Alone & Unarmed: An Army Pilot Sharing the Skies With Artillery Fire in WWII Italy

Originally published in 1968 by Carlton Press

2nd Edition., an Imprint of History’s Attic,

by The Glenn Curtiss Press, 2005

Third Edition, 2017.

Copyright © 1968, 2005, by Ernest E. Kowalik and

© 2017, by John R. Bayer

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 68002163

LC Classification: D811.K683

Dewey Class No.: 940.548/1/73

Subject: World War, 1939-1945 – Personal narratives, American.

Kowalik, Ernest E., 1918 – 2009

Bayer, John R., 1960 –

ISBN: 1546810269

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DISCLAIMER: This book is a factual account of the author’s experiences in World War II as he saw them. The author and editor, their assigns and heirs, shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book.

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In Memorium

Ernest Eugene Kowalik

1918 - 2009

Ernest Eugene Kowalik, Age 91, of Nederland, TX, passed away surrounded by his family in Nederland on November 28, 2009. He was born to the late Kleophus Kowalik and Mary Kolodziejczyk in Karnes County, TX on July 6, 1918.

He was a member of St. Charles Catholic Church, was a Nederland resident for 50 years and retired from Texaco. He was the devoted husband of Bobbie M. Kowalik; loving father of Gene and his wife Lori Kowalik of San Antonio and Kathy Kowalik of Nederland.

Ernest was preceded in death by his brothers, Chester Kowalik and Ray Kowalik.

Ernest Kowalik in 1944.

BROTHERS-AT-ARMS

Ray (L) and Chester Kowalik (R) visiting each other in Corsica. E.E.K.

Younger brother Raymond was a Staff Sgt. in the Air Corps, serving as an Instrument Specialist in a B-25 squadron, ensuring all flight instruments in aircraft functioned properly. He also painted nose art on several of his squadron’s aircraft – ed.

Ernest’s older brother, Chester, served as an officer in a fourth echelon Army Ordnance outfit, salvaging tanks and vehicles. He ran a massive operation involving thousands at the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) factory, and received the Bronze Star for that effort – ed.

More on both men later in the book.

DEDICATION

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In memory of all those who never came home in all the wars of our country...and because their respective war memorials do not list names:

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Eugene E. Kolodziejczyk

...the son of my mother’s brother – killed in World War II

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And

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Valentine E. Yanta

...the son of my father’s sister – killed in Korea.

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E.E.K.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ernest Kowalik brought home to me a very first-person story of the Second World War. I am thankful to have shared it with him and help in its retelling.

My special thanks to Mr. Kowalik for sharing his story again; my life is richer from our acquaintance and collaboration. He will be missed.

A warm thanks also goes to Ernest’s children, Kathy (thanks for the edits!) and Gene (shipping books), for all the work involved in the original reprinting.

For content, special thanks go to Mr. Ken Wakefield, Author of The Fighting Grasshoppers (with Wes Kyle), for permission to use excerpts from that book on U.S. Liaison Aircraft Operations in Europe during World War II.

Thanks also to fellow Ohioans Karl Engelskirger and Tom Matowitz, for the story of Ernest’s fourth and final L-4 aircraft, the story of its restoration and survival to this day.

Thanks finally to my family, and a special thanks to my wife Laura, for all of her patience and support – ed.

EDITOR’S PREFACE – 3rd EDITION

This may have been the first new edition of a World War II memoir created mostly over email. I met Ernest Kowalik in this way: He had donated a copy of his memoirs to the Seattle Public Library in 1968, and included his address in Texas. About 1995, I read them for the first time, and was captivated by the story.

I had the opportunity to re-read this record of events and I decided to contact him in 1997 for a copy, and to discuss possible reprinting, to include maps, photographs, and the facts he discovered over the intervening years; our email and snail mail correspondence lasted from 1997 to 2004.

The original publishing date (1968) also fell during the peak of an unpopular war in Southeast Asia, and people may have forgotten or ignored it in the turmoil of that time.

