The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington

George P. Novotny

Interview Date: circa 1980s-1990s

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Abstract: Fighter ace George P. Novotny discusses his military service with the Air Forces during World War II. He describes his experiences as a fighter pilot, including his time in the Mediterranean Theater with the 325th Fighter Group. Topics discussed include his training and service history, notable missions and aerial victories, and military life in North Africa.

The audio has brief moments of distortion throughout the recording.

Biography:

George P. Novotny was born on February 22, 1920 in Toledo, Ohio. He joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1942 and graduated from flight training the following year. After a stateside assignment with the 54th Fighter Group, Novotny was deployed to North Africa, where he joined the 317th Fighter Squadron of the 325th Fighter Group. During his combat tour, he flew missions over Italy, Bulgaria, and other areas of the Mediterranean Theater and became a member of the 325th’s “Fearsome Foursome.” He also participated in an escort mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s aircraft when it was en route to the Tehran Conference. After the end of his combat tour, Novotny served at Oscoda Army Air Base (Michigan) as a flight instructor, teaching Free French Air Force pilots how to fly the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. He left the military after World War II and embarked on a career with Capital Airlines and Trans World Airlines (TWA). Novotny retired in 1982 and passed away in 2018.

Biographical information courtesy of: Boyce, Ward J., ed., American fighter aces album. Mesa, Ariz: American Fighter Aces Association, 1996.

Restrictions:

Permission to publish material from the American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.

Transcript:

Transcribed by Pioneer Transcription Services 3

Index:

Flight training and assignment to the 54th Fighter Group ...... 4

Service in the Mediterranean Theater ...... 5

Bomber escort mission to Sicily (July 7, 1943) ...... 5

First aerial victory ...... 6

Fighter sweep to Sardinia (July 30, 1943) ...... 7

Another fighter sweep to Sardinia (August 28, 1943) ...... 9

Transition from the Curtiss P-40 Warhark to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt ...... 9

Escort mission to the Tehran Conference ...... 10

Military life in North Africa ...... 10

Service in Foggia, Italy ...... 12

Bomber escort mission to Northern Italy (1944) ...... 13

Other missions and aerial victories ...... 15

Return to the United States and flight instructor assignment ...... 18

Service overview and conclusion...... 19

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George P. Novotny

[START OF INTERVIEW]

[Begin Side A]

00:00:00

[Flight training and assignment to the 54th Fighter Group]

GEORGE P. NOVOTNY: This is George Novotny. I’m sorry it took so long to get this tape made and off to you, but I guess when you get kind of old, why, everything goes slow and it takes a little time to do. And I had to refresh my memory by digging back through the files that I have or information on my service. I’ll start out and say that I was a college student in 1942 when I got my draft notice, and I decided I didn’t want to be—to carry a gun. And I thought the Air Corps was something. I already had two years of college in, so I fit the requisites for joining the Air Corps. I signed up on January 5, 1942. That was about a month after Pearl Harbor.

I was assigned to the Southeast Air Corps and went through preflight at Maxwell, primary training at Avon Park, with the PT-17. Basic training was at Shaw Field with a BT-13, and advanced school was Spence Field, Georgia. And I graduated January 13th, 1943.

I was assigned then to the 54th Fighter Group, which was stationed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And there I got checked out in a P-40. P-40M, by the way. And I went on for about two months there, accumulating about 35 hours. And in April of ‘43, a bunch of us which were new replacement pilots with the 54th Fighter Group—about six of us were sent down to Tallahassee to prepare for overseas assignment. But it seemed like we spent two weeks at there, just loafing around, and then we were sent back to Baton Rouge with the 54th Fighter Group. And they had gotten about ten or twelve P-51As. Now, that was the 51A with the cannons in the wing. These were not the A-36s. These were P-51As.

Well, we got about—I think about ten hours in it. And lo and behold, they took us again and shipped us to Miami, Florida, Boca Raton. And in about the middle of May there, they started to ship us overseas. Now we were going by air—via air transport—or the Army Transport Command, I guess it was—and went via the southern route, via Puerto Rico, Belém, Natal, over to Dakar, North Africa. And then we were sent up to Casablanca. And at Casablanca—which was about May 20 of ‘43—we were put into a place called Berrechid, which is in Morocco there. And there was a small field there, and this is what became to be known as the pilot replacement center for North Africa.

00:04:21 5

[Service in the Mediterranean Theater]

During my stay there, we did some flying. Some of the lucky pilots like myself got to ferry airplanes, P-40s, up to Telergma and Constantine in Algeria. This was new airplanes that were coming off of carriers into Casablanca. And they were test-hopped at Casa Airport there, and then they wanted pilots to send them up. Well, I volunteered—well, they’d asked many of us if we wanted to do it. Well, I didn’t mind it at all. It was getting time. So I remember flying two round trips up there. And of course, the ATC would run us back in C-47s back to Casablanca.

