aerial combat
6-9 mars 1944: Caché à la vue de tous à Casteljaloux et à Pompogne à Vélo
6-9 mars 1944 Abattu le 5 mars 1944, se cachant toujours des Allemands et de la Milice française. J’ai passé la nuit dans une maison bien en vue à Casteljaloux, France. J’étais caché sous la maison dans un espace qui s’étendait de l’avant à l’arrière de la maison, une petite fenêtre à chaque extrémité donc…
Read MoreGermans at the Door – Escape and Evasion Continues
March 5, 1944 continued I decided to stay put until dark. Several times I hear low-flying planes-Germans hunting for me. I’m sweating but stay well-hidden under thick brush. I saw a lot of farmland coming down and at night I’ll pop out of these woods long enough to raid some turnips and potatoes. I figure…
Read MoreShot down over France
Free falling. Flat on my back. Spinning from 16,000 feet. Velocity doubling each second. Hold off. Get below clouds where Krauts can’t see your chute. Yank that cord now, you’re dead. Germans strafe guys floating down. Clouds whisk past. French countryside filling horizon. Even so, wait goddammit. Ground rushing up. Occupied territory. Two fingers grip…
Read MoreCombat over Berlin March 4, 1944. The Cavalry
Glamorus Glen March 4, 1944 Some of us never got word of the recall. The weather was stinkin’. There were only two of us P-51s escorting a box of bombers for the first US daylight raid over Berlin. None of us had gotten the recall. I spotted an Me-109 below me, dove on him and…
Read MoreIn His Own Words: Emmett Hatch, black pilot, in Chuck Yeager’s Squadron 1950’s
In his own words from Yeager, An Autobiography pp 290-297: “The Air Force had only been integrated seven or eight years by the time I became a fighter pilot. I came up through the ranks as an enlisted man, the same as Chuck Yeager, but it wasn’t easy for me as a black man. There…
Read MoreYeager! Can’t you do anything right?
In General Yeager’s own words: After returning from being shot down, to return to combat, I had to go all the way up the chain of command until I found myself before General Eisenhower, The problem was if I was shot down again, the Germans might find me, torture me, and get information re the…
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