It is my hope that Mr. Kowalik’s’ original intent for a legacy may be of more impact by this effort, by introducing a whole new generation of Americans to his story.

The time is fleeting for such compelling stories to be retold, as so many of this greatest generation continue to pass away. In 2009, Ernest joined them. Sic transit Gloria mundi.

Perhaps his ever-fewer surviving long-lost comrades may also be influenced by this to write their stories before it is too late. Once they are gone, so too are their stories of the struggle for freedom in that time.

John R. Bayer

PREFACE TO THE 1968 EDITION

This record of my World War II military experience was set down mostly from memory up to 25 years after the events occurred.

Some news clippings, Army publications, and other records in my possession were used to anchor specific dates and names of people and places to actions long ago and far away.

I tell my story for many reasons. I accomplished things of more than passing interest, and I want to pass on what I did as a heritage. I also hope to give a more accurate account of major events that somehow have become distorted in history.

(The following is in chronological order).

My first possibly significant contribution to history was in the field of weaponry. Although I did not father the idea, I did participate in the first dumping of flammable-fuel bombs (five-gallon gasoline cans) on enemy positions by airplanes. This bombing by eight Piper Cub planes was the war story of the week, and because of the publicity, the advent of the napalm bomb soon afterward was probably more than mere coincidence.

My next contribution to history was to make a breakthrough possible on the same day that President Roosevelt announced; It looks as if our offensive in Italy has failed.

By giving a detailed account of the American breakthrough at Santa Maria de Infante, I hope to foil those who have attempted to give to other countries the honor earned by the men of the first two American all-draftee divisions to see combat in World War II.

I am using this means of staking claim to having had the most to do in finding the most American troops lost for as long as three days.

As a consequence of one flight from the Anzio beachhead, I am using this means of putting forth my half claim to:

Being the target for the most small arms fire.

Directing the most artillery fire on the enemy.

Ending the careers of the Anzio Express(es) – the scourge of Anzio and the weapon that probably killed and wounded more Americans than any other in history.

Destroying one enemy division.

Making the most significant penetration of the Anzio perimeter and one that paced the wheeling movement toward Highway 6 and Rome.

I was the only one to be looking down on the city of Rome at the very moment the Romans learned that our army was on the outskirts of their city. I gave the report to news reporters that the whole world listened to on that historic day.

When my division was out of action, I flew across the entire American front for G-2. Although my orders limited me to reporting what I saw, I involved myself in the action going on at every point along the front. The messages I dropped to the combatants probably made me the most important factor on the American front in Italy for a couple of hours every day.

I made the decision which brought about the capture of Florence (perhaps occupation would be a better word) a day before it would otherwise have happened – resulting in the capture of equipment the enemy intended to withdraw.

Because I was inclined to have chest colds, I started wearing a scarf with the ends tucked inside my shirt when cool weather came. Shortly afterward, an artillery observer who also rotated as forward observer told me, "An amazing thing is happening from one end of the division front to the other! All the infantry is wearing scarves the same way you do. Since they wear them in your honor, it is only right that you know

about it: and because I was the first to imitate you, I think I should be the one to tell you".

The practice spread until all American troops in Italy wore scarves – still in the fashion I started. At certain times and places, American soldiers still wear scarves the same way.

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I was the last American to handle a message addressed:

TO BE DELIVERED PERSONALLY TO FIELD MARSHAL KESSELRING.

I saved a translation of the message as a souvenir because I used it as a gimmick to find and destroy an enemy regimental headquarters. I consider the contents of the message as evidence that Field Marshal Kesselring was the central figure in the original contacts preceding surrender.

It is my opinion that he was put in command of the Western Front after the message was delivered to facilitate peace rather than war. A facsimile copy of the message is incorporated in this work.

As a consequence of one flight in the Po Valley, I am using this means of setting claim to:

Inducing our troops into the fastest advance in military history – at least fifty miles in a little over an hour. 

