Piggyback In A P-38

A Daring Rescue under Fire.

- Thomas Mckelvey Cleaver

The early morning light glittered on the whirling propellers of 48 82nd FG P-38J Lightnings as they taxied for takeoff at Foggia-11/ Vincenzo airfield in southern Italy. “Tail-end Charlie” in group commander Col. Litton’s flight was Flight Officer Dick Andrews, a 100-hour P-38 pilot who had celebrated his 20th birthday the day before and was looking forward to his first strafing mission. Just behind in the pack of Lightnings was 23-year-old Capt. Richard “Dick” Willsie, the 96th FS’s operations officer and one of the most experienced pilots in the group, for whom this would be his second shuttle mission to Russia. Neither could know that this mission— Willsie’s 60th and Andrews’ 10th— would enter the history books in a way that has only been matched twice since. Following D-Day, June 6, 1944, the air war in southeastern Europe reached a crescendo as the strategic bombing campaign of the 15th Air Force struck the Ploesti oil refineries and other important targets in the region. With the promised Soviet ground offensive hitting Germany’s Eastern European allies, it looked as though the Eastern Front would crack, leading to Germany’s defeat.

Commencing in 1943, Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, had tried to get Stalin to allow AAF bombers to fly from England and Italy to the Soviet Union on “shuttle” raids that allowed them to bomb previously unreachable targets. If the shuttle raids could be carried out successfully, it was hoped this would lead to the use of bases in Siberia for bombing Japan. The Soviets had erected roadblock after roadblock, delaying the possibility of such operations through months of negotiating.