On a freezing cold day in December, I was part of a mission to attack targets in the Bordeaux area. All I knew about Bordeaux was that it produced excellent wine. I was thinking of that as I took up thetail-end-Charlie position of thefour-plane flight. I was the oldest by quite a few years and we all had just over three months’ experience in combat and between us had shot down seven enemy aircraft.
We had crossed the channel and were set on a course over Brittany then south towards our destination, a Luftwaffe airfield at Merignac, west of Bordeaux. When out on a mission we were under orders to strafe anything that moved, an order that didn’t sit well with me. The only way I could rationalise it was to remind myself that this was the real deal – kill or be killed.
In common with many of my fellow pilots, I had my little rituals which I had to obey every time I climbed into the cockpit of myP-51. Such as reciting Psalm 23 –Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.Another ritual was always to have the watch my father had given me on mytwenty-first birthday. It had become a lucky talisman to me. And wouldn’t you just know it, on this particular morning, I had forgotten to put it on. That had never happened before, and it was niggling away at me when I suddenly realised I was being shot at by two German aircraft. The pair of Fw 190s had appeared from nowhere.
Taking immediate evasive action by breaking position, I turned myself into a lone target. I had been in this position before and survived, so I rolled the dice and hoped for the best. Adrenaline pumping through me, I circled sharply back on myself and became the attacker. But I hadn’t reckoned on a third Fw 190 joining the fray and within seconds, gunfire was pummelling my Mustang. An explosion from behind my seat spelled the end and so I had no choice but to bail out.
The Germans, however, had not yet finished with me, and as my parachute opened, one of them started firing at me. It was a miracle that only my leg was hit before the pilot dived away to rejoin the other Fw 190s. I hoped to God that Mike, Stevie and Pete who had set off from Leiston with me succeeded with our mission and made it safely back to the airbase.
I landed with an excruciating thud in a field that I knew to beenemy-occupied territory. The ground was rock hard and as cold as ice. In agony, I extricated myself from my parachute and after bundling it up and crawling to the relative safety of a hedge, I inspected myblood-soaked leg. I was not the squeamish sort, but the sight of myripped-open flesh from the knee down was enough to make me roll over and be violently sick. I was contemplating my next move, doubtful that I would be able to walk any distance, if at all, when I saw an elderly woman coming towards me.
‘American,’ I said, when she was standing a scant few feet from me. ‘American pilot.’ I pointed to the sky, as though this would explain everything. I spoke no French, and she, it turned out, spoke no English. Within seconds she hurried away, leaving me to hope that she waspro-France and not an ardent supporter of the Third Reich. Would it be my second misfortune of the day to have been found by a collaborationist?
The pain in my leg was getting worse and my stomach was pitching again with the need to be sick. Shock, I supposed, as the blood continued to flow and I began to shiver, and not just from the cold. I was in the process of tearing up the silk parachute to make a bandage when I heard voices. This time coming towards me was a group of men who, one way or another, looked like they meant business, a number of them having a gun slung over a shoulder. I reached inside my leather jacket for the Smith & Wesson .38/44 with which I had been issued. But it was quickly apparent, as the men stood over me discussing something in hushed tones, and then hoisted me off the ground, that they were not the enemy. I had no idea where they were taking me, and to be honest, I was in so much pain, I didn’t care.
I must have passed out because when I came round, I found myself lying in a bed, and sitting close by was a beautiful girl reading a book. She was as delicate and petite as a china doll, with dark curly hair tucked behind her ears.
‘Hello,’ she said, when she noticed I was awake, ‘how are you feeling?’ Her English was heavily accented.
‘Better than before,’ I said, my voice strained and croaky. In need of a drink, and noticing a full glass of water on the table beside me, I tried to sit up, but immediately regretted my attempt. At the pain shooting through me, I remembered my badly injured leg and looked down at it. I half expected it no longer to be there.
‘You have lost a lot of blood,’ the girl said, coming to my aid and passing me the glass of water. She held it against my dry lips. ‘Not too much,’ she said, ‘or you will be sick again.’
‘Where am I?’
‘You are safe, that is all you need to know.’
‘The men who brought me here, are they with the Resistance?’
She nodded.
‘Will they help me get back to England?’
‘Yes. But you need to be stronger before that is possible.’
‘My leg,’ I said, ‘will it be okay?’
‘A doctor removed some bullets and stitched up the wound, so maybe yes, it will be okay.’
‘I’m very grateful to you, and the doctor. May I know your name?’
She hesitated before telling me it was Sophie.
Two days later and after I had been moved to another hiding place, I discovered that Sophie was older than she looked. She wastwenty-three and a kindergarten teacher. Both her brothers were in the Resistance.
I felt badly for my rescuers because I was stuck with them until my leg was well enough for me to walk on it. So far, the only movement I had managed was in going to the bathroom, and that was with help from a stocky young farmer. The following day Sophie presented me with a pair of crutches, which meant I could at least move about unaided. But such was the pain in my leg, and the foul smell coming from it, I suspected that it was infected. Sophie did her best to remove the existing bandages and apply fresh ones, but we both knew that things were going from bad to worse. Once more I was confined to bed as a fever took hold of me. I began to think that it would have been better if the German pilot who had shot at me had made a thorough job of it and finished me off good and proper.
Dipping in and out of consciousness, I woke in the middle of what I thought was the night in yet another hiding place. A wizened old man withwire-framed spectacles was doing something agonizingly painful to my leg. I screamed out in pain, only for my mouth to be stuffed with a wad of something to contain my screams. Terrified, I tried thrashing free, but I was pinned down.
Sophie informed me later that the man in thewire-framed spectacles had been the doctor tending to my leg, and with a small degree of success. While this gave rise to me hoping I would soon be in a fit state to be helped back to England, possibly via Spain, my hope was soon dashed. An informer in the village, Sophie explained, had passed on to the German troops who were stationed on the outskirts of the village that there was an American pilot hiding in their midst.
I already knew that my presence was putting the brave men and women who had helped to conceal me at considerable risk, and that if suspicion fell on them, they would be rounded up and sent off to a concentration camp. Or shot on the spot. I had seen atorn-down poster that had been nailed to a tree, warning that anyone caught harbouring Allied pilots would be executed.
Yet again I was moved under cover of darkness, this time to the crypt in the village church. Sophie came to visit me, bringing food and wine. I had grown fond of her, and she of me, but frightened for her safety, I told her not to come anymore.
‘I don’t want you involved,’ I explained, ‘it’s too dangerous now. You have done enough already. Please don’t put your life at risk for the sake of mine.’
‘It is too late to worry about the risk,’ she said. But I could see that she was scared. Already villagers had been taken away for questioning and had not returned. It was believed they had been taken to the nearby chateau occupied by the Nazis and where they would be tortured for information.
