Warbird Information Exchange

The weekend is coming

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Don't touch my junk!!

Ooooh yeeeah!!


Yeah, I know what some of you are saying...


Fade to Black...

My father Bert Marshall,Jr was the first to be rescued behind enemy lines.

On 18 August, 1944 he was Squadron Commander of 354FS/355thFG and was hit by flak over a Marshalling Yard after telling the rest of the Squadron to orbit while he 'checked out' the flak - which was pretty d*&n good!. He was flying Chuck Lenfest (354FS Ops Officer) brand new WR-F Lorie IV at the time as WR-B(bar) Jane II was in repair from flak damage three days earlier.

He was burning so he put the ship in a fast dive to try to put out the flames, couldn't, flared the ship to bleed off airspeed and beelied in about two miles away.

Lt Royce "Deacon" Priest landed about 400 yards away in the same cut wheat field and taxied to get back to edge for an into the wind take off. My father actaully had given Priest a Direct Order to not attempt the rescue... which Priest ignored - the reason I am here today.

Marshall sat in seat with throttle and rudder control, Priest had stick. Canopy opened on rotation almost knocking Priest out and they clipped two haystacks wobbling off the field under German infantry fire.

Priest actually thought he was going to be shot for disobeying a direct order!

In 1986 I asked Jimmy Doolittle if he remembered the incident and he recited the above description then told me he downgraded the CMH to DSC because he didn't want any more attempts risking two pilots and ships.

Ironically, Henry Brown, the 355th top ace was shot down by flak six weeks later and Chuck Lenfest who was leading this mission in my father's WR-B(bar) Jane III landed to attempt pick up and got stuck in the mud!

Al White, future North American Chief Test Pilot, also landed prepared to give up his ship to Brown and Lenfest but they were already in the woods attempting escape - Doolittle went ballistic and issued court martial threat for any future rescue attempts.

Which is the reason Jack Ilfrey didn't go public with his rescue - and why George Green (2nd Lieutenant) was fired and sent home after 18 March rescue of Pierce McKinnon. Grover Hall PRO for 4th FG couldn't keep his mouth shut! - LOL. And Hall later mistakenly wrote in 1000 Destroyed that the McKinnon rescue was the first Mustang rescue when in fact it was the 3rd.

Interestingly enough, Ev Stewart was acting Group Commander of the 355th when the Marshall/Priest rescue occurred and Group Commander of the 4th when the Green/McKinnon rescue happened

And that is the rest of the story..

Regards,

Bill Marshall

Gary - I forgot to mention in the first post above that I have pics of ALL the a/c involved in both rescue attempts as well as the PR pics taken with Priest/Marshall in cockpit, etc.

The Mustangs in the first pick up were

WRE "Eaglebeak" P-51D-5 44-13756 flown by Priest
WR-F "Lorie IV" (normally flown by Lenfest) P-51D-5 44-13950 flown by Marshall

In the second pick up attempt 3 October, 1944
WR-B (bar) "Jane III" P-51D-10 44-14409 (Marshall's ship) flown by Lenfest
WR-Z "The Hun Hunter~Texas" P-51D-5 44-13305 flown by Brown
WR-S "Mary Lou" P-51D-10 44-14428 flown by Al White

Another reason I forgot to mention about why Doolittle was so angry is that Lenfest was acting 354FS CO to take over for my father who had just been promoted to 355FG Deputy Group Commander. Soooo, not only were two 355th aces lost on same mission but also left a command vacancy in the 355th. My father did 'double duty' for about four weeks until Gordon Graham took over and led the 354FS for rest of the war.

If you send email to marshall_william at hotmail.com I can send you the pics - but I think I have all posted on armyairforces.com Members Photo Album in the Photo Gallery section - 355FG album. I posted about 96 pics there.

http://www.armyairforces.com/forum/albu ... =3&apage=1

Umm, not the case. Don't know where you are getting this bit of information, but it's wrong.

