Nobody can really
tell the truth behind a real experience but the participants themselves.
As to
respect this philosophy, the second part of the 1º Grupo de Caça
story must be told by its own members. Let us listen to these men.
1)Lieutenant-Colonel
Nero Moura, 1º Grupo de Caça Commanding Officer :
"We had a
distinctive form of operating, regarding 350th FG procedures, because
we were a better trained bunch of guys compared to the North American outfit
itself. We had more results, more action, and had the lion’s share regarding
those fellows.
That was because
we arrived in theater with a huge flight experience, and the North Americans
were just rookies (they never kept fighting to the end as the Brazilians did :
after 35 missions, they were sent back home...).Our planes were used as an
ultimate weapon: we had more bombing precision, we better attacked ground
targets, and we saw things on land far ahead, such as camouflaged ammo depots.
Just to mention
an example, there was an allied armour column which penetrated deeply in the
enemy lines, when it was suddenly detected by one of our pilots, Cap Horácio
Machado, who promptly identified them as North Americans and immediately sent a
message warning the Allied Command, which sent him a huge ‘congratulations’
for that. The Allied Command had no idea were the column was for more than ten
hours, and the very first information, in the heat of the combats, was then
given by the Brazilians, which kept that Allied men from being destroyed by
their comrades!
Gun camera
footage of an ammo depot bombardment at the river Po valley
2)Second
Lieutenant Alberto Martins Torres :
"On
April,22,1945, we had been sitting in our briefing room since 6 am, waiting for
the weather to improve when, at 1 pm, Cel Nielsen dashed in and said : ‘The
hun is on the run – take off !!’
The Germans were
trying to escape to the Northernmost region of Italy via the river Po valley,
and my flight was the first to take off, being vectored by ground-based radar
across the Apenines moutains. After 40 minutes, ‘Cooler’ – the radar
controller – guided us down the Po valley, and we broke out of the clouds at
2,000 ft and get going down to 1,000 ft, hunting highway traffic.
Suddenly, we
spotted a large mass of German armour and troops, concentrated at a river
margin, waiting for a pontoon bridge to be completed. We attacked the column’s
rear area, so they could not retreat, and then strafed the many targets,
including the bridge itself, until ran out of ammunition. However, the enemy hit
us hard in return and, thanks to the ruggedness of the P-47’s, we had no
losses, but two badly shot up aircraft.
‘Cooler’ took
us back to base through those clouds, while vectoring other flights to keep the
pressure on that target. When we returned four hours later to resume attack, the
enemy formation (we later heard that it was the remains of two whole divisions
of the German army) had been already surrounded by North American armoured
units. This day was our best in theater.
3)First
Lieutenant Luiz Felipe Perdigão :
"On the
afternoon of April 24,1945, I localized around 80 aligned boxcars at a railway
junction west of Verona city...what would be their cargo? It could be anything :
the Allied offensive was fully on, and the Wermacht was trying to save whatever
it was able to, trying to concentrate its forces on the Alps passes, where it
could resist a little bit longer.
Our orders were
to ’intercept’ all transportation, so I dived with my planes to strafe the
boxcars, just to see the aftermath...However, as soon as the gunnery began,
everything just blew up, in a hell of fire, with flames up to 300 meters high,
the resulting smoke climbing up to 2,000 meters high!! An immediate
reaction (the
explosion’s center is safer), a flashing thought (I died as my friend Santos),
a red world, the melting hot of that big torch and, suddenly, the peacefulness
of breaking through the other side, with my plane completely burned, smoked
canopy, perforated wings, but still flying, going south, back to life, guarded
by the other flight members, Paulo Costa, Tormin and Meira.
That was my most
memorable mission, one to be never forgotten...
Gun camera
footage from Lt Perdigão’s P-47.He is passing through the flames at the
end...
********************************************************************************
End of Part Two
Bibliography : "Senta
a Pua", Rui Moreira Lima
Biblioteca do
Exército Editora,Rio de Janeiro,RJ,1980
Marcus
Back
to PART ONE : INTRODUCTION
Next :
Part Three : The
Modelling Chapter
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