All the good planes had flown back to the USA., but these guys, they wanted to go home very badly. So they asked the commander if they put together a plane from parts of the crashed planes, could they fly it home.
He stated if you can find a pilot.... because all the pilots where gone. There WAS one kid who was 19 and just got out of the hospital, who said he'd fly it.
So they built a plane out of parts and pieces, got the bomber ready, loaded it with fuel and and flew that cobbled plane across the Atlantic. When they arrived in New York it was after dark, they circled to land and that plane shuddered, shook, and almost stopped. The pilot went full throttle and it gained speed. then they looked and all the lights were out. The guy flying it forgot about the landing gear, which caught the high tension power lines.
They circled until they lined vehicles up on the runway for lights. After they landed the guy flying said that's the first bomber I ever flew, I only flew a corsair.
The MP's rounded them up, and since they had no paperwork they were charged with stealing a plane, and leaving base without a pass. They got sent to await a court marshall. The guy in charge there had them change their address to local towns and gave them all a discharge. No travel pay. But back then it was a sin to not give a solder a ride, so they hitch hiked rides home without severance or travel pay.
But they all had this awesome story.
and adventures like this are why people should write their autobiographies, because most people have some cool adventures, and unless they are written down or photographed, they disappear like they never happened.
From where you find your stories, I do not know. I appreciate this kind of history. Don't we wish that these men were alive to meet them or at least to see them in a news article. Great going, Jesse!
ReplyDeletethanks! I look everywhere. I sure wish I'd been interested as a kid, but, kids just don't appreciate or know what's important, and in my defense, my brain hadn't formed much by age 15. Anyway, my grand dad was a navigator on a C47 dropping Airborne into France after D Day, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2021/05/i-finally-got-some-details-on-my.html and if I knew then, that one day I'd sponge up all WW2 stuff, I'd have asked for all his recollections.
DeleteBut, I bought one book that was a diary of a WW2 fighter pilot, who was an illustrator, that not only told his life story, and adventures from before the war until his death shot down over Germany, but was the illustrator of all of it. Just an incredible book, get your self a copy of Laughter and Tears, by George Rarey http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/02/i-had-not-known-p-47s-had-nose-art-too.html
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