They had both gone under me and one had come up under the
other and stuck right together. They fell together in a spiral and
crashed to the ground in an open field. The pilot of the lower plant
was probably killed instantly. His name was Cassadont and he was a
real handsome dark skinned, dark haired man of Mexican descent I
believe.
The pilot in the top plane was Hershberqer and after they crashed I
flew down close and saw him crawl out of the wreckage and give
himself a shot of morphine from the emergency kit. He had a broken
back, but survived to join us by the time we were in England. I
gained altitude and wiggled my wings to get the attention of anyone
in the area. I saw a car heading for the scene so I gained more
altitude and circled the area while calling "Mayday" on the radio. I
finally got through to the emergency channel in San Francisco and
gave them the location. Then I returned to base. I was lucky because
it could have just as well been me in one of those planes.
In November of 1943 four of us went to Nebraska to pick up four P-39s
from an abandoned air base in northern Nebraska up near the South
Dakota border. Our flight was chosen and our leader was Thomas J.
Tilson (called TJ), Lloyd Bruce, Neil Ullo and myself. the four of us
were to stay together all through combat. 'TJ' was a nice looking
blond from Teaneck, New Jersey and was what we called a " big time
operator" in those days.
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