This one has everything.
1) Both wings damaged
2) Insturments knocked out
3) Bombs under the wings with no release
4) Parachute torn up
5) Your wingmans on fire!
6) A suprise at the end.
A Mission to Remember
August 12th, 1944
By Kenneth Kik & Richard Kik Jr.
My grandfather always said that "a good war story means that
something went wrong" August 12th, 1944 was one of those days.
As told by Richard Kik Jr. 395th Fighter Squadron.
We took off on a usual mission armor cover flight at the Falaise
track. Down at the Falaise track it was hard fighting, a lot of anti-
aircraft fire, a lot of infantry, armor, trucks, a lot of everything. I went
down on a strafing run and hit this truck Previous to that I heard a
thump somewhere in the airplane and I didn’t realize what it was, but
when I came off the strafing run my wingman, Chuck Rife said "have
you got the water on?" I said "no, why?" Chuck said "you’re trailing
smoke." He came up and looked around and said "it’s coming off
the bottom of the engine." It Turned out a 20 mm knocked two or
three cylinders off my engine. That Pratt & Whitney never stopped.
I’m telling you, those people deserve a medal for that engine, I’ve
never seen one like it.
Our element leader, Captain Mazur said "well Rife, escort him
home." So we started back across the line and as we got going
along, Chuck caught a burst of anti-aircraft fire. Both of his wings
were struck by 40mm rounds. The flak rounds exploded and pieces
of metal entered his cockpit. The explosion damaged his
instruments and shredded his parachute pack. So as we got across
the line I told Chuck, "you better get ready to bail out." He said "I
can’t, my parachute’s all tore up." I told Chuck you’ve got two live
bombs on your wings, you’re not going to be able to belly land with
those, can you drop them? He said "no, I can’t" and held up his
bomb release, "cause here’s my bomb thing." It was a mess. He
said "all my instruments are gone and I can’t put the gear down." So
anyway, as we were going home and I’m talking to him all the time,
telling him try to do this, try to do that. He finally worked it hard
enough the handle, he said he had to take both legs and hold the
stick over cause it kept wanting to roll. Finally he got the gear down
manually. I said "okay, let’s just fly her in." Chuck said "I don’t have
any instruments, I don’t have any idea what the speed is." I told him
okay, I’ll tell you what, you fly on me, just stay right with me and we’ll
get you down. So I kept the speed up pretty high and took him down
to the runway. He made it down safely.
Then when I turned around to land it dawned on me I’m burning! I
forgot about myself during this whole thing. The smoke’s rolling out
now. So I whipped it around and landed, turned off the runway and
the engine quit.
We made it! I jumped out of my plane and ran over to Chuck and
helped him out of his damaged jug. Then I discovered that I also
had two live bombs on I had forgot to drop. And one of them was
hanging by the rear shackle, nose down. What happened was when
I strafed that damn truck I was a little to low, Something had hit the
nose fuse and I had a hanging armed bomb. They (the ground
crew) were a little unhappy that I didn’t drop the bomb. Hell, I was
happy to just be on the ground. There happened to be a whole
bunch of AP reporters around that day, they write an article for the
AP news.
Cliff Gamble stated that after Kik pulled Rife out of his plane he
(Cliff) gave Kik a big hug and told him "Don't you ever do that again!"
Kik was awarded the Silver Star.
Charlie Rife was wounded in the lower back and spent a few days in
the hospital.
Pictures here:
http://www.368thfightergroup.com/395-kik-rife.html