Then around the 15th of June, I was assigned to the 325th Fighter Group, which was stationed at—I believe it was Souk-el-Khemis. And then we—when we got to Souk-el-Khemis, the group had already moved to Mateur. So they had to chase—we had to chase them down there. There was two pilots that were assigned to the 325th at the time, and they were in combat with P-40Fs and some Ls. Now, I mentioned back there I trained in Ms, so it was a comedown for me to fly Fs in combat. [laughs]

[Bomber escort mission to Sicily (July 7, 1943)]

My first mission was actually—I believe it was about July 7th. I went on an escort mission to Sicily. Of course, you have to fix the war here. We were—we already had taken North Africa, and we were—the 325th and the fighters in the was softening up both Sicily and Sardinia, and that was like our prime targets at this time. And our missions were escort, usually, of medium bombers or dive bombing or strafing. Or we used to carry fragmentations, also—bombs. We could carry six of them, and we’d drop them in—on airdromes in Sicily and Sardinia.

My first mission was the July 7th, and like I say, it was an escort mission with A-20s. Now, the—[audio distortion]—the A-20s were British or South African. I don’t remember which, but they had the British marking on them. But the mission was to—they were to bomb this airport at Trapani, which is in the western part of Sicily. The Germans had a lot of activity going on there, so they were going to try to disrupt the runways there with a couple bombs. And it took about 12 A-20s, and it was really something with a P-40 trying to escort them. The A-20s were faster than the P-40s we had.

But it startled me because, it being my first mission, as we were watching these bombers, which—they went over the target—I mean they were first at 12,000 feet, and we were at about 14,000. And we were just pushing along there darn near full throttle to keep up with them. And as they got closer to Sicily, they started maneuvers or evasive action, and it seemed like they would rock the airplane from right to left. And they were like doing S turns, but not completely, just waving back and forth. These 12 A-20s was in a string formation. And the lower guy, the 6

lead, was low, and then they had the other 11 stacked up behind him. And they would watch each other, and like I say, they—they’re almost in unison the way that they made their evasive action, and as they came into the target area and—it was—the bombing level was going to be 8,000 feet, so they had to drop about 4,000 feet there. And they just like dove and [unintelligible 00:09:16] in this turning evasive action, S-ing like that. And of course, they leveled off. And when it got over the target area—the bomb area—and let loose their bombs there and then made a sharp turn off the target area and actually dove to the water. It was really something to see. And of course, like us, we were having a hell of a time staying with them.

But that was my first experience with combat. We didn’t run into any airplanes or anything—or any enemy airplanes—but we did have a lot of flak. And of course, we did evasive action, also. But that was quite an experience to see these A-20s shoot across that airdrome there in Sicily and drop their bombs and then make another turn off the target and dive for the water, of course. And we were trying to stay with them. It was something.

[First aerial victory]

I’d like to give you some idea of what we were up against with the P-40. We had about 205 gallons internally that was full tanks. Now, on a mission to either Sicily or Sardinia, we had about a 45-minute run. And then we had to figure time for actual combat, and then we had to worry about fuel coming back home. We did not use external tanks. I don’t remember any mission that I was on that we used external tanks, either to Sicily or to Sardinia. But as things progressed, it seemed like our group was always going to Sardinia. We went many fighter sweeps dive bombing and fragmentation runs. And we always used to go on fighter sweeps up there.

00:11:32

On my 11th mission, we were to dive bomb—or, no. We were going to fragmentation in a fighter sweep to Cagli area. This was an area where they had an airfield, which is the southern part of Sardinia. Our mission was to go on the deck up there and come in over the city and right up to this airdrome there and drop our frags, and then come off the target and head back home. Well, it was a little different than that. It seemed like the Germans and Italians were waiting for us because, as we come over the landfall there over the city, we were about probably 300 to 500 feet at the time and then we’d let loose our fragmentations on the field. But about the time we did that, we got jumped by about ten to twelve fighters, Me 109s and also Macchi 202s. It seemed like we got in a big turning fight right on the deck there, and I can remember—it seemed like some of the Germans or Italians were going the opposite way we were. So we’d come—have head-on passes. 7

And this particular Macchi 202 that was coming at me, I could see smoke pouring off his guns but he wasn’t hitting me. And of course, I fired also and I actually saw hits as he passed me. I could see that some—there was some kind of a flash light. And it was right a head-on pass. And as he passed me, I looked back—tried to look back and make a turn to see what happened to him. And sure enough, he was—started to smoke, and this Macchi 202 looked like he just bellied right in on a roadway there—or actually along a deep ditch. And he just set it—just put it right down right on the field, and of course, it burned there. This particular mission, we had a total of seven aircraft claimed, and we lost one guy. So that was seven-to-one ratio for this particular fight. And that was my first victory.

