In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

Perhaps humorous, definitely not heroic, my experiences are very likely typical of a great many of us who were fortunate enough to be there at time, ready and eager to perform the mission. You have probably scanned the book to see where and if I am mentioned. I am not.

I arrived in England in September of 1944 and returned a year later in September of 1945.

As far as Air Combat is concerned, I think the best way to express it is that basically when they were up, I was not! Or if they were up, I was escorting someone home, as on the date of December 24, 1944. I was Dollar Blue Two, flying Kirla's wing and was assigned to escort Chuck Weaver who had a rough engine, back to base 30 minutes or so before the group got into a big fight. Or I was screwing up as on the biggest day of them all January 14, 1945, when the 357th Fighter Group got a record 56.5 air victories.

On that January 14th mission, I flew someone else's airplane, which had a record of aborting on its tow previous missions because of excessive fuel usage. I had a thing about never aborting and never did. I had not seen any enemy aircraft on so many previous missions, I thought we would not see any on January 14, so I very stupidly kept my fuselage tank full so I would have plenty of fuel and not have to abort when the squadron dropped it's external tanks.

On that day, as on most days, I flew with my Flight Commander John Kirla on his wing. He had me convinced that we were going to become another Godfrey and Gentille team. George Behling was Element Leader with Jim Gassere on his wing flying number four position. Behling became a POW that day. Kirla got four victories and Gasser got two. On his first turn into the enemy aircraft Kirla lost me, his hot-shot wingman, who had snapped uncontrollably out of the action. You really can't fly the P-51 with full fuselage and make high G turns at altitude without snapping. The amount of fuel in the fuselage tank affected the center of gravity. After my snap and dive there seemed to be no one in sight except the enemy 109 working its way into firing range on my tail. This of course, with my attitude, gave me a sure victory. I felt I had him all to myself. Two snaps later, I was on the tree tops with full mixture, full throttle to burn that fuselage tank down. My 109 apparently had some positive feelings about me because he was still in the relative position. A flight of four P-51s dropped in on his tail in front of me and shot my victory from the skies.

There is more of interest to that day. I next proceeded to fly up to the bomber stream to see what I might do. Incidentally, there was smoke and debris all over the place on the ground from the many aircrafts that had gone in. On reaching the bomber stream and other wise being alone, my vision telescoped. Something was wrong. My oxygen supply somehow was decreased because of all the violent snaps or perhaps more likely I was suffering from hyperventilation. I don't know, but the next thing I do know, I was again at tree top level. I had passed out at 28000 feet and recovered in level flight at ground level. Lucky Boy!

At this point I picked up my average course for home and proceeded to fly out across the channel very much disgusted with myself. In route, I did a couple of rolls at a few hundred feet over the channel feeling that if the aircraft went in - so be it. I emptied my guns at various wave tops. Returning to Leiston-Saxmunden, our home base, where victory rolls were being performed, it seemed, by everyone else. ON the ground pictures were being taken of all those who had experienced victories. Jack Dunn did not participate.

Ten days or so later the group gathered in the Post Theater to see film form the great mission. In about the middle of the showing and after John Kirla's film showing him gloriously getting four positive victories and Jim Gasser two, here comes film heading "J Dunn, First Lt" I would have left if I could. Someone said "Hey it looks like he must be getting one in the clouds!" Next it was obvious that I was firing into the waves. So you see, all was not heroic, in fact at times very frustrating.

John W. (Jack) Dunn

Joy Ride

The department head's meeting was over, and Major Broadhead, our CO, said the only fair way was to choose numbers. I guessed number one; it turned out to be the lucky one. I had won a ride in a piggyback Mustang!

I suppose there have been piggyback P-51's converted before, but some ingenious mechanic in our top-scoring 357th Fighter Group had dreamed this one up by himself. The radio was taken out, the guns were taken out, and an extra seat complete with air speed indicator and altimeter was directly behind the pilot. As a "paddlefoot" usually on friendly relations with pilots, I had gotten quite a few rides, but never in an operational, single-seater fighter aircraft. I've always wanted to ride in one - but I was a little bit scared, too. Major Broadhead, on his second tour and with eight ME 109s to his credit, didn't make me any more at ease by explaining how difficult it would be to bail out. The make-shift canopy may stick, and things happen awfully fast.

It seemed that at least half the GI's in the squadron were watching me climb into the ship - secretly hoping I'd get the hell scared out of me. Which - I did.