Lt. George Green was designated 335 FS 'B' Flight Commander after the rescue (he was acting B Flt CO at the time of the 'rescue').

After flying one more mission soon after the rescue, Green was grounded for several weeks, but then returned in earnest and flew almost all of the remaining combat missions thru the end of the war, scoring more than a few ground strafing kills.

In fact, the 335 FS "Pilot's Roster" dated 17 May 1945 lists 1Lt George D. Green, 0-816856, as active. He was, once again, promoted after the rescue ...

He transferred out of the unit in July 1945.

Source: 335th FS Operational Diary.

Wade

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Speaking of the 335 FS Operational Diary, I was flipping through just now and found a lengthy narrative of the rescue events that I had missed before. I'm short on time here, so I'll type up the last paragraph ...

Part of the group flew with Lt. Green as escort while the rest of the group rejoined the bombers for the withdrawl support. Capt. A. J. Davis was the first one of our boys to return to base and tell of the miracle. A few minutes later everyone ran outside to see Lt. Green and Maj. McKennon struggling to get out of the cockpit. In spite of the two-hour ride both got out of the cockpit unassisted and walked into the dispersal to tell their story which was plenty good. Maj. McKennon suggested to Lt Col. Trippet [Group Ops officer] that Green be made a General at once.

At the 2001 4th FG reunion in beautiful Savannah, GA, I talked to Dr. Cal Willruth and Paul Lucas, both of whom were orbiting over the scene of the rescue in a field. Must have been amazing to watch.

Wade,
ahh, had his 4th FG fix for the day ...

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Wade - I could be wrong - but the source was Jeff and his father Erv Ethell, Royce Priest and Everett Stewart and my father at a Dinner during the 1967 Fighter Aces Reunion in 1967.

I just noted in Escort to Berlin, that Jeff made no mention of the 'firing incident' and the book was publiched in 1980.

Stewart was 4th FG CO at the time so who knows what a 35 year memory means.. or for that matter my own forty years later.

I just noted in the 8AF VCB that Lt. George Green had some scores on 16 April so he was definitely around a month later!

Doolittle did not mention it (firing Green) in my brief conversation with him in the 86 Reunion but did mention issuing the court martial threat!

So I really have to recant the anecdote about Green until or unless I have moore substance.

Yes, I think the record bears out that Green wasn't removed from combat and "sent home" after the rescue of his squadron CC.

As I'm sure you've seen in Hall's book(s) (He first wrote Mr. Tettley's Tenants, which evolved into 1000 Destroyed ... "Tettley" being a combination of farmers Kettley and Tetlow, on whose land Debden was constructed), Green was constantly in trouble for minor infractions, and McKennon, for some reason, liked him and kept him on ops. As Green said later, on his decision to land and pick McKennon up, "I figured I owed the guy a favor". Looks like the debt was cleared ...

I am fascinated by your first-hand (as told by your dad) info on the 355th FG. Keep it coming! The last wartime commander of the 355th, Col. "Claib" Kinnard, came back to Franklin, TN after the war and resumed "command" of the family concrete (something like that) plant and died in his 50s of brain cancer. A young skinny kid in Franklin worked for Kinnard and his brother Amos on occasion, and that kid grew up to reach O-6 in the Air Force, retiring after 20 years and a tour in Vietnam as the Vice Commander of the 366 TFW "Gunfighters" ... he's the pilot in my painting, "Chico the Gunfighter".

Cheers!

Wade

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Wade - Clay Kinnard was my godfather and responsible for plucking my father from ATU at Goxhill when he saw his name on the roster of new pilots. From that you can tell how much respect dad had for Kinnard - in fact for his second tour, he (Marshall) was slated to assume command of the 479th FG and Kinnard talked him into coming back to 355th.

Kinnard was a year or two ahead of my father at Vanderbilt and both dated Dinah Shore before marrying their respective spouses. She was at Kinnard's funeral in 1966... and one really nice lady.

