You readers really don't know what you are in for.
Joe went off one bright morning, something of a lightweight in a flight of P-38s that had really hung up some action figures. But out over their combat area two of the regulars got themselves into trouble. The first was Lt. Chester Hallberg of Pasadena, Cal., and with him, another Californian, Lt. Edgar Malchow of Turlock.
Both Malchow and Hallberg had been badly hit by enemy flak. Both had lost and engine and Joe Ford was ordered to escort them back.
That doesn't sound like much of an assignment, but you must remember that Ford was flying a ship with two complete motors, and to stay with his pals he had to do a lot of weaving and S-turning to keep back with them. That used up alot of gas and he had brought just so much along with him. These are important matters in situations like this.
All went fairly well until they were near the French coast. Then two Focke-Wulf 190s came up to break up the party. Malchow and Hallberg were in no condition to do any fighting. It was up to Ford to do it all -- on his first mission too, remember.
The German fighters came up, saw the lame ducks and promptly dropped their belly tanks to get even more maneuverability. To even the situation Ford did the same and then turned on the attackers with such savagery that one broke off before he had fired a shot. The other made a weak pass at one of the crippled P-38s and then knew no more. Joe Ford took him apart, piece by piece, until the whole lot went buckety-buckety into a cloud bank. The other never came back to find out what had caused it.
Meanwhile, Malchow took another chunk of flak in his good engine and that began to sputter and fill Ed's cockpit with smoke. Young Ford skidded up close to him and with rare innocence suggested that Malchow try the other engine again. Well, it was a crazy idea but Ed tried it -- and by golly it worked! The right engine picked up just as the left conked out.
By now the flak was so hot that the radio sets of the damaged machines were knocked out and Ford had to do his aerial sheepdog stunt by close visual contact. Crossing the Channel the weather became bad and his problem became even worse, but near the English coast he radioed in and received new course instructions and somehow managed to lead Malchow and Hallberg down to a nearby emergency landing field. Their ships were so shot up that they could never be flown again.
They have another bright boy here. His name is Lt. Alvin Clark of Los Angeles. Because his name is Alvin the boys call him Freddie, which makes as much sense as anything else around here. One day over Augsberg Freddie caught up with a Focke-Wulf 190. He rat-raced it through the church towers and spires, giving the local gentry the thrill of their lives and then shot it to hell. Pulling up over an old belfry, he noticed the smoke of another, so he simply repeated the performance; chasing him down among the ecclesiastical architecture and finally forcing the Hun to pile up, smack into the face of a church clock.
Probably the most interesting character in this unbelievable organization is Maj. Jack M. Ilfrey of 3122 Robin Hood Street, Houston, Texas. I love that Robin Hood business.
Ilfrey is an alumnus of Texas A and M and the University of Houston. Jack has done everything, and he does it with the flair of a circus showman -- without knowing it. So far he has more than eighty-five missions in his log book and he has shot down eight enemy planes.
The other day Jack came back from a mission with about three feet of his wing missing. He explained the damage by saying he had actually collided with a Me-109. How he got back to base is a mystery, because according to the book the ship is not supposed to fly after an encounter of that kind."You oughta see the other guy," Ilfrey said when they questioned him about it. "He went down wobbling and smoking."
From what I could make out Ilfrey was leading a flight when they were bounced by sixty enemy fighters. Ilfrey made a head-on pass at a Me-109 as another came up from behind and below -- much too close.
"I felt a jolt," Ilfrey explained, "and I ducked. I saw the 109 start to spin and my own plane went over into a dangerous bank and rocked badly. I finally managed to get it under control, but I had several anxious moments and had to fight like fury to keep it from spinning. The collision had ripped open my right wing tank and that engine quit temporarily. From where I sat the end of the wing looked like shredded wheat, but I managed to skip out of that hot spot and later got both engines working."
Ilfrey didn't tell me that he was hours getting back and the Operations crowd was sweating it out for him and once gave him up as lost. Jack finally skidded in and the first thing he asked for was -- you guessed it, a drink.
The Loco Group has run up a terrific score against enemy railroad transportation, but somehow they manage to get into the dizziest scrapes carrying out missions that have nothing to do with locomotives. The destruction of railroad material is an art in itself and must be carried out according to a set plan. While they are perforating the boilers, oil tanks and rolling stock of the enemy railroads they seem to conform to some semblance of aerial discipline and obtain the required results, but after these all-important sorties are finished, almost anything can happen, and usually does.
For instance the other day a trio of these P-38 pilots slammed into another hair-raising mess over the invasion coast. Lt. Ernest C. Fiebelkorn of Lake Orion, Mich., Lt. Walter F. Keummerle of Cologne, N.J., and Lt. Benjiman N. Rader of Findlay, Ohio, were the culprits this time.
Rader was leading the element and they had been strafing an enemy convoy of trucks. One member of the flight was forced down near the target, but Rader, Kuemmerle and Fiebelkorn headed back home, somewhat the worse for wear. Approaching the French coast, Kuemmerle saw he couldn't possibly make the Channel because his right engine was out entirely and his left was skipping the odd beat.
" I was about four miles inside our invasion lines," Kuemmmerle told me, "and I decided to bring her in for a belly landing. I held my breath; just imagining what would happen if I hit a land mine.
"But I scooted right into the middle of a British infantry division. It was a hot spot too and I was pretty scared. Shells, bombs and small arms fire were raining Cain. I spent the night in a tent near a foxhole, but I didn't get much sleep. The following day I caught an air ambulance back to England."
Fiebelkorn turned back too, when he heard Kuemmerle calling that he was in trouble.