Being the most important factor in the capture of an entire enemy division. It was my plan, and I took most of the risk.

And finally, I flew twenty miles ahead of our troops to pick bridgeheads for the last river the Americans had to cross in Italy – the Adige River. My report included the place and method to be used, and our troops raced to the spot I picked and crossed in the manner I prescribed.

INTRODUCTION

The pages that follow are the World War II memoirs of the Third Liaison Pilot in Div. Arty.(1) of the 88th Infantry Division.

The First and Second Liaison Pilots were the Commanding and Executive Officers, but the Third Liaison Pilot was a spare pilot.

As such, my duties were mostly what I made them. Unlike the pilots in the battalions, I did not have an observer, so I plied the skies alone.

This is also the story of Liaison Pilots in general. The action described is both typical of all Liaison Pilots and exceptional.

The full gamut of Liaison Pilot activity is covered, and this account of my activities also repeats stories told me by participants in unusual occurrences.

Herein, I recount the story of the first use of Army pilots in World War II, as I heard it from the only survivor and the Liaison Pilot in command of the hapless Division Air OP(2) told me of his unit’s attempt to capture venture.

I repeat the story as told by a member of the 1st Armored Division about an enemy armored division as it retreated by their airstrip after they had been on it for 48 hours.

And, I tell the story of the Piper Cub Tank Busters in France, as it was told to me by a Liaison Pilot who had knocked out 18 enemy tanks with bazookas mounted on his light plane.

NOTES ON GROUND FORCE AVIATION UNITS AND US ARMY STRUCTURE

"...The majority of liaison aircraft in Europe during the Second World War were operated by ground forces and the following notes are for the benefit of readers not familiar with the organization and terminology of the US Army at that time.

Basically, the ground forces of the United States consisted of a number of Armies, each of which was numbered (e.g., Third US Army). Armies were usually grouped under an Army Group HQ, which itself was under the command of an area or theater headquarters. Each Army Headquarters exercised control over a number of Corps HQs (identified by Roman numeral, as in VII Corps) which, in turn controlled a number of Divisions.

The strength of an Army could be between 100,000 and 300,000 officers and enlisted men, depending on the number of Corps and Divisions assigned to it. Both were autonomous and reassignments of Corps and Division to different Armies were commonplace. The Divisions did the actual fighting and were of three types – Infantry, Armored and Airborne – but all three were made up of infantry, artillery and other units; they were identified by Arabic numerals and their specific type was indicated in their title (e.g., 29th Infantry Division).

In addition to its assigned Corps and Divisions, an Army had other supporting troops such as Cavalry (whose horses had long been replaced by armored reconnaissance vehicles), Engineer, Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Tank Destroyer and Chemical Warfare Units. There were also Military Police, Medical, Quartermaster, Transportation, Intelligence and Signal Units, with Civil Affairs Detachments and, for the entertainment of troops, Special Service Units.

All Division HQs contained an Artillery Headquarters (and HQ Battery) which controlled four Field Artillery (FA) Battalions (but usually only three FA Battalions in Armored Divisions). From 1942 an

Air Section, equipped with two Air Observation Post liaison aircraft, formed part of each FA Battalion HQ. The Division Artillery HQ also had two aircraft, giving a total of 8-10 aircraft per Division.

Normally, a Division’s HQ Battery and three of its four FA Battalions were equipped with 105-mm howitzers. Similar and heavier caliber guns of separate or non-divisional FA Battalions (which were usually formed into FA Brigades and FA Groups) provided artillery back-up and were attached to the various Corps or Division HQs as required. These separate FA Battalions were also assigned two liaison aircraft, as were their FA Group HQs. Further aircraft were allocated to artillery HQs at Corps and Army level, giving an Army in the field something like 250-300 aircraft, all of them operated by the Artillery.