Kinnard, as you know had the 4th in the fall of 1944 and it was not a happy experience for him. Clay Kinnard was an All American boy and the 4th pilots affected the RAF slang which drove him nuts. In an attempt to cross breed he arranged several transfers of 355FG pilots to the 4th and vice versa and arranged to have several joint ops, notably the attack on the Lechfeld A/d where quite a few Me 262's were destroyed on 18 November.

Bill Whalen and George Ceglarski were two of the transfers and Whalen went on to become an ace with 354FS and 2SF attached to 355th at Steeple Morden, Ceglarski also ended up with 6 combined air/ground while attached to 358FS and 2SF.

Kinnard asked Kepner to allow him to return to 355th when he got back from the States on Leave and that is how Stewart went to the 4th in February, 1945.

Federal Judge Ruth Kinnard just passed away... Kinnard had a patent on pre-stressed concrete beams (He was a Civil Engineering major at Vandy) and made a lot of money before he passed away. Hi horse farm in Franklin TN was a model of it's kind.

You probably knew he had a severe ear infection at the 356FG and was off flight ops at the 354FS/355th when he transferred over - then his ears got progressively worse until his Crew Chief Mocerino had to put another amplified in his radio so he could hear! He flew all of second tour with the 355th nearly deaf!

He`was one helluva man.

Interesting info on Kinnard ...

My old boss Dudley Pewitt (that skinny kid who worked for the Kinnard brothers and grew up to fly F-4Es in Vietnam - also a Vanderbilt grad, later Ph.D. in Finance) told me the same info as well over the course of the five years I worked for him. His third career (Air Force 20 yrs, then 20 yrs with UAB as Vice President for Business Affairs -- if you're sick, you want to be in Birmingham, AL with access to UAB) was as the Director of the Southern Museum of Flight in B'ham. He was thrilled when I painted and hung for a short while in our museum my Man O' War, featuring Claib as CC of the 4th. That's when he told me of his "Kinnard" connection.

Wade

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What is true story?

Kinnard's QPA Man O War 44-14292 was one in sequence with my Father's WRBbar Jane II 44-14293 which was damaged pretty badly by flak on 15 August for his first belly landing of 4. It was repaired and returned as WRB (no bar) when he got WRB (bar) 44-14409 Jane III as a replacement.

I had to kid Jeff Ethell (and also the fourthfightergroup website for including Kinnard as a 4th FG ace (ditto Ev Stewart).. as both got most of their kills and became aces with the 355th. In fact Stewart got no kills with the 4th and Clay only had one air and 2 ground out of 8 air and 17 ground scores while with the 4th.

I've lost touch with Wink and Judy Kinnard and did not go to Ruth's funeral because I only found out a year later when I was bidding on Kinnard's 355th Officer's Club book on eBay - from the estate.

Regards,

Bill

PS I like your art Wade.

darn! How did I miss that!? Wonder how much it went for??

eBay is one reason I'm a poor man (but I get to take lots of stuff with me to the next life, eh?)

Speaking of concrete, I'd better get back to my current project or I'll be heading up to Franklin myself looking for work! I'm reconstructing part of Debden airfield from scratch via Descriptive Geometry for an upcoming painting, and at the moment I'm 'building' 334 and 336 FS's C-hangars.

Aviation art fans can follow the in-progress thread here:
http://ehangar.com/modules.php?name=For ... opic&t=812

Thanks for all the good converstion. Since my 'specialty' is WWII 8AF, I look forward to doing a 355 piece sooner rather than later.

Wade,
back to the reinforced concrete hangar ...

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Luke (Wade) turn to the dark side (9th AF) it is your destiny!

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Don't touch my junk!!

Heh heh,

Oh, I didn't say I wasn't going to throw in a Carr piece, or one of his buddies, one day ...

Speaking of 'diversity' (divided we fall ... but I digress), your help with photo help on my 459FS and VF-17 pieces were life savers! All hail the geek photo collectors!!



Wade

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