大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the
2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Bernie Newmark and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Sometime in the late spring of 44 (this is no fairy tale) the German air force had a planned mass graduation of a training-cadet class. They planned a uniform mass graduation event across all the flying schools in southern France with a congratulation speech by Hitler.

Someone with know-how and information planned a surprise visit. Everything that could fly the distance and carry the load was sent out in a string manor rather than high altitude mass formation.

We flew down the coast of France at low enough altitude to conserve oxygen and balance off the fuel, all on an almost individual flight pattern much like we were headed for North Africa.

At a prearranged time each group headed for a German flying training school timed to get there during the mass formation for the congratulation address by Hitler.

We struck, turned around and came back on about the same flight plan with almost no opposition, flak, etc. with an overall flight time of about 11 hours (if memory serves me) and with very little MIA.

Good intelligence, good thinking and good planning.

(I have no access to the records but it should all be available)

1st Lt. U.S.A.A.F. USEF RES 0-811237

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.