Dive into the world before and after of WW II. Feel, how it was. Get a better understanding while enjoying Maria's adventure. 17y old Maria del Carmen Gonzales from Mexico, wants to make something out of her life, rather than only being someone in t...
Because my P-51H was also suitable to escort bomber units, I was given that task more and more often as well.
14th of February 1945, a daytime bombing raid on Frankfurt (Main) was executed and I was bomber escort. During the pre-flight briefing, I already had a real bad feeling around my heart and I did not wanted to get into the air that day, but what can you do? I thought about pretending to be sick but my comrades had already seen me. I thought about sabotaging my aircraft, but the aircraft mechanics would likely figure that one out. There was no bailing out really. All I could do was to be careful and not take unnecessary risks.
From previous reconnaissance, I knew the area around Frankfurt to some extent and I knew the Flak positions from early February. The Germans did sometimes relocate the Flak, but they rarely relocated the heavy Flak 40 because it was cumbersome and the Flak 40 was the most dangerous. The whole assembly for the raid comprised of about 300 aircraft, from British and American units. The units were led by a British Flight Commander in a Lancaster bomber. I knew, we were on direct course towards several Flak 40 batteries stationed outside of Frankfurt in a rural areas. Unless, unless the Germans had moved them in the last two weeks. I contacted the Flight Commander via radio and made him aware of the potential danger, but he said, he has no information about Flak 40 on our route and asked me to remain silent. All with British politeness off course. Well, as soon, as we came in reach, the Germans greeted us with curtain fire. It was too late now, the allied planes would all follow the British leader of the pack. There was something I could do and that was trying to eliminate some of the Flak cannonry. Thus I dropped in altitude and attacked the Flak again and again and again. Other escort pilots joined me. Until half of the bombers were through the curtain fire, pieces of a crashing bomber hit my aircraft. In particular a 1000 pound Mark 65 bomb. The crew must have released the bombs when they figured they would crash, so to give the Nazis their last and final greeting. The bomb hit the front of the P-51H, but luckily did not explode. Nevertheless, one can imagine, what happens, when a 1000 pound piece of metal at a vertical speed of about 150mph hits the front of a single engine aircraft ... the whole front including prop and engine got destroyed. Other bombs and pieces of the Lancaster bomber came flying down as well all around me, but did not hit my plane. From one second to the other my plane was in a nosedive and it was without propulsion. At round about 600 feet altitude, I had to bring the plane back into level flight. After I managed that, I was at about 200-300 feet of altitude and had to look for potential landing sites immediately. With the damaged front, the drag was highly increased and I lost airspeed and altitude rapidly. I had to be in runway approach before the plane got too close to stall speed. There were acres and meadows and there was a two-lane gravel road, which looked like my best chance. Left and right of the country road were fences and they bothered me. Well unfortunately, I could not be picky. I managed to get the plane down in one piece, but during the runout one wing got entangled in the bloody fence and the plane was thrown around and after a short carousel ride came to a stop. A second later, everything was calm. I was dizzy, but I did not feel any pain. Probably the adrenalin. Slowly, I extracted myself from the wreck. It was heartbreaking to see my beautiful badass chick totaled and I cried. Patting on the fuselage, I said: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I cried bitterly, I had lost my badass chick, my beautiful P-51H Mustang. What was I thinking before takeoff: don't take unnecessary risks. Well, I have really put my foot into it this time. How could I have made such a big mess and got myself into such big shite? Pinche. After half a minute of mentally beating myself up about it, I realized, that there were more pressing issues I had to deal with that moment.
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Half a mile away, were children running towards me. They must have seen me crashing and they were likely nosy, like children are. Now I had to get away. I had to hide somewhere, before German soldiers arrived here. I had heard bad stories about how the German's treated PoW, especially airmen. There were reports of captured allied airmen getting shot on site, just because the Germans did not have the bandwidths to deal with them anymore. As I expected a woman getting treated even worse, I decided not to surrender. I decided to run and hide. About a mile to the north was a forest, which I deemed a good spot to hide. I wrapped my arms around the wreckage (which was obviously not possible, because it was too big, so they were stretched out) and said: "Goodbye my badass chick", and finally I kissed the metal of the fuselage. A normal pilot might find it funny or even ridiculous, but such were the ways of the bombers. We had to rely on our aircraft even when they had gotten under heavy fire and the way of the bombers was to build up a personal relationship --- NO --- to become friends with our aircraft.
Having said goodbye, I started to walk towards the forest. Unfortunately, I was not very fast. The pilot cloths were not made for running, not even walking fast and when they are too big, then it just makes matters worse. I looked back and some of the children were looking at the wreck, but a boy, maybe 14, 15 years old, soon caught up with me.
He must have realized, that I was US Army Air Force. Well it was not so difficult to identify my uniform and for sure, he had seen the US army star on my badass chick. He yelled after me: "Hallo, stehen bleiben. Sie sind verhaftet!"
I stopped and turned around. A blond boy, 14 or 15 years old as I guessed and not armed. "Sie sind verhaftet", he boldly yelled again. Back then, I did not understand German, besides a few words I picked up from my comrades, like Kraut, Sauerkraut, Hitler, Arschloch, Scheiße and so forth. Nevertheless, I knew, I had to get rid of him and I drew my gun. The hammer was locked half way and by pulling it back completely, the FN High Power was ready to fire. When the boy saw my gun, he stopped right in his tracks. It must have been clear to him, that I wanted to hide in the forest and therefore, I had to shoot him. I had to kill him. I had sworn to myself not to falter again, when pulling the trigger was necessary --- but I could not. I looked into the innocent and fearful eyes of that boy and I could just not pull the bloody trigger. Pinche, I was no killer. I had sworn this to myself and I simply could not. What should I do? I gestured him to go back where he came from and he understood and backed off. I on the other hand continued into the forest. When I reached the forest I knew, I had to keep going. This boy would call for police or soldiers. I probably had a couple of hours head start. Coming closer to the first trees I spotted a forest road and decided to follow it. Until nightfall, I walked on forest roads. With my A-11 wrist-watch (gratitude of the US tax payer) and the position of the sun, I maintained a northward direction. The big question was, what the fuck should I do? I had to hide somewhere. I needed food, water and firewood. Maybe a lake or a creek would not be so bad?
When the night came, I stopped. Without sun, I could not maintain a northward direction anymore, so I laid down on the soft forest ground maybe 10 yards away from the road. I was thirsty and I was hungry, but nothing I could do about it. Being exhausted, made me fall asleep quickly. At some point in time, I woke up again. It was February, mid-winter in Germany. There was no snow around Frankfurt, but the night was very cold. Must have been well below freezing. Lucky me, that I was wearing my warm pilot cloths. However, my cloths felt wet. It had come from the cold and damp forest ground. My simple solution was to climb a tree. Back in Texas I did spend a night in a tree already so why not try again? Climbing up in the darkness was not easy, but eventually I managed. Breaking of some branches and twigs, created a seat about 3m above ground. Sleeping was not possible, it was too uncomfortable this time. The brunches of this German tree were pocking into my nice and beautiful Mexican boody and the night was cold. Even German trees were bloody racists. At least dosing was possible, though.
Picture Bomber Escort:
"Boeing B-17 & P-51 Mustangs - Duxford Airshow Oct 2010" by Feggy Art is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
Picture Crashed P-51:
"P 51 Crash f6.3 100th sec. 1530hrs GMT 01" by anyjazz65 is licensed with CC BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