Like most military units, FA Battalions were numbered and within their Division, other parent organization were listed (Orders of Battle, Station Lists, etc.) in numerical sequence. However, units with heavy caliber weapons were placed at the end of sub-listings, and this explains the deviation from strict numerical order seen in Orders of Battle. Taking the 28th Infantry Division as a typical example, its FA Battalions appear in the order 107th FA Bn, 109th FA Bn, 220th FA Bn, and then, seemingly illogically, 108th FA Bn. The explanation is that the 108th, being equipped with 155-mm howitzers, is listed after those with 105-mm weapons..."

From: The Fighting Grasshoppers, by Ken Wakefield (with Wes Kyle) (Midland Counties Publications, UK, and Specialty Press, Inc., MN, 1990). Used by permission.

CHAPTER ONE

FROM PEARL HARBOR TO

THE 88TH DIVISION

Postcard of Corpus Christi, Texas; Ocean Drive, 1941. Unknown.

I WAS A STUDENT AT Corpus Christi Junior College when Pearl Harbor was attacked. That was on Sunday, and I went to the Post Office the next day, along with two other students, in an attempt to join the Air Force (3) as an aviation cadet.

The two other students were Lloyd Pete Hughes, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously, when he was shot down as pilot of a B-24 in a Ploesti oil field raid, and Jack Duce, who was shot down in a P-47 Thunderbolt over Germany, and had his back broken in the resultant crash.

No one there was able to help us, so we acceded to the advice of the dean and finished the semester. Like the other two, my initial eagerness was moderated by the passing of time; and when the semester ended, I wanted to improve my chances of becoming a military flyer by continuing my civilian pilot training.

I was the only student, from about twenty taking the course, that passed the Federal CAA (4) exams for a private pilot’s license. The license was a requirement for taking an advanced course in flying, so I was courted by the nearest flying school offering the course.

They flew me to Kingsville, Texas, where the course was offered under the auspices of Texas A&I, and I took the steps preliminary to registration. My draft board forbade my enrollment in the school even though they permitted my best friend to enroll at Texas A&M.

He was one of the students that went with me to the Post Office the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked; and, like me, he wanted to improve his military prospects while the Air Force was expanding its facilities to train men.

I asked him how he was able to get permission to enroll for an additional semester while waiting to serve, and his answer explained the meaning of the words: selective service.

The function of a draft board under that concept is to put men where they can best serve the total war effort. Of course, you want to do the fair thing by the boys doing the fighting, they told me.

By implication, there was but one honorable thing for me to do—grab a rifle and join them on the ramparts. When they spoke to me, the members of the draft board represented themselves as being geared to a UNIVERSAL SERVICE SYSTEM.

The only difference between my Pete Hughes and me, that I could see, was his more common name and membership in a different church. I knew that he did not ask for preferential treatment—he did not need it. His willingness for self-sacrifice was proved, as mentioned before.

In due time, I got on a bus loaded with prospective draftees, and journeyed to San Antonio, Texas, for pre-induction physicals. While there, I took the written cadet-screening exam—my first step toward becoming an Aviation Cadet.

I took the exam with about forty other men, and after turning in our papers most of us waited for our grades. About half of the men who took the test made below 70, and only one other man made over 100. His grade was 110, and mine was 125.

Soon after the San Antonio trip, I was again ordered to report to the draft board. This time the news was better. They told me that I not only passed the cadet-screening test, but I had gotten the next highest grade made on the exam up to that time. To satisfy draft requirements while awaiting my appointment as Aviation Cadet, I was sworn in as a Private in the Air Corps. I was put on a no-pay and no-duty status.

On June 19, 1942, my waiting ended, and I again caught a bus for San Antonio, Texas; but this time it was a one-way trip.

In the group sworn in with me was a man named Mize and, after the swearing-in ceremony, he sidled up to me and whispered, I’m going into that office to tell them I am a member of the Royal Air Force on leave. So watch the fireworks!

To our astonishment the officer in charge almost jokingly replied, As far as I am concerned you are now a cadet in the U.S. Air Force. I am reporting the matter to my superior, but in my opinion, the matter will be settled amicably by the American and British State Departments!