[Fighter sweep to Sardinia (July 30, 1943)]

The next big fight that we had over Sardinia was July 30th. And this was a mission where we were go—we’d go in about—with about 36 airplanes. I think our squadron had 20, and the 318th, I believe it was, had 16 airplanes. This was the fighter sweep up to Sardinia. The plan was that we’d go in about 10,000 to 12,000 feet. Now, Sardinia is normally a pretty mountainous area. The right side or eastern side of the island has mountainous area up to about 6,000 to 7,000 feet, whereas the west side of the island has a few valleys and everything in there and that’s where generally the airplanes—I mean the airdromes were, on these flat surfaces in the valleys.

Well, this particular mission, July 30th, one squadron was going to go in up there—the left side of the island—or the west side. And the other one was going up the east side. We were on the east side. And our 20 airplanes, we were about 12,000 feet, and we headed up to an area which was almost to the top of the island there. And we were to turn in westward and meet up with the other squadron coming in the other way from the west. As we made our way across the top of the island and we come near the area of Sassari, Sardinia, we made a turn to go south, like down the valley, and just at about—when we got—completed the turn, why, we got jumped by about 25 to 30 Me 109s. They were—they attacked us from the north. And they were, of course, higher than we were, so diving down they made passes at us. And of course, we decided to fight. And in a turning battle and everything there, it was—started at about 12,000 feet and—[audio distortion]—as we turned into them, why, we broke up into two element—two-ship elements to fight.

00:16:55

And I can recall that the fight seemed to be like a yo-yo. You were up and down, making passes, turning. At one particular time, I racked my 40 around so hard in a turn that it stalled on me. It actually whipped over 180 degrees like it was going to go into a spin. And I recovered from that and, of course, with full throttle and everything, tried to get back up into the higher altitude. 8

And I can recall gradually trying to catch up with another P-40 ahead of me, who was probably maybe 300 to 400 yards, heading in the same direction that I was. And I was a little bit lower than him. But as I tried to catch him to get like on his tail, to protect his tail—there was an Me 109 come out—from about a dive that was about four o’clock as it came into my view and shot between us. And just as he came through between us there, I had a good bead on him and I fired probably two- to three-second bursts. And this 109, I saw something fly off of it. And of course, he was in a dive, a little bit lower than I was as I turned with him to shoot. I noticed something come off of the airplane. And I was turning and going to follow him, but about this time, I saw something else come off the airplane. And here it appears that it was the pilot. He had bailed out, and sure enough, about another 2,000 feet down below, I see the chute open. So I knew I got at least one.

And I remember circling and starting to climb back up again. I was down probably around 4,000—3,000 to 4,000 feet. And I was—the fight seemed to be above me, so I worked my way back up again and about this time got attacked again from the rear by a 109. And I actually again pulled the airplane around so tight that it just shuddered in the turn, and I thought it was going to stall out on me again. But I got out of this turn and lost again about 2,000 feet.

And then I latched on to another 40 that was in a turning battle down below me, so I figured I’d better go down lower and see what I could do down there. But in the ensuing battle, it seemed like the whole squadron was trying to eliminate because it was like a Hollywood show, I swear. Airplanes going all directions. It was funny to see a 40 and then an Me—and a 40 and an Me chasing each other. And of course, some of them going up in flames. And this particular fight lasted, I would have to say, about 15 to 20 minutes. We had worked our way down the valley there into another area where—Oristano is a base there that the Germans and the Italians had. And I can recall that it would seem like we got into another battle down in this area. Sardinia is a mountainous area, as I spoke before. And mostly on the west side is valleys, where they have their airdromes.

Well, it seemed like it—this fight just kept on going and going. And finally, in all the radio chatter and everything going on about—we better get out of here because we’re getting low on fuel. So as we—we broke off and headed back home. We never did see the other squadron. And of course, when we got back to the base, this—the other squadron was back, and they didn’t see a thing. And they didn’t hear us on the radio. So it was rather screwy that we got in the big fight and they didn’t see anything. Well, this score this day was one of the best we had up to this time. We claimed 21 German airplanes knocked down to a loss of one. And this one fellow, the pilot that got knocked down, did get away all right because he was a prisoner of war.

00:22:23 9

When we got back to the base, the other squadron was there. Had come in, oh, maybe 20 minutes ahead of us. But they were worried about us because they expected us to meet and come back together. Well, as it was, we took on the German Air Force there. And it was—this mission was two hours and about 35 minutes, if I recall. And many of us were low on fuel when we landed at the base in Africa. I might say that many of our missions were on a basis like this, that we had to get out of there in order to get home, because we did have about a 45-minute flying time back to Africa. Many of our missions were timed, so we could only fight a certain period of time and then we had to break off and head for home. And I think that our group, the 325th, got a unit—or a Presidential Unit Citation for this particular mission.

