HI,
42-67684, "F5-Z" LOST FROM THE 428TH FS ON 19TH JULY 1944.
DETAILS WANTED PLEASE.
COPY OF MACR 7160 WOULD BE WELCOME.
 
MANY THANKS
 
ALEX

Bonjour
MACR :7160 - P38 J serial number 42 67 684 Pilot 1Lt Hart Gerald
Crash site : Ligne (near Nantes)
 
Jean

Hello and thank you Jean for your responce.
Most welcome reply .
 
Alex

Bonjour Alex,
 
Here are some more details on Lt. Hart's shootdown.  His flight went low over a grassy airfield southeast of Ligne to strafe what looked like a camoflauged He-111. Possibly it was a trap; at any rate, the four P-38s were deluged with some of the worst flak and small arms fire it had ever experienced. Lt. Hart, flying as leader of the flight's second element, came up pouring fire. He climbed to gain altitude and bailed out OK, landing unhurt at the outskirts of the town. When last seen, the popular and colorful Jerry Hart was standing waving to his flight leader (Capt. Nuckols) who followed him down. He was eventually captured and became a German POW.
 
Jerry Hart later recalled his story as follows:
 
"Late in the afternoon of July 19, we were strafing south of the Loire river. My plane was badly damaged by flak and was on fire. My bailout was successful except that I was immediately taken prisoner by the Luftwaffe commandant of the airfield we were strafing. He and his driver were parked under a tree at the edge of the field waiting for us to finish. I was taken to a holding point, an old French flying school, where I was held with a B-17 crew to await transportation to Germany. While there, we were bombed by B-26s and the building we were in was leveled, but that's another story. I was taken from Nantes to Paris, and again we were strafed twice by Americans while en route. Then we were taken to Frankfurt Am Main to a Dulag Luft (interrogation camp). From the Dulag Luft, I was taken to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, Germany. Just after Christmas 1944, in the face of the Russian breakthrough, the Germans marched us out of the Stalag on a three day march to the nearest operational railhead, Priebus. From there we were transported to a POW camp between Regensburg and Augsburg near Munich called Moosburg (Stalag Luft VIIa). When General Patton's forces broke into that area, I was liberated and returned to the United States."
 
Hope this helps.
 
Cheers, Gary Koch (474th FG Association Historian)