Bob taxied to 06 (the long runway), and before I knew it we were airborne. It was a beautiful day, with a layer of white baby wool clouds at 5,000 feet. Bob climbed up slowly through a hole, although to me the altimeter seemed to be spinning like the second hand of a watch. Then before I knew what was happening, the nose of the ship dropped and the plane seemed to be falling right out of the sky. The aie speed rose..200..250..300..350...and the nose came up again. All the weight of my body seemed to be directly against the seat. Ice water was flowing through my legs instead of blood. My jaw had involuntarily dropped, and I could feel my cheeks and eyes sag like an old man's. I tried to lift my arms; they seemed glued to my lap. This, then, was G strain. Approximately four G's, Bob said later.

Now the nose was going straight up. If the altimeter had looked like a second hand before, it looked like a Ferris Wheel now. Before I knew it, we had looped. Not being satisfied with a gentle pullout, Broadhead dropped her on one wing, and did a barrel roll.

After a few minutes of straight and level flying (while I got my breath back), Bob decided to hedgehop some clouds. A beautiful layer of white fleece stretched, endless as earth, as far as the eye could see. Toward it we dived, 300 miles per hour. For five minutes Bob indulged in his favorite relaxation of clipping the tops off clouds and turning on one wing. Occasionally the earth would wink at us, or clouds would engulf us from every direction.

"Now what would you like to do?" Bob seemed to signal from his cockpit. Ther was nothing I would rather do at the moment than get out and walk home - but that seemed a little impractical. Bob seemed to be making all sorts of "hangar flying" motions with his hand. In my brief experience, that hinted of violent maneuvers to come. Happily, I pointed to a lone fortress at seven o'clock. I thought we might fly alongside and wave at the pilot. Instead, we peeled off and made a pass at him.

There turned out to be two forts, and two mustangs were already giving them a bad time. It wasn't long until a flight of four more arrived from nowhere and joined in the fun. It was about that thime that everything from nowhere I had ever heard about "ratraces" was completely forgotten; I was learning from scratch. For a while I kept my eyes on two 51's directly overhead. I looked straight down, and there was the sun. We were up, down and around the bombers - right on the tail of a 51 - on our side, upside down, in a dive, in a pullout, I lost all trace of horizon, airspeed, ground...my head was spinning...the prop was spinning... I was conscious only of the throb of the engine and the occasional flash of an airplane overhead.

After a king-size eternity, the ratrace was over, and although I could not see Bob's face, I knew he was grinning from ear to ear. We had been up about thirty minutes. Seeing nothing else of interest, Bob headed "Eager Beaver" for 373. we flew straight and level, on a compass heading, all the way home. I saw a town of around 90,000 from the air, but I couldn't get very interested in it. I felt dead tired, as if I had worked a week without resting and had suddenly stopped. I had the thought that I was dead weight as much as a sack of flour. I wanted to collapse.

By the time we arrived at the station I felt much better. The field looked like three toothpicks touching, with the ends overlapping. The altimeter read 8,500 feet.

"Fifteen minutes more, and we'll be landing," I thought. bob grinned back at me. More maneuvers with his left had. I nodded agreement, and wondered what would come next.

One wing suddenly slipped out from under us, and we were upside down. Little pieces of mud an debris went past my eyes and hit the canopy, I remember thinking they were falling upside down. Then the nose dropped, and we split-essed out, going straight for the ground. The airspeed increased; the earth grew larger. The huge prop was spinning like a man gone mad. I watched the airspeed: 350...400...425. The altimeter was spinning backward like a watch going the wrong way...6,000...5,000...4,000. The earth had never looked so hard. At 2,000 we leveled out, with the airspeed indication 450.

After that, the peeloff and landing seemed dull. We had traveled a vertical mile in a matter of seconds, and had reached approximately 550 miles pre hour ground speed. The landing was rough. I tried to swallow, and couldn't. My throat was dry. My hair was tousled, my legs were cold, my face was white, and I was glad to be on the ground.

Thanks to Major Broadhead, that was forty-five minutes of my life I'll never forget. And each time I remember it, the more I enjoy it!

By Paul Henslee, 362nd FS Adjutant and Executive Officer

[bobbysocks]

Quentin Aanenson

I guess in one sense you can say we are an endangered species. But unlike the spotted owl or the whooping crane, there is no legislation that can be enacted to save us. We are rapidly disappearing off the radar screen, and soon all that will be left is what we have written, what we have recorded, and some old, fading photographs. Our voices will be forever silent, and the untold "first-hand accounts" of our experiences will remain untold.
We are the boys of World War II. We are dying off at the rate of 1,500 a day -- that's 45,000 a month. That number will steadily increase until the unyielding laws of mathematics give us an increasing rate of deaths, but a decreasing number of deaths -- the remaining pool will have become too small.