[Another fighter sweep to Sardinia (August 28, 1943)]

On August 28th, my 22nd P-40 mission was a mission up in the Sardinia again on a fighter sweep with fragmentation bombs. We were going to drop this on a factory in about the center of Sardinia there. I believe it was just south of Oristano. When we came across the target area there, we got jumped by about ten or twelve Me 109s and Macchi 202s. We did have a fight ensue, and of course, in a fight we always pair off in twos and fight like that. Well, when it was time to leave—on the way back, I was with a wingman and we were flying about 8,000 feet, heading south. And about ten o’clock, I spotted two Me 109s on the opposite course we were going. And I called out that I was breaking left to go after these 109s. And I made a pass that was about from three o’clock to six o’clock, finally shooting all in a deflection shot. And I got the tail-end of a 109, and he caught fire.

And I broke off then and made a 180 to head back to—to catch up with the P-40s heading south returning to base. We got back to the base, and we had a claim of seven but we lost two. But both pilots got out. They made it back to the base but had to belly-in because of damage from ground fire. So this was a successful mission.

[Transition from the Curtiss P-40 Warhark to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt]

In early September of ‘43, we were taken out of operation because the war had progressed to the point where they were getting ready for the Salerno invasion of Italy. Sicily had been taken already, and there was just a mopping up idea at Sardinia. In fact, Sardinia really didn’t have any ground forces landed there because of the armistice with Italy. But our group was taken out of operation, and we were going to be outfitted with the P-47, which took place in the early part of October. 10

To give you an idea of what the group did as the final record for the P-40: we had 128 missions up to this point, 3990 sorties. We had 135 aerial victories with a loss of 35 U.S. pilots. Several, of course, were prisoners of war. In the breakdown of the 135 kills, there were—96 were Me 109s, 26 were Macchi 202s, seven were the Me 323, three were Ju 52s, and three were Fieseler Storchs— Fieseler Storch 156 or an observation plane. But that was the P-40 era.

00:28:00

Now, starting with the 47 era—like I say, the group started in October. We had to go back to Casablanca to pick them up. They were coming into the port there on flattops. And they were test-hopped and then taken up to—or we actually flew them up to Mateur. And then as the group got fully—complement of airplanes, why, then we went into a training deal where we had to—of course, the biggest thing with the 47 was the altitude flying, which we hadn’t had up to this point. This was, of course, with the oxygen, so we had to go on high-altitude training with them to get the feel of the airplane. And actually, we had ground training—ground gunnery training and also aerial gunnery with it. So we were getting prepared to go to another theater of operation.

[Escort mission to the Tehran Conference]

In this—after we had a little proficiency with this here—in November 20th, if you recall, Roosevelt and Churchill were to meet in Tehran. And of course, back in war days, this was all secrecy stuff, moving the President and Churchill around. And of course, they were to meet with Stalin. So naturally, they came through Africa, and our group was chosen to escort them at a particular point in North Africa with the new 47s. And we escorted them from Tripoli to Benghazi, which is probably a 500-mile stretch. And we met up with them and, of course, gave them top cover for the distance that we were assigned. And of course, other British Air Force and other U.S. groups did take different segments of his flight. So this was an added feather in our hat, that we were chosen to be one of the groups to do the escort. We, of course, went back to our base at Soliman at this time on Cape Bon and was preparing to move to Italy.

[Military life in North Africa]

I would like to give you some idea of living in Africa. When I got there in May of ‘43, of course, weather-wise, it was beautiful, hot. And the daytime temperature always was around the 100 mark. And then, of course, some days we’d get up to maybe 115. And we had days of—we’d get like a hot wind. We’d call it—well, it was called a “Sirocco.” Based up in Mateur there, we had the same problems. 11

One of the biggest problems with the P-40 was an inline—it was an inline engine. And we, again, had a problem with taxiing out for takeoff. Our field at Mateur was just a—well, I think it was a dried lakebed during summertime. And it was kind of dusty, sandy. And our airplanes were scattered around the field, and we did not have mats or a revetment-style protection. So our airplanes were just scattered out in different areas. Each of their squadron was assigned different areas around the field.

Now, for a mission, we had to taxi out to an area and we would—the open area of the field, of course—and we had, usually, takeoff to the north or south. Now, the way we used to get the thing off the ground quick was one squadron would be up one end and the other squadron would be down the other end, and it all was a timing deal. Now, the P-40, you would get a red light in a cockpit if you started to overheat. I believe it was about 120. And this red light would come on. You couldn’t take off if the red light came on. But I can tell you many a times we took off with the red light on.