I was given my vaccinations, learned the fundamentals of marching and the manual of arms in preflight at a place now known as Lackland Air Force Base, originally part of Kelly Field, Texas.

My primary flight training was undertaken at the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics in Sikeston, Missouri, where I renewed my acquaintance with Mize. The PX(5) posted the picture of the first graduate of the school to shoot down an enemy plane, and right beside it was Mize’s picture with the caption: The first man to shoot down an enemy plane before graduating from this school.

Mize and I were pilots—he experienced, and I at least licensed—so, after soloing, we flew unsupervised and did not take the usual flight checks. For my part, I did nothing but acrobatics—a fact that probably contributed to the brevity of my status as aviation cadet at the next school.

The youthful appearance of my first flight instructor at Randolph Field, Texas, invited informality and contributed to what followed. He was at the controls until the plane was about 300 feet high, when he ordered, Feel the controls.

Eagerly, I did his bidding. First, I lowered one wing then the other. The responses of the plane felt so good at these preliminary moves that I did a slow roll.

Now, there are some who might argue that my instructions did not cover what I did; but no pilot worthy of his salt will agree that the controls of a plane can be felt properly without first doing a slow roll—and that is a fact.

The instructor seemed to get into the spirit of the thing after the plane was out of the traffic pattern. He turned the plane upside down, and told me to take over. I righted it, then turned it upside down for him. That seemed to disturb him no end, and he beat my knees with the stick.

I later heard that I was the only one to ever do a slow roll on takeoff at this school. The maneuver was so unexpected; in fact, that some of the flight instructors did not fasten their safety belts until the plane was about to do acrobatics. With the canopy open, I could have been the first student at this school to solo with less than five minutes’ dual time.

After this flight, my instructors were bent on frightening me. For instance, one day an instructor asked me if I was curious why there was a two-turn limit on spins for the plane we were flying. I was curious, so he told me to hold the plane in a spin for three turns before attempting recovery and I would find out. I did.

The plane wound up so fast by then that it took four more turns to recover. Many students would have panicked and frozen on the controls, but not me—I thought the whole thing great fun.

Without even shooting landings, when the minimum time for washout came around, I was told that my flight training at the school was terminated. They told me that my lack of fear in a plane was due to a lack of respect for the dangers of flying. For that reason, It would be neither fair to trust me with the lives of men who would fly with me nor wise to risk an expensive plane to me.

Then the board told me I had the qualifications the Army wanted for their pilots and recommended me for that training. It seemed that Army Aviation was begging for men who wanted to fly slow, unarmed observation planes in combat, and the Air Force board thought I had just the temperament for that kind of flying. In retrospect, they were at least right in that last instance.

The military first used the airplane as eyes for ground troops and its use as a gun platform and explosives carrier was a late, although logical, development. Only a few planes were needed for Observation, while the number of planes that could be profitably used for the other purposed was unlimited.

This fact caused a shifting of interest in military aviation away from observation to air war, atrophying the observation function of the airplane. Now, planes without weapons or armor were again to become eyes for ground troops; and in a way best suited for their

mission—as integral components of the units with which they would work.

Our side did not yet have air superiority, and few men relished facing enemy fighters in liaison planes. That accounted for the scarcity of liaison pilots.

Pride of the Liaison Pilots, the L-4 Cub. It differed from the civilian article mainly in the larger glass area and paint job - ed. Piper Corp. ad, 1943.

Many prospects arrived at the Liaison Pilot School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, while I was there, but few completed the course. Because the

use of the planes was expected to be very hazardous, candidates for the training had to re-volunteer several times before they were put into a class.

Each time, the number of men who bowed out outnumbered those electing to stay; and eighty percent of the candidates and trainees quit overnight after learning the details of the first attempt to use the

planes in combat. It was one thing to brave enemy planes in the air; and another to be shot at by Americans on the sea and land the way those three planes were.