Taps is just one sunset away.

But in our lifetimes, we made a difference. We had the good fortune to live during a time when honor, patriotism, and character were important. We stepped up to defend freedom, and put our lives on the line for the "cause." It was a moment in history that may never occur again.

It was 1944. I was 22 years old. And I was a combat fighter pilot in World War II. Along with thousands of other young Americans, I had been trained to be an efficient killer, and the deadly skies over Europe were my battlefields. The events of those violent and bloody days are difficult to comprehend, or even imagine. The story you are about to see is the result of the urgings of my children. They have wanted to know -- in specific terms -- what my life was really like during those critical years....those were the years I left college and joined the Air Corps, and met the girl I later married. Those were the years this airplane, the P-47 Thunderbolt, was to be my main weapon of destruction. It has been a traumatic experience for me to go back through all this. But perhaps, in other ways, it has helped purge some of the devastating memories that have haunted me for almost 50 years. So this is my story. It is being told so the children and grandchildren of those who were involved in this mortal storm, can have a better understanding of what our world of war was really like.

A Sad Happenstance of War--
Two Stories Become One

pt1

On November 17, 1944, the 391st Fighter Squadron of the 366th Fighter Group flew what was perhaps our worst mission of the war. A major ground offensive had begun the day before along the Western Front from the northwest edge of the Hurtgen Forest up through Eschweiler, Germany. The weather was terrible with low hanging clouds and light rain, but we were able to take off with each plane loaded with two 500 pound bombs and a 150 gallon belly tank. Sixteen planes from the 391st were involved in the mission.
When we reached the target area, we had to come in under the overcast at 4,500 feet. Everything was dark and eerie – we could see flashes of the big guns on the ground and the flak explosions in the air. Light from the exploding shells was reflecting off the clouds -- it was as if we were looking into a segment of hell.

Dive bombing starting from such a low altitude is a challenge in itself, but each of us in turn did our best to hit our target. I was hit in the canopy right behind my head just as I rolled over to start my dive and was hit again as I pulled out of my dive. It was apparent I was in deep trouble as I fought to keep my plane in the air. In the meantime, the other 391st pilots were fighting for their lives. Lt. Rufus Barkley dived to strafe a German vehicle, and flew into the ground and exploded. Two of my tent mates, Lt. Richard "Red" Alderman and Lt. Gus Girlinghouse attacked a column of tanks and trucks along a road near a castle on the edge of the Hurtgen Forest, and both were shot down within seconds of each other.

My radio was out of commission, my controls were damaged, and the engine was barely generating enough power to keep me in the air. When I had crossed the front lines, I kept my eyes open looking for some clear space where I could belly in, if the engine gave out. By pure luck I came upon an American landing strip that was under construction, and was able to get my damaged bird down on the partially built runway. When I got back to my base several hours later, I was listed on the pilots' board as "Missing In Action."

The loss of my two tent mates was devastating. "Red" Alderman and I had gone through all our training together, and were very close friends. He had given me the farewell letters he had written to his wife and his mother – I was to mail them if he were killed. Lt. Gus Girlinghouse had just moved into our tent, so I was just getting to know him. The night of November 17, 1944, was the worst night of the war for me.

pt2

On December 16, 1944, heavily reinforced and upgraded German Armies attacked the American lines from the Ardennes, and the biggest battle of the war on the Western Front began, "The Battle of The Bulge." The weather was so bad that most of our planes were grounded for about a week, and the Germans were able to advance about 40 miles into Belgium. On December 24th we were briefed for a mission and sitting in our planes waiting for the weather to improve, when our Operations Officer pulled up to my plane in a jeep. He told me orders had just come in for me to report to the Headquarters of the VII Corps, and that a staff car was coming to pick me up. Within a few hours I was on my way to this new assignment.

My new job was to coordinate all fighter-bomber attacks in front of the Divisions of the VII Corps. This was a major change for me; instead of doing my fighting from the air, I was now on the ground, and very near the front lines. Ground fire, such as artillery barrages, mortar fire, rifle and machine gun fire were now part of my life, instead of flak and the normal high risk of flying a fighter plane. As our armies advanced, pushing the Germans back, we moved our headquarters frequently to stay close to the front.

