Flying American Combat Aircraft of World War II: Vol.1, 1939-45 (Stackpole Military History Series) by Robin Higham & Abigail T. Siddall & Carol Williams

Author:Robin Higham & Abigail T. Siddall & Carol Williams [Higham, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811746083
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2004-01-31T22:00:00+00:00

Another P-47D.

My first assignment was to help the French Air Force Service Command, then at Besancon, with the support of their aircraft. While there, I was able to go over to Dijon where Brig. Gen. John Doyle had a B-26 bomber wing. I got out on a couple of B-26 missions, including a big one in February on which the entire enemy front was saturated with Allied airplanes. No German fighters were seen, only scattered antiaircraft. Victory was close.

One day while working with the French air force, I had reason to fly into Nancy where an American P-47 wing was operating. Soon after I arrived in early January, I landed a C-45 on the snow-covered Nancy runway, and while taxiing down toward the far end between the walls of piled-up snow at the runway edges, we saw a P-47 coming in on his down-wind leg for an emergency landing, engine on fire, smoke and flames engulfing the entire plane. He was deadstick and had only one place to land—right where we were. No more taxiing to the runway end, we had to clear! So we headed at full speed for a wall of snow. Just as our tail cleared the right half of the runway, the Jug slid past down safely. It was my first contact with my old friend P-47 for some time.

As the war continued to wind down, I was called back to Vittel and assigned to set up support for the 358th Fighter Wing at a sand strip on an old GAF base called Sandhofen, near Mannheim on the Rhine. The 358th Group, equipped with P-47Ds, was commanded by Col. Jim Tipton, an outstanding fighter commander. After working for a few days at getting bombs and ammunition stores in proper shape, I managed a couple of P-47 missions with the wing, Tipton leading. The strafing mission was interesting. We had about fourteen or sixteen aircraft, and we swept the countryside for about 150 miles toward Berlin. I had known that the technique, particularly when flying at low altitude, was to weave and turn continually. Well, that we did, and violently, too. There was little movement on the ground. No enemy aircraft, some ground antiaircraft, but mostly weak, no losses. We shot up a bunch of railroad cars and locomotives, mostly stopped before we arrived. We saw one soldier on a motorcycle scooting down a narrow street through a small village. A couple of P-47s went after him, but I felt relieved when I saw bullets hitting all around him and not getting him. When we passed, he was still riding like all hell. I was glad he got away. He was no challenge, and he could do no harm to us or our armies. My P-47 flew like a dream. When we landed at Sandhofen, the Crew Chief found what looked like a .45 caliber slug sticking in my tailpipe. I don’t know when or where I got it.

The second mission was a bombing and escort trip to Friederich -shaven on the Baden Sea.

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