In the North African landing(6), three planes took off from an aircraft carrier forty miles from shore, and the Navy started to fire at them soon afterward. The planes were only about three hundred feet above the water they had to dive to escape the fire.

By flying in the bottom of the swells, they had defiladed from Navy fire; but there was no such protection on the beaches. Our troops thought the Navy knew what it was doing, so they too took the three liaison planes under fire, and shot them down summarily.

The men who stayed at the school after this disaster had one thing in common—impregnable morale. They might have been chaff in the way of discipline, but in independent spirit they were the cream of the crop. They were men who had more than an even chance to win against impossible odds. They could pilot a 65 h.p. plane and cause a 2000 h.p. fighter to crash as sit tried to shoot them down.

They flew lower and deeper into enemy territory, daring him to fire; and when he did, they wreaked terrible vengeance on him. They were the vanguard of pilots who wedded aviation to ground troops, and they could be picked out among those who came later by one basic characteristic—a superabundance of pride.

Now, pride can show itself in one guise or another, without being peculiar to any particular mien. Stubbornness or tenacity is the taproot of the tree of pride, while daring and arrogance are the leaves and branches. The men who stayed were a veritable forest of such trees, and they had the innate physical and mental capacity to sustain them

through the abrasions polarized by these traits.

These men resisted imposition, imagined or real, from whatever quarter it came. This was well demonstrated one cold morning when the heating system in our barracks was too weak to counteract the cold.

We registered our displeasure over the inadequate heating system by staying in bed after the bugle blew.

The First Sergeant was beside himself when he discovered us in bed after reveille. Bellowing unpleasantries, he stamped through the barracks from one end to the other.

This did not work, so every two or three steps, he paused, aimed his voice and eyes at a specific target and shouted the man’s name.

He followed that with, Hit the floor! Get out of that sack! This did not work either, so the sergeant dumped several bunks, exhorting their occupants all the while. But they just lay there.

Giving up at last, the First Sergeant angrily stalked out of the barracks.

Some time later, we realized the next move was up to us; so getting up, we dressed and lined up at the Mess Hall.

A few minutes and many shouts later, the door opened and we went inside to eat a cold breakfast.

We were punished for staying in bed so late by having our heat turned off completely the next night.

We did not take this lying down. At about four o’clock in the morning one of the men poured a bucket of water on the floor near the front door; when the water froze, someone else added another bucket of water.

When reveille sounded, everyone stayed in his bunk. In short order, the First Sergeant jerked the door open, took one giant step forward, and rattled the windows as he made his first non-scheduled three-point landing.

Pulling himself up painfully, he made his way outside by holding on to the door for support.

This time, the mess hall door did not open for us when we shouted and banged on it, so we moved up against the wall and tried to turn the building over. That did the trick.

We were marched to the drill field after classes, and put through long drill. We recognized this as our punishment, and accepted it. But when the First Sergeant ordered double-time, we chose to be deaf.

In the split second between the order and execution of the order,

I discovered a repugnance for double-timing, and did not change pace. To my surprise, the other men did not either. Even though there were more than two dozen of us, not one man even attempted to double-time.

The following night was warmer, and the heating system kept the barracks comfortable, so we all got up at the first bugle. Having made our point, we met all our scheduled classes and ended the episode.

After several weeks of ground school only, I again began to fly. Thirty-five men started out in my class, but by the time all of us had soloed there were only twenty.

We went through a phase of short-field landings, and the number was down to an even dozen—only a third of those who started the flight class.

Training became fun at this stage. In groups of three or four, we hedgehopped all around the countryside, playing an exciting game of follow-the-leader.

We flew under telephone lines, and through such narrow gaps between trees that the wings had to be vertical for the planes to go through.

Hedgehopping accents the sensation of flying; it gives one a greater sense of speed, and the dips and zooms have a dimension to them that is lost at even a moderate altitude.

We began night flying, and I was introduced to a world where the more brilliant stars clustered below instead of overhead. Lights all about the horizon made navigation easier if one was well oriented, but almost impossible if confused—on balance, less safe than in the daytime.