00:33:22

We used to time—everything was timing. To give you an example, 20 airplanes to get off—that would be five flights of four. We used to taxi out on time. What I mean is, one airplane—or one flight would start up, say, at 10:00. The second flight would be 10:01, the third flight would be 10:02, and so on. Now, the four airplanes that would start up on the first flight would taxi real fast and get out to the end, where we’d take off in pairs. And many times, you would get out—by the time you got out to the end where the runway was, your red light would come on. So we had a real heat problem. And taking—I don’t know if—a lot of the pilots will say that you’re not supposed to take off on a red light, but many times we did. And the engine would detonate. You could take off with that thing and you swear it was going to quit, but finally after you got up and the thing cooled down a little bit, the engine, why, then it would smooth out. Of course, we used to lean the engine to burn this—to clean out the detonation. And then we would go on the mission. But a lot of times we had trouble with the heat. And of course, the heat was pretty hot in the cockpit, too.

As far as living conditions, we were in the good old Army perimeter tents. And this was—in a heated area like that, when your temperature was—in the daytime—anywhere around 100 to 120 mark, and we had to roll up the sides of the tent. And we had just the good old Army cots and blanket. And of course, in Africa you’ve got to have your mosquito netting. During the daytime, the rodents wouldn’t be out because they would crawl in the cracks of the earth in there—or in the fields. And soon as it started cooling off in the evening a little bit, why—and start—the sun going down, your little critters used to come out. And we had both the scorpion and the centipedes. And that was one of our nightly rituals, is to take a little gasoline or lighter fluid and put it on the scorpion or the centipedes, and we’d touch a match to it and burn him. That’s the way we tried to eliminate a few of them. 12

00:36:03

A couple other living conditions in Africa there. Our food—and the other thing was C-rations and K-rations. We didn’t—never had any real fresh meat. We did get some pretty good bread from in town. I don’t know if the French—of course, North Africa was French influence. And I often wondered where the bread came from, but somebody said it came from town. But it was good bread. So that was one thing good with that. And a little peanut butter and jelly, why, I think that’s where the PB&J actually really got going.

Our water supply, of course, was trucked in. And what we did for showers is we took a 75-gallon belly tank and we hoisted it up on—well, we used the boxes that the belly tanks came in. And we actually erected us a shower by putting a belly tank on top of these boxes and, of course, supporting it with timbers and everything that we had picked up, which gave us at least a shower that we could bathe in every now and then. We were too far from the Mediterranean, although we did go over there a couple times to go swimming. But our own personal grooming and everything was done with the shower using these belly tanks.

Of course, the GI ingenuity always came out when you’re in—when you need something, you come up with a fix. So we sure enjoyed the—almost every one of the perimeter tents in our living area, why, we had showers. And in the evening, why, the old water truck used to come over and fill our tank. And of course, during the sun—the sun would heat the tank up, so the water was always pretty warm. In fact, sometimes it was really hot when we’d use it. And this, of course, was our supply for grooming, shaving, and et cetera.

I mentioned earlier that we used to get packages from the States. Well, I can remember getting a package of fudge. And it took about six weeks to get a package, so I—this fudge really came in—was all moldy and everything when I opened the package. Well, you’d be surprised what I did with this. It seemed like we always had a bunch of Arab kids through the living area there, selling us different things. Well, this is when we got fresh eggs. They did have chickens, some of these local Arab farmers there, and I traded the moldy fudge for—I think it was four eggs. So guess what? That next day, for breakfast, I had fresh eggs. So that’s another story about living in Africa.

00:40:17

[Service in Foggia, Italy]

So on December 10th, some of the flying echelon of the 325th moved to Foggia Main in Italy. The move was to an airport—or a field that was just outside the city of Foggia. And the airport there was loaded with all kinds of airplanes, both British and U.S. and even some Italian. The air base was just overloaded, just too many airplanes on the field there. I remember one—the first mission that we operated out of Foggia Main, I believe the flight was an escort mission of B-24s 13

and 17s to a place in Greece. This particular flight was about a five-hour flight, which gave us a real test of endurance for us—the pilots, of course. It was an altogether different experience than flying P-40s in Africa.

The winter weather in Italy is a real factor. Several missions had to be canceled because of weather, both maybe in the target area or at the field ourself. The time period between Christmas and New Years of ‘43 there, it was a pretty bad storm through Italy. And with heavy rains, it flooded our whole area and also blew our tents down. It was real high wind. But we survived that and actually had some missions during that time. But it didn’t really get started until we got in January, after the 1st of the year, when we really got a little better weather and a little more organized to get the ball rolling on this escorting of B-17s and B-24s.

Our missions now were averaging anywheres from four to six hours. And these long missions really took a toll on you. Sitting on a dinghy in a parachute gets to be a real problem. I remember asking what I could do to get a little softer seat in the cockpit of a 47, and my crew chief came up with a pillow that was made out of—well, it looked like old rags. And at least it helped. But my long frame was—or it really put me up higher in the cockpit, but I liked it very much.

