Auf Wiedersehen
From Matronics
by Austin Tinckler
Just another note for your files if you like.
One day this week I was perched inside the inverted tail cone of my project, bucking rivets while a helper held the gun. "Wow!" I said, "This is about as cramped as the cockpit of an Me109!" To which my partner said, "They weren't really that bad". This brief exchange led to one of the most interesting and heartwarming evenings in the old clubhouse. I was there to hear an old war dog tell the group of what life was like "on the other side."
The "other side" being our old foes in the air war over Europe. Eighty-six now, walking with a cane, bent a bit, but still with the wit and smile of a veteran who made it through it all and glad to be here to think of those days and those who went before. Just back from a reunion in Dallas, one of many sojourns in the year to meet again with old friends, he laughs when asked who his favorite tail-gunner was. "The one who gave me this!" he says, pointing to the deep scar running across his forehead, chuckling while saying the fellow was just enough off the mark to make all the difference.
In a time when it was considered fantastic to survive 200 combat missions, old Franz logged 478 from start to finish, being shot down 17 times, bailing out 6, and riding the rest down. He relates that he never returned to base without a bullet hole somewhere in his 109.
When asked what life was like, the war, the combat, the buddies saved and lost, it reads just like our guys in most respects. Grand times, bad times, living for the day times, expecting nothing and getting just that most of the time. The worst and the hardest was the many evenings spent writing glowing reports to parents and loved ones about their boy who checked out in the most heroic fashion. A credit to the corps and country.
He is most well known though, for the airplane that he did not shoot down. That of a 21 year old Captain on his first mission to Bremen, caught by flak and fighters, left to their own fate, straggling back to the coast. Sent up to bring it down, easy pickings, Franz closed to get the best shot, and here, for the first time, saw humanity and horror and blood and desperation and vulnerability all up close. The B17 was a most pathetic sight — so much damage. He could not fire, but tucked in close and pointed the direction to England, waved a salute, and banked off to Starboard.
Forty years passed and these two met by shear luck and fate when the Captain did some digging, posted some details in a vets' newsletter and he got a call from Canada. How was it possible when so many never survived the conflict? Numbers and markings previously left unpublished were cross checked and determined for sure that these were the two who met that day. Franz said he could describe the damage, he never saw a Fort so badly damaged and still flying.
The best of it all, though, is that 26 people descended from that young Captain and he was so proud to show the photos of family and grandkids that would never be if it were not for Franz and his compassion. The records never divulged this note in the history of the air war because it was not good PR at the time.
All of the above is true and there is lots more to the story that space does not allow for here. But many including CBS, America This Morning, and other media and vets' groups know of it all. And there is much more.
They had bad guys on their side too as did we. There were some heartless killers, but how can we judge from here? Those were dark days. The rest of the evening was flying stories about what it was like to fly captured airplanes, how sweet the P51 was, the phenomenal climb of a P47, what a thoroughbred the MK 12 Spitfire was, and lastly how to handle a mission in an Me 262.
A glorious evening that left some with wet eyes as old Franz hobbled through the doorway out into the dark, cold night, no longer able to fly, but with a cheery wave and "Auf wiedersehen" to all, homeward bound with the company of ghosts. The shapes of airplanes, faint and dark, line the fence of our clubhouse field. Cold metal and just about as old as the days we just spoke of, they too evoke memories of yesteryear, sitting on the line, waiting for another day to carry us aloft, but for now, a dim shape, an outline just enough to make us think of starting engines. Can you see the crew out there ? All the young guys, chutes, helmets, flight gear.
