some high-altitude bombing with the Droop Snoot..."

"One of the missions that stands out in my mind was a mission to skip-bomb a railroad bridge in the vacinity of Amiens, in France. We decided to go in over the coast at about 1,400 feet, which supposed to be a little too high for light flak and a little too low for heavy flak. We were rudely jolted out of this theory when we crossed in over the coast of France, down a little bit north of Le Harve, when we ran into some of the worst light flak that we had ever encountered. It was appearant that, as D-Day was approaching, the Germans had moved everything they could get their hands on into the coast so they could protect that part of their flank. As we drove in across the French Coast, the small-arms fire, the 50 caliber and 37 mm fire was pretty intense and all of us were getting pretty badly hit.

"E.O. Smith was flying as white leader in my group, my squadron, and he got hit. We each had a 1,000 pound bomb under each wing, 2,000 pounds all together. E.O. Smith got hit and caught fire in his engine, which of course was right over the 1,000 pound bomb. Somebody in his flight let out a shrill cry, 'White leader, white leader, bail out, bail out, you're on fire!' E.O. Smith, being the strong, clown Texan that he was simply came back, ' Alright, god d**n it, I know it.' About 30 second later the same shrill voice came over the R/T (radio telephone) again, screaming louder than ever, 'Bail out, bail out white leader, you're gonna' explode!' E.O. Smith came back, very calmly, "Alright god d**n it, I'm leaving.' And about that time he did.

The rest of the story is pretty well known, he bailed out and had his Texas grandfather's old 45 on his hip, he shot a couple of krauts when they came close to him...He escaped, evaded, got with the French underground and got back over the Pyrenees and eventually came back to rejoin his outfit again. His is one of my favorite stories of individual heroism of the war in that under the most adverse of circumstances he could be so calm and do everything as deliberately and quietly as he did."

"I remember one of the most colorful characters in the 20th., of course, was Jack Ilfrey. Jack's greatest stunt was, having gotten hit and bailed out while dive bombing and strafing south of the Normandy beachhead after the invasion. He bailed out and started to walk north with the idea that he would eventually get back to our own lines.

He stopped a young French boy on the road and traded everything he had for the French boy's clothes and his bicycle. He traded, among other things, his fountain pen, his watch, his money and his clothes, his parachute... he gave this all to the French kid and got on this bicycle dressed as a French peasant. He had a little blue beret on his head and he started pedaling towards the north. A German convoy came along and he latched on to one of the trucks and let them pull him for several miles up towards the front lines. When they got up close to the Front Lines, the truck stopped and the driver got out and grabbed Ilfrey off the bicycle, gave him a boot in the tail, said 'Get going Frenchy!' and took his bicycle.

In order to get away with not being able to speak French, Jack kept pointing to his ears and saying 'boom boom,' pretending he was deaf. A German doctor picked him up and took him to a German hospital and forced him to work there for several hours as an emergency man when they were bringing the wounded from the front. After he'd worked ther quite awhile, the German doctor gave him a couple packs of German cigarettes and a pat on the a** and told he to get going. So, Jack started north again, and eventually got through the German lines and up into the British lines, and identified himself. The British took him into their headquarters and eventually got him a hop back to King's Cliffe.

When he got back to King's Cliffe he was still wearing his blue denims, the funny little soft-soled shoes, the blue beret and blue shirt that he had gotten from the boy. I have a picture to this day of Jack as he arrived back on the base after this. Jack was one of the most daring and skillful and aggressive fighter pilots that we had

"Another of the really, truly great fighter pilots, and also one of the most individually courageous men I ever knew was Cy Wilson. Cy Wilson came to the group as the Squadron Commander of the 55th. Squadron while I was in command. Then, when I went home on emergency leave in July of 1944, he took over command of the group. The day I arrived back in England and hopped a ride back to King's Cliffe, I got out of the airplane and was met by Jack Randolph who greeted me with the news that Cy was down in the North Sea and people were trying to fish him out. Well, as it turned out the Germans beat us to it and they fished him out and he was a POW. I had the chance to see Cy after the war, when I was stationed back down at Langley Field. He came to my quarters and we sat out on the sun porch of my quarters for about four about four or five hours and, over a bottle of scotch, refought the whole war. We decided that, if it wasn't for us the whole thing would have been a total loss. Unfortunately Cy was later killed when he crashed a jet down in North Carolina** and he wiped himself and the jet both out.

Cy was always a cool head, no matter what happened. We had been strafing an airdrome in southern France. Cy's wingman got hit and knocked out an engine. The boy lost his head and completely panicked. He started screaming over the R/T, 'I'm hit! I'm hit! I'm gonna' die! I've only got one engine, I can't make it!'

Cy pulled along side of him and said, 'Shut up and fly your god d**n airplane!' The kid started screaming somemore, 'I can't do it! I can't do it! I've only got one engine!' Cy said, 'Alright, I'll cut off an engine too and we'll both fly home on one engine.'

So he did, deep in enemy territory, down on the deck, Cy very calmly feathered the corresponding engine to the one the boy had shot out and said, 'Now come on, get on my wing, we're going home.' He led him home and both landed safely cause Cy had the leadership and guts to do what it took to get that boy out of his panic and get him home."

footnote:

THE DROOP-SNOOT P-38

Largely the creation of Col. Cass Hough of Operational Engineering, the Droop Snoot was a P-38 converted to carry a bombsight and bombardier in the nose. Work on a prototype commenced at Bovington in January, 1944, the project being transfered to Lockheed at Langford Lodge for the major engineering needed. The aircraft's name was bestowed when someone, viewing the cut-off nose during modification, enquired as to the purpose of the "droop-snooted P-38." Changes involved all armament and associated equipment being removed from the nose, an escape hatch fashioned on one side, a plexiglas moulding fitted to the front, Norden bombsight and bombing fitting installed, together with a seat for the bombardier and oxygen supply. Tactical employment was planned whereby the Droop-Snoot would lead a tight formation of standard P-38s, all carrying bombs on the wing shackles, to make a high speed attack on heavily defended targets such as airfields. A mass drop would make on the Droop Snoot release in samilar fashion to the mode of attack used by medium and heavy bombers. Designed bombload for the Droop-Snoot was two 1,000 lbs. bombs, but a maximum of 6x500lbs. bombs could be carried. Successful trials were carried out from Bovington over Bradwell range using aircraft # 42-681184, while six other conversions were being made at Langford Lodge.


The first operational use of the Droop-Snoot was on April 10,1944 when 20th. and 55th. Fighter Groups used one each to lead formations. Droop-Snoots were subsequently employed by all for 8th.AF P-38 Groups and by the 56th. Group to lead P-47 Thunderbolts. Other conversions were made by BADA for the 9th.AF.

In July it was recommended that all but three Droop-Snoots be transfered from the 8th.AF, those retained being aircraft #42-104075 used by operational engineering, #43-28490 used for the Aphrodite Project, and the third used for the Dilly project.