The missions in the early part of January were such like escort missions to Bolzano, Rimini, Verona. Then we had a fighter sweep to Rome area, then a long escort to Sofia, Bulgaria, Wiener Neustadt, [unintelligible 00:44:15], back to Sofia, Rome area. And as—we went along in January, then the Anzio beachhead came up on—I think on about the 20th or 21st of January. And then we were sent on fighter sweeps up on the north of Rome. We used to run about three escorts—or I mean fighter sweeps a day up there because it was a short distance for us.

But then as the Anzio beachhead got rolling, then we started to hit other areas with a long escort. On about the 24th of January, we went to Sofia again. And we were back to the Rome area and Florence, back up to Verona, then it was Florence again. And it was just like that all of the latter part of January.

[Bomber escort mission to Northern Italy (1944)]

Now, on January 30th, this particular mission was planned because of the activity on Northern Italy. It seems like the Germans had a lot of air activity up there and also was noted that whenever we’d go on a bombing mission, that it seemed like the Germans knew where we were going. And they decided that this was the time to hit all the airfields up at—in Northern Italy there. There was a string of them from the Po Valley there eastward all the way over to Trieste area. There were several fields there. In particular, they had the Udine area and Villaorba. There was a lot of activity there. So it was decided that—well, of course, reconnaissance—aerial reconnaissance picked this up, so a special mission was planned to hit all these airports up there. 14

00:46:30

[End Side A]

[Begin Side B]

00:00:00

…airplanes getting off the ground or moving them or whatever. So the mission was planned at the—our fighter group, 325th, would be a maximum effort. We put up 60 airplanes. And the idea was that we were going to go on the deck up there. That means on the Adriatic Sea. We were located in the spur of the boot on the eastern part of Italy at a place called Foggia. Actually, we were on Foggia, too, at this time. And the mission was that we were to go—take off, head out to the middle of the Adriatic, and then take a heading up the center of the middle—of the Adriatic Sea there, and fly into what was called the Gulf of Venice, which was about a 225-mile run. And at this point, we were to climb to altitude and to see what was going on in the valley.

This particular day happened to be a fairly decent day, at least in the Villaorba area, Northern Italy there. But out on the water, as you got 60 P-47s all flying low over the water, there was kind of a mist and it was hard to pick out the horizon. So it was real difficult flying. And we’re flying with 47s with two external tanks on, one under each wing with 165 gallons of fuel. The plan was that we were to take off and get up there 15 minutes before the bombs were to be dropped by the B-17s and 24s. The bombing time was 12:00 noon, and we were to arrive at 11:45 and catch what we could—the movement of the German Air Force.

Well, as it planned, it—everything went on like clockwork. We got up into the area of Gulf of Venice and started to climb to our altitude. And the 317th Squadron was actually the lead squadron, and the plan was that we would be the first ones to go down if there was any activity around the airports—any activity as far as airplanes getting off and everything. The other two squadrons were to keep climbing to altitude to be protection for the bombers coming in.

Well, as it was, we got to the Gulf there and started our climb. And as we were going through about 17,000 feet, our flight leader had spotted a bunch of airplanes down around the one field there. So we dropped our tanks and dove for the deck. And we went down and as—of course, in a 47, diving from 17,000 feet is a real thrill. We must have hit 500 to 550 heading down. And of course, that’s too much speed to come up on an airport or an airfield like that, so we had to do some circling to slow the speed down.

00:04:05 15

We were in trail, the four of us. I happened to be the number-two man. And as we come up to this airport there, the Ju 52s were actually circling this field. It looked like they were either going to land or had just taken off. As I approached the airport there, we were maybe about 200 feet. The airplane ahead of me, which was the flight leader, he had passed over these Ju 52s and we had to turn around and come back. Well, on the way back in there, we—I saw two of them that were actually turning to the left, away-like from the airport. And of course, I closed in behind one of them and knocked him out. [laughs] And he, of course—they caught fire very easily.

And I started after the other one, and he was actually—evidently radio contact or something—he looked like—he appeared like he wanted to start diving. He was descending a little bit. And I figured that it looked like he was going to try to belly in, but I caught up real easy with him and gave him the works. And the firepower on the P-47, eight 50s going, just—you get in real close to one of these Ju 52s, and they just go to pieces. I mean pieces.

After passing over these—this second Ju 52, I started a 360, actually turning away from the airport there. And as I was making a turn, I spotted something way off in the distance that looked like an airplane scooting along. So I straightened out and started after it, and as I approached it I could see that it was a biplane. It was a Henschel 126 biplane. And he was coming straight at me just head-on. And I just opened up, and this airplane literally just disappeared. There were just pieces falling to the ground.