Around February 18, 1945, we moved into Merode Castle, about three or four miles from the town of Duren on the Roer River. The castle had been built in the Middle Ages. It was surrounded by a moat, and had several staircases leading up the circular towers to the ramparts, where archers in centuries past had defended the castle. Nothing about the area seemed particularly familiar to me, except that I knew I had flown several missions to attack German targets in this vicinity, especially during November. We were there now making preparations for a major attack to cross the Roer River, capture the town of Duren, and reach the open plains leading up to the Rhine River. The photograph below shows me in front of the main entrance to the heavily damaged castle about two days before the battle was to began. When this photograph was taken, I had made no specific connection with the events of our combat mission flown by the 391st Fighter Squadron on November 17, 1944.

Then in 1995, Robert V. Brulle, who was also a member of the 366th Fighter Group, wrote a story describing the terrible mission we flew on November 17, 1944. It was published in "World War II" magazine, and included vital new information that Bob had secured from German sources, some of it from a German officer who had been involved in the battle that day, and actually commanded the flak guns that shot down Lt. Alderman and Lt. Girlinghouse. He had seen their planes crash, and was able to mark the exact location of impact. Before he moved his men and their flak guns out of the area, he ordered other German soldiers who were at the site of the crashes to bury the American pilots.
It is difficult to conceive that the machinations of war had placed me at Merode Castle three months after that terrible mission, and that my good friend, Lt. "Red" Alderman, was buried about 100 yards in front of where I am standing in the photograph above! It is equally unbelievable that one of the German guns that shot him down was firing from the drawbridge of the castle shown behind me in the photograph. Had I known at the time that he was buried there, and that my other tent mate, Lt. Girlinghouse, was buried about 800 yards farther out in the fields, it would have torn me apart. And to think that this information was not known by me until 50 years after these events took place.


************************************************** **************
EPILOGUE
Even though the German soldiers had buried Lt. Alderman at the site of his crashed plane, his body was never recovered. About ten days after he was buried a tank battle took place on the same ground, and all markings of a grave site were destroyed. His name is listed on the "Wall of The Missing" at the Netherlands American Cemetery near Maastricht, Holland. I visited this cemetery a few years ago, and touched the place on the wall where his name is engraved.

Several times over the years since the war ended, I had tried to locate "Red" Alderman's children, but without success. When he was killed, his daughter, Lynn, was 15 months old. Then three weeks after his death, his second daughter was born, Cecilia Ann. I thought they would like to know something about their father -- what a fine man he was, and what an excellent fighter pilot he was. I had no luck in my search until the film I wrote and produced, "A Fighter Pilot's Story," was shown in the area where they live near Seattle. Since then I have communicated with them, and have met and had an extensive personal visit with Cecilia Ann. I have been able to fill in some of the blank spaces, and help the Alderman girls know more about their father.


The Endless Trauma of A Deadly Combat Mission

It was late August 1944, and Patton’s Armored Divisions were in a mad dash to the Seine River, trying to catch the rapidly retreating Germans before they could escape. I was flying in a flight of four Thunderbolts patrolling the Seine to do everything we could to prevent their crossing.

Up to this time most of the Germans had been crossing at night to escape our attacks, but on this particular day – with Patton’s tanks rapidly approaching them – the Germans were forced into trying to cross during the daytime. It was late afternoon near the town of les Andelys when we suddenly spotted them. What happened during the next 10 minutes will stay fixed in my memory as long as I live.

The German troops were crowded on barges, in small boats, just anything that would float. We caught the barges in midstream, and the killing began. I was the third plane in the attack, and when I pulled in on the target a terrible sight met my eyes. Men were desperately trying to get off the barges into the water, where large numbers of men were already fighting to make it to shore. My eight .50 caliber machine guns fired a hundred rounds a second into this hell. As the last P-47 pulled off the target, the first plane was making its second strafing pass, and the deadly process continued. In about three passes we had used up our ammunition, so we pulled up and circled this cauldron of death.

I don’t know how many men we killed that day, but the numbers had to be very high. All of the pilots were quiet as we flew back to our base in Normandy – there was no radio chatter. We each shared the agony of what we had just done. We were traumatized, but there had been no other option. If we had let them go, we knew that they would be killing American boys in a couple of days.

In my nightmares I still vividly picture that scene. After more than 50 years, it still haunts me. I deal with it, but think for a moment what it must be like to have to deal with it.

There is no glamour in war. You kill people – and you see your friends die. The only honor involved is what you yourself bring to the process. You try to do the job you know you must do – and you try desperately to keep your sanity. But you are forever changed. You are no longer young; in a matter of months you have aged years. Though you have physically survived, you have lost more than life itself; you have lost part of your soul.

[bobbysocks]

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."

[bobbysocks]

"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.

[bobbysocks]

"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.

[bobbysocks]

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."

[Korsakov829]

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.

[bobbysocks]

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

[bobbysocks]

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.

[bobbysocks]

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

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