America in WWII - (Page 14) World War II Aviation DVDs DVDs. Aeroclipper Video Rambling Memories of a World War II Fighter Pilot By Doug McLaughlin Humorous escapades, harrowing escapes and technical descriptions of Navy carrier flying in an era when fighter pilots had to rely on National Geographic maps to find their targets all while dog fighting often in a hail of bullets. Retail: $16.95 ISBN 1-4259-2016-0 Order from: 888-280-7715 www.wwiicarrierpilottales.com getting to see him after nearly three years apart. The time for Donald to pass through Lunéville came and went but no Donald. Mel and I decided that either he’d been delayed or had already passed through on one of the many trains and didn’t get to stop. About a month later I received a letter from home. Mom was good about writing to us on a regular basis and so I didn’t think anything about it as I opened the letter. But this letter would be one I’d never forget. It brought the devastating news that my kid brother Donald had been killed in action on February 22, 1944, at Spicheren Heights, just 50 miles north of my location. He was 18 years old, and my heart ached for him and for my Mama whose broken heart was evident in every word of that letter. It was a difficult task delivering that letter to my brother Mel. I couldn’t find the words to tell him, so I just handed him the letter and walked out of his tent. During our time at Lunéville, we were experiencing one of the worst winters that area had seen in a long time. One day the cold weather almost cost me my life. It was not uncommon for us to fill shell craters and foxholes with fuel and set it on fire to keep warm. I had just walked away from warming around one of these fires when I heard a loud explosion. Unknown to us when we built the fire there was some sort of ordnance buried in the ground in the bottom of that hole. I sure was lucky but another boy from an outfit different than mine was not. He caught several shards of shrapnel in his lungs…. From Lunéville we traveled to Worms, Germany, where we bridged the Rhine on March 26, 1945. In preparation to secure the bridgehead, we ferried 3rd Division infantry across the river in assault boats. In addition to receiving machine gun and small arms fire from our right flank, we were being hit with an artillery barrage that killed one and wounded two of our assault boat operators. That barrage lasted a long time and it was several hours before we were finally able to start construction on the bridge, which we named the Alexander M. Patch in honor of the Seventh Army commanding general. The bridge was 1,047 feet long and was completed in 9 hours. An enemy sniper taking shots at us was located in a tower of an old bombed-out bridge just downstream from Milt twirls his pistol gunslinger-style in camp during 1941 maneuvers in Louisiana. where we were working. A tank was called up and took care of that sniper, leaving a gaping hole in that bridge tower…. After building a second bridge across the Rhine at Mannheim, we then pushed on into Germany towards the Danube River. On our way…to the Danube a strange incident occurred involving my brother Mel. He and a lieutenant drove ahead of our convoy to scout our route to make sure our trucks could pass through the small towns. Some of the German towns had arches over the streets and Mel’s orders were to measure the arches to make sure we could pass beneath them. They pulled into this one town and Mel was standing up on top of the truck doing some measuring when he noticed armed German soldiers casually crossing the street nearby. He quickly climbed back into the cab of the truck and they sped out of town as fast as they could…. We bridged the Danube River on April 27, 1945. In order to protect the bridge we had to shoot down two of our own aircraft. They were P-61 [Black Widow] Nightfighters whose pilots didn’t realize we were that far forward and mistook us for the enemy. We had four anti-aircraft guns guarding the bridge and sadly they had to put an end to the friendly fire. Shortly after, the Germans tried intently to knock out the bridge with artillery and we endured our worst barrage of the war…. I ran into a barn and was relieved to see my brother Mel in there too. That barn was full of big hogs and every time a shell would explode those hogs would grunt and sling mud and whatever else was in the 14 AMERICA IN WWII OCTOBER 2007
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