As I turned to head back towards the airport again, I saw that there was fires all over the place there where the other flights were knocking down—we, actually, the four of us, knocked down 11 Ju 52s out of that bunch that were circling the airport there. And also, the four of us got other airplanes, too. The four total were called the Fearsome Foursome. We knocked down 15 airplanes that day on this fight. And the whole group—as a group, we knocked down 37 total with a loss of two 47s.

When we returned to the base on this particular mission, our group commander, Colonel Baseler [Robert L. Baseler], received the Silver Star from—I believe it was Lieutenant General Webster when we arrived—[audio distortion]—was waiting at the field—our base there—for the group’s arrival. Also, this mission was—the unit got a Presidential Unit Citation for the mission of that day, which were the only two the group got during the tour of duty overseas.

[Other missions and aerial victories]

The month of February, the weather started to improve better, and then the Fifteenth Air Force was starting to go deeper into Southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria with long escort missions. On these long missions, if—of course, we always had the tanks with us, the external tanks. The way it panned out a lot of times that, on escort missions, if we accompanied 16

the bombers, the German fighters would tend to make a pass at us to make us drop our tanks. And then this would give them the chance to strike at the bombers. So we had to wick out some kind of a better system. So what we did is we would always split up. One squadron would stay with the bombers—or two squadrons with the bombers, and the other guys would take on the German fighters. On many of these long missions, like to the Regensburg and Steyr, Budapest, Sofia, which were five- to six-hour missions with us—with the 47s. That’s about—was the length of our endurance. I think the longest mission that I had in a P-47 was about six-and-a-half hours. And that was strictly no fighter interception or—we saw no enemy airplanes. It was just a long ride.

00:10:05

On my 48th mission, which was March 18th, we again went up to the Villaorba/Udine area. It was an escort-bomber deal. And we were at—on top of the bombers, which was up around about 27,000, 28,000 feet. Well, we had some fighter—enemy fighter activity there. It was about ten or twelve of them that tried to attack the bombers, but we were able to flush them off.

In this particular deal or fight, I remember that we had left the bombers and we were heading like to Trieste area, which was around the northern part of Yugoslavia and a little bit of Italy there. Well, I was up about 25,000 feet and with a wingman. And way off in the distance, about two o’clock, I could spot something that was—looked like he was just playing around. It was just one single airplane. Well, I remember telling the wingman I was going to go over and take a look to see what this was. Well, as I started, it was quite a distance away. It was just a little spot in the sky.

Well, as I got closer he must have spotted me and was coming towards me with not much activity. What I mean is, evasive action or anything. But it was funny. I waggled my wings, just rocked them back and forth, and he rocked his back and forth. And just about that time, he starts a big left turn away from me. And lo and behold, it’s an Me 109. And I just fell in right behind him, and it appeared that he was putting a little coal to the engine because it was smoking a little bit. But as—it looked like he was going to pull away from me. But, of course, I pushed up the throttle, too. But I started short bursts, and it looked like he was going to pull away. And just about this time, I had a long burst and finally shot him down. And the funny part about it, as I got back to the base and landed after the mission and everything, the crew chief came over to me and said the armorer was a little unhappy. He says I had burned all eight barrels out, so they had to change the barrels on the 50-caliber guns on the 47. So I kind of got chewed out for that. But the armorer apologized, and he said that he’ll change every damn barrel on that airplane, well, just so I get an airplane, he said. An enemy airplane, that is.

On April 6th, which was my 58th mission, we were escorting B-17s and B-24s to Zagreb area, where they were going to hit the airports there again. And this particular day—or mission, we 17

didn’t have too much activity going on around the target area. But as we were turning away and heading back to base, we got jumped by about ten—well, it looked like more Italian than German airplanes. Both 109s and Macchi 202s and also 205s. Now, the 205 was—I believe what they did, they put a Daimler-Benz engine, which—or the engine that normally the Me 09 had. They must have put in a Macchi because it looked—it had all the paintings of Italy on it. The markings and everything. But it had an inline engine in it. And this is the way we could tell that this airplane performed a little better. I guess it got a little more speed out of it, I suppose.

But in the ensuing dogfight that we had, it seemed that we were at about, oh, 22,000, 23,000 feet, and we got in a big circle going. And it was strange to see these Macchis and 109s trying to cut the circle down. And they would cut—like cut real sharp inside the circle. And a lot of times, a 47 or something would pull in tight and try to get a bead on them, but each time we did that, why, they would fall out of the circle and go down and then come back up again. And in a circle—usually when we got in a circle with the enemy airplanes, we always shoved everything to the firewall. And we made the circle large, and that way the speed—sometimes we’d get up to 375, almost 400 miles an hour, going around in this circle, and it was hard for them to keep up. The only thing they could do was cut in—try to cut inside of us and get a shot at us.

