On July 9, 1944, the 362nd Fighter group continued its rampage over central France while still flying from England. The group would move across the Channel soon, but until then they had to fly across the channel, over the invasion beaches and attack its targets before returning the same way. On July 9, the 378th Fighter Squadron hit the rail tracks between Mamurs and Bielle, cutting the lines in three places. The squadron strafed and destroyed four tank cars at Quilleubouef.
The squadron repeated the mission the next day, adding five more rail cuts. The 377th and 379th dive-bombed gun positions in the Lessay-Periers area, but the guns were well camouflaged and it was difficult to judge results. For Art Wildern of the 379th, however, just getting back was success enough.
“This was my sixth combat mission in the P-47 Thunderbolt,” Wildern wrote, “and nothing that happened indicated I would successfully fly an additional 100 missions on my first tour. Ours was the last of three squadrons of the group and I was assigned to fly the last position in the last flight of our squadron, Klondike Green Four. We had 48 Thunderbolts in formation and I was the 16th in our squadron, but the 48th in the group. I’d flown Green Four the last three squadron missions and I figured ‘they’ either wanted to get rid of me or figured I could take care of myself. A little more figuring and it was evident I would be the 48th aircraft to dive-bomb the target. Even to novice me, not a good number. You see, the Krauts (we figured) took cover when the first flight of four aircraft attacked with guns blazing, for effect, prior to dropping their bombs. Then, as the remaining flights of a squadron attacked, the Krauts got guts and fired ack ack, then they got angry and fired more ack ack, more guts, more ack ack, etc. By the time the last aircraft of 16 went in, it was really a sky full of angry metal.
“Will Nagelstadt was my element leader and the 47th to go down on the target. Nagelstadt rolled in on what looked like anti-aircraft batteries and I followed as No. 48. We squirted our fifties and they had already put up a solid ceiling of metal and more coming all the time. Then, as I climbed toward Will (Klondike Green 3), I realized how quiet things were and I was losing power and airspeed. I’d been hit! The necessary calls were made to Green 3 and as he looked over my aircraft and the left side, he said, ‘Let’s go home.’
“Fine – just the two of us and we’re half way down the country of France. England suddenly seemed a million miles away. He wouldn’t tell me what he could see (he didn’t want to make me nervous). As I recall, I could make about 180 mph at 5000 feet. As we proceeded north and were west of Paris, the sun in the west and me stacked low on Will’s left side, I have no idea why, but I decided to switch to Will’s right side. In our situation, he covered ahead and around 180 degrees to the left, looking over me. I covered ahead and 180 degrees to the right looking beyond him. Now, it would be just the opposite as I slid slightly behind and under his tail to then rise higher than his level of flight and on his right wing. As I rose just even with his aircraft, looking east, I saw them.
“I called, “Klondike Green Three, Four here, Up Left, BREAK!” And we broke up into 30 plus Me 109s and Fw 190s coming down at us from out of the sun at nine o’clock and all of them seemingly blazing away at us. The aircraft I was flying was a Razorback called the ‘Tennessee Cannon-Ball’ (Ken McCleary’s former aircraft). As I broke left, a hard pulling maneuver, my plane immediately went into a left spin with no help from me and I held it there on purpose until I was getting close to low clouds, whereupon I kicked it out of the spin and flew into the clouds which were heavy broken to undercast. I was needle, ball, and airspeed, headed compass north ‘til I could reset my flight gyros. Then, pangs of guilt: ‘The worst sin a wingman can commit is to lose his leader.’ I was doing pretty good airspeed wise at 1500 to 1800 feet. So, I eased out of my cocoon and as I broke on top, I looked up left there was one aircraft out in front of three behind and he was jinking around. I called ‘Klondike Green Three, this is Four, over.’ No reply. A moment later, the jinking aircraft gave me a beautiful look at his wingspan. An Me 109. Then it dawned on me: those bandits were being vectored to kill the wounded “Indian” – me!
“I went back into my cocoon of cloud cover and continued north and as luck would have it, I flew right over Caen, France where the British and Canadians were having a rough time of it and the clouds were actually pink from the shell fire. I was about 800 feet at the time when abruptly, I flew out of my cloud cover, feet wet, over the English Channel. I felt naked, lonely and probably about to be bounced by the whole German Air Force. But, it didn’t happen. Then I noticed a higher single aircraft toward Le Harve, feet wet and going my direction. ‘Klondike Green Three, Four here – your feet wet?’ An answer came: ‘Yes.’ I said check nine o’clock low. ‘Roger, gotcha.” He came down and after looking over my oil-doused crate, said, ‘We’ll make it.’ And at Headcorn, he said, ‘Keep a little extra speed up on final approach.’ I landed with no sweat and then at the hard stand as I taxied in, the crew chief motioned “cut-cut-stop” and threw his ball cap on the ground. I shut down and then sat there totally beat, awaiting Nagelstadt’s chewing out for losing him in the break. He came over and said, ‘Christ, we were lucky!’ and I perked up some and said, ‘You mean you’re not mad at me for losing you?’ He said, ‘Hell no! Look at this thing.’
“I got out as you usually did, facing forward and then turned looking aft. The turbo supercharger was close to half-way out of the fuselage and for a second, I thought I was going to be sick. And I didn’t even know I was hit!”
In the afternoon, the group went on another armed reconnaissance around Sille-le-Guillaume and LeMans, but bombing results were poor. At St. Pierre, the group tangled with seven Bf 109s, damaging two of them. In the evening, a dive bombing and strafing mission along the Seine destroyed a pontoon bridge, 15 box cars, two trucks and a staff car.
Art Wildern passed away 11 months ago to the day. You’ve seen Art, but you don’t know it – he was the coordinator for much of the aerial action in “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Recall the scene when one of the B-17s tries to land, and the tower radios a warning – “B-17! You have a Zero on your tail! Gun it and get outta here!” – and the B-17 sweeps away in a climbing turn to the left, while the Zero executes a climbing turn to the right. The guy on the radio is Art.