With flight training and related orientation behind us, we were ready for our final flight tests.

I found the test appropriate to the purpose of the school—that of providing pilots able to land a plane within a half-mile of any point on earth.

Several landing strips constituted the major part of the exam; and, because the designed limits of the plane had to be approached to safely land and take off from them, only seven of us passed. This was a mere twenty percent of the thirty-five who started the course in my flight.

Our ground school and flight training over, we were ready to be introduced to the reason for our flying—that of getting rounds of artillery on a target.

After flying our planes to an airstrip on the Fort Sill Artillery

Range, we had the procedure of fire direction explained.

We learned that the Fire Direction Center did the hard part and we only had to give the sensings of the adjusting rounds as over or short and left or right. One by one, we directed fire on a prearranged target.

When all had a turn at it, our instructor expressed his satisfaction with our efforts, and we prepared to fly back to the home field. But I had just started my plane when the instructor approached and asked me to take a Major Allcorn back with me.

I was overjoyed at the opportunity, for he was the officer who led the three ill-fated observation planes in the North African invasion.

After getting into the plane, he told me that he had not piloted a plane in quite a while, and requested that I permit him to take the controls while the plane was in the air.

I was in no mood to refuse him anything, so I agreed. Both of us winced at his clumsy efforts, for the wounds he had suffered, and his lack of practice since, had affected his coordination considerably.

I landed the plane, and he limpingly helped me to lift the tail of the Piper Cub and pull it to its mooring. Then, while we waited for the other planes to be bedded down, he acceded to my request to see his wounds.

Pulling up his pants leg almost to his knee, he showed me the entry and exit wounds that three American-fired bullets had made. His chummy mood encouraged me to ask him to tell me his version of the Army’s first use of the observation plane in this war. He obliged me cheerfully.

The aircraft carrier on which the planes had been transported, and from which they started their tragic flight, would get no closer than forty miles to the beach because of fear of attack by land-based planes.

Major Allcorn said that he was afraid the Navy would fire on his three planes while they flew toward the coast, so he asked the carrier commander to alert the ships of his prospective flight.

The commander refused, saying that visual signals would be too much trouble and that radio silence would not be broken for such a trivial matter. You will just have to take your chances, he said.

Just as Major Allcorn expected, soon after the planes were airborne, the Navy tried to shoot them down.

Only three hundred feet high when the first shots were fired, the three Piper Cubs dove to the water for protection. There, the deep valleys between the large swells shielded them from the Navy’s fire. Thus protected, they flew the forty miles to the beachhead.

After that, there were no swells to shield and hide them from American guns.

For the men on the beaches credited the Navy with knowing the difference between friend and foe in broad daylight and at short range, so they too considered the light planes as being the enemy.

At first, they could not fire at the liaison planes for fear of hitting their own men, but this condition did not last for long.

Fanning out, the three planes made their way inland separately. Soon, a telephone line loomed in front of Major Allcorn's plane, and he was forced to zoom over it.

Momentarily exposed to the fire of a machine gun mounted on a Sherman tank only twenty feet away, he was hit in the lower leg and his plane was set on fire. He cut the throttle and tried to sideslip the flames away from his cabin.

When the plane touched ground, the sideslip caused the landing gear to shear off, cushioning the crash. To save himself, Major Allcorn unbuckled his safety belt, pulled himself out of the burning wreckage, and hopped away on his good leg.

The French got to him minutes later and put him in a hospital. As soon as his condition permitted it, he was returned to the Americans. He did not know if the other two pilots also lived over the incident. He only knew that they too crashed in the French sector(7).

The shooting down of the Army planes did not bring about an investigation that could have alleviated the conditions which made such a thing possible. In fact, this incident didn’t do that at all.

In the next invasion - that of Sicily, the Navy shot down thirty-five American planes at a low altitude and within a few minutes.

The planes were loaded with paratroopers; so, besides the men in the plane’s crews, one thousand Americans were killed by