WWII. Shot down. Not so Sierra Hotel. March 5, 1944

March 5, 1944: Weather is stinkin’ again. We head to Bordeaux to hit some shipping targets. As we get closer, it is clear we can’t see the targets so we decide to head east to an air base as a target of opportunity.

I call out: Bandits! Six o’clock!

And turn into them – do a head on pass with 3 Me-109s.

I score some hits, but not as many as they do.

I don’t have to bail out – my plane is falling apart around me.

And me and my airplane part company.

I free fall. Safer to wait to pull the chute till after lower than 6000′ so had several 1000′ to go. Several.

One of the Me-109s heads for me again but my flight leader Obie O’Brien shoots him down. I learn – just 69 years later – the German pilot’s chute didn’t open.

As I float to the ground, I head towards the woods, away from any population.

I grab a sapling branch and float to the ground just as I used to do in West Virginia – swinging from tree branches.

I gather up my chute and make tracks to get as far away from where I came down as possible. And the opposite direction of where my plane was headed on its own.

Ain’t a German in the world that can catch a West Virginian in the woods.

After a few hours, I stay under cover, take out the sulfa powder and put it on my wounds on my hands and in my groin.

The area seems crawling with Germans.

As night approaches, I find a hiding place, and sleep a little on and off – one eye open. I think of Glennis, my parents, Grandpa Yeager, and silently thank Obie.

Geez. How fate can turn in a day.

Just yesterday I had shot down my first two German aircraft.

Today….I wasn’t so Sierra Hotel.

Wonder what the next day will bring…..or if I wake up and this is just a bad dream….

c. GCYI