Well, this Macchi 205 that—it seemed to me he was gaining on—by cutting inside the circle there, and he was a little higher than me. Well, what I did—I was expecting him to make a pass down to come at me because he was higher. I put on the water. The old Jug has the water injection. And I started down first in the circle, and then I come up strong and I made like a spiral turn to gain altitude back. Well, when I was in this spiral, trying to come around to hit his tail-like, I let loose with the guns. And I was lucky I happened to hit him real well because he caught fire real easy.

00:17:39

And in the ensuing battle there, I believe we had a—or this mission, I think we had nine confirmed victories, and I believe we lost two on this. This was my eighth victory then. And I went on to fly, I think, another seven or eight missions. I think I had a total of 65 missions. This was at the tail end of April of ‘44. And then I was—had over 200 hours combat, so I was grounded from combat.

While I was waiting for orders to be shipped back to the States, the group continued to fly missions in the 47. And on about the—May 15th, we got the word that the group was going to get 51s. So with the ending of the 47 group—or the combat with Thunderbolts, we had 97 total missions, 330—or 3626 sorties, 153 victories, and 38 losses.

The 51s were coming into the ports of Algiers and Casablanca. So I had 51 time, so—and a couple other pilots. So they put us on a B-17 and took us back to Casablanca to ferry P-51s up to 18

the group at Lucina in Italy. Again, I made two round trips. The other time I went back to Algiers and picked one up and brought it up to the squadron.

[Return to the United States and flight instructor assignment]

Then about the—I believe it was about the 25th or 26th of May, I got my orders to head back to the States. I proceeded to Naples, where I boarded a transport ship that was leaving June 1st out of Naples. And we left right on time, noon on June 1st. And it seemed like we moved all through the Mediterranean, stopping at all the ports in Bizerte, Algiers, Iran, Casablanca, picking up other military that was heading back to the States.

June 6th, which was D-Day, I can remember the day very vividly. 6:00 a.m. in the morning, over the PA system on this troop ship, [unintelligible 00:20:47], which was an old banana boat converted for hauling personnel. We were just outside of Gibraltar when they announced on the PA system that D-Day—we were invading Normandy. And we really had a good time on that boat coming back.

June 14th, we arrived at Norfolk and proceeded up to—well, they shipped me up to Atterbury up in Indiana for furlough purposes. And I had a 30-day leave. I had to report back to Miami, Florida at the reception—or rehabilitation center there and spent two weeks there. Then on to the at Mitchel Field, where I got indoctrinated with—I guess you’d call it military flying in the States, civilian-wise. [laughs] It was leading up to an instructor’s job with the First Air Force. I was assigned to Hillsgrove Air Force Base in September of ’44, spent about three weeks there, and asked to be transferred to Oscoda Army Air Base, which was in Michigan. So I got my transfer there, and here we had French pilots coming out of Randolph Field Cadet School. And we were checking them out in P-47s and, of course, giving them combat instructions with—including aerial gunnery and ground gunnery.

00:22:41

We spent the winter in Oscoda, and when the spring came and—which was April of ‘44—we had a forest fire up there, and it drove us out of the air base. They moved the whole—all of us down to Selfridge Air Force Base. And it was at this time—in the summer of ’45—of course, things were going well over in Europe. So I had enough points to get out of the service, so I chose to do that. September of ‘45, I was a civilian.

19

[Service overview and conclusion]

To sum up my aerial victory record of eight, I had one Macchi 202, one Macchi 205, one Henschel 126, two Ju 52s, and three Me 109s. That was my aerial combat record. I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and I had, of course, the Air Medal with 14 oak leaf clusters. The group had two Unit Citations: one, the July 30, ‘43 mission in which I got one enemy aircraft, and the January 30, ‘44 mission to Northern Italy and I got three victories that day. Of course, both were Presidential Unit Citations.

I reviewed the tapes, and there’s one error on the date there. The forest fire at Oscoda was April of ‘45, not April of ‘44. And that was when the fire forced us all to move to Selfridge Field, and everything was—from there as given.

Eric Hammel, I think I can provide you pictures of, of course, myself and my airplane. And I also have the picture of what is called the Fearsome Foursome. This is of Colonel Green [Herschel H. Green]—or, well, I think he was a captain then. Captain Green. And Cecil Dean, Edsel Paulk, and, of course, myself. This was right after the July—I mean, the June—January 30th mission up in the Northern Italy, where the four of us knocked down 15 airplanes. And if you want me to diagram some of these missions—both of them, I guess— it would be kind of easy to diagram because of the features involved with it and the terrain.

Okay. If there’s any questions on this military record, feel free to call me. I believe you have my phone number.

00:26:27

[End Side B]

[END OF INTERVIEW]