written by Edwin Cottrell

At 102-years-old, North Carolina resident Ed Cottrell regularly attends our Monday and Thursday night virtual Zoom programs. He’s shared his remarkable story with us over the years and will be our special guest accompanying us on our Air Field Tour of England in September.

My military career began in 1941 during my sophomore year at Slippery Rock State Teachers College in Western Pennsylvania. Fearful of war, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the creation of the Civilian Pilot Training Program at colleges across the country to boost the number of people who could fly aircraft in case of a military emergency. I’d always wanted to be a pilot, so I enrolled and got 30 hours in a Piper Cub and my pilot’s license.

The emergency FDR anticipated came at Pearl Harbor, and a few months later, I got my draft notice and joined the Army Air Corps.

I went to flight school in Chico, California, and trained in the Vultee BT-13 Valiant. We called it the “Vultee Vibrator” because it shook violently as it reached takeoff speed.

From Chico, I went to Luke Field in Phoenix, Arizona, for advanced training in the North American T-6 Texan. We also got a few hours in the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, my first time in a fighter. The P-40 didn’t do well at high altitude, and we rarely saw it later in combat in Europe.

After graduating and receiving my commission as a 2^nd Lieutenant, I returned to Slippery Rock and married my sweetheart, Millie. We spent two weeks together before I reported to Wendover Field in Utah for my final training.

At Wendover, I caught a glimpse of the most beautiful aircraft I’d ever seen. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was bigger, more rugged, and more robust than any fighter I’d known.

Nicknamed the “Jug”—either because it looked like a milk bottle when stood on its nose or because it was a “Juggernaut” in combat—the P-47 dwarfed other single engine planes. With eight .50-caliber machine guns and an enormous fuselage, the Thunderbolt could both deliver and absorb a lot of damage.

We learned how to use those guns effectively at Wendover, and we also did a lot of night flying, formations, dive-bombing and strafing runs. By the time I arrived in Europe in the summer of 1944 and got assigned to the Ninth Air Force, 48th Fighter Group, 493rd Fighter Squadron, at Cambrai Air Field, just outside of Paris, I felt I was ready for action.

Our mission as tactical fighter-bombers was to provide close air support for ground forces.

Before each mission, we received detailed briefings on the target, duration, and fuel consumption. Our crew chief had to guide us down the runway, so limited was the forward visibility of our big-nosed Thunderbolt. Flying in 12-man formations, we’d take off, form up, and follow our flight leader to targets, which were usually strafed or dive-bombed.

On September 30, 1944, we moved to a beautiful air field with 10,000-foot runways in Belgium. Saint Trond Air Field—Advanced Landing Ground A-92—had recently been abandoned by the enemy. I had two roommates and fellow P-47 pilots, Art Sommers from southern California and Ted Smith from Wenatchee, Washington. We became close supporting the Ninth Army as it pursued the Germans retreating behind the Siegfried Line.

On December 6, we took off in ferocious rain on a mission to relieve some ground forces hunkered down at the end of a soccer field in Julich, Germany, about 30 miles west of Cologne. A battle there had devolved into a stalemate, and we were called upon to tip the balance.

I flew wingman to our squadron commander, 26-year-old Major Stanley Latiolais. We operated largely on instruments, trying to stay below the cloud cover at 200 feet. Twelve of us came in, some at treetop level, at 300 miles per hour. We zoomed over the American troops and across the field to skip-bomb the Germans on the other side.

We made three passes, and our ground forces were able to move forward and push the Germans back.

Upon the return to our base we found that almost every plane was riddled with bullet holes. Our Thunderbolts were so rugged, we never felt anything. Our 493rd Fighter Squadron received a Presidential Citation for that operation.

Ten days later, weather still miserable, the Germans launched Wacht am Rhein, “Watch on the Rhine,” the massive surprise attack south of our base in the dense Ardennes Forest. It was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle of the war.

On December 17, we received the mission of stopping a column of Tiger tanks on its way to Bastogne.

Again, I flew wing to Major Latiolais. We spotted the Tigers in the woods and swooped down to dive-bomb them. Our Squadron Commander led the way. I came in second. We dropped our bombs and then pulled up . . . right into a group of Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters.

As I climbed, I noticed a 109 coming down at one o’clock toward Major Latiolais’s plane.

“Bandit, one o’clock!” I warned.

Then, the enemy fighter shifted slightly toward me. Its 20mm cannon blinked. An explosion wracked my plane and slowed my engine, sending a large splash of oil over my windshield. I was flying blind on a steep upward slope.

I flung open the canopy and radioed my commander that I’d been hit.

“I’ll make it as far as I can,” I said.

Oil still spewed, and the engine started to fail. I chugged west at 120 miles an hour.

I managed to climb to 2,000 feet, engine misfiring, almost stalling out.

I looked to my right and saw an Me-109. I looked to my left and saw another. They fell back and then criss-crossed behind me. This was the shootdown position. I waited for the explosion. Nothing happened.

Instead, both planes pulled up on either side of me in tight formation, very close to my wings, as if in escort.

We approached the Allied bomb line, friendly territory. Then, they signaled with their hands, making the OK sign with the tips of their thumb and forefinger, and waved in a kind of farewell salute.

“Good Luck and God Bless,” they seemed to say.

I kept flying but had no idea where I was. My radio still worked, so I asked anyone who could hear me where Saint Trond A-92 was.

”You’re not very far from it,” replied a voice. “Turn 90 degrees and you should run into it.”

I was in strange territory just south of the airfield. We’d only ever come in from the north. I spotted the runway and headed right towards it.

Just before my wheels touched down, the engine froze and the propeller stopped cold. I made a dead-stick landing and rolled to a stop.

I climbed out of the plane, got down on my knees, and kissed the tarmac.

“Thank you, Lord,” I said.

Later, I learned I lost my roommate Art Sommers. He got shot down and killed on that same mission. I miss him to this day.

The Battle of the Bulge continued to rage. On New Year’s Eve, we were warned that the Germans were 17 miles from Saint Trond.

All but 12 planes and 12 pilots evacuated our air field. I was one of those chosen to stay behind because I had the least experience.

We were told to get rid of all our personal items, including photos. The only effects we were allowed to keep were our dogtags.

At four o’clock in the morning, I was rousted awake to serve as lead pilot on runway alert.

Runway alert was like guard duty in airplanes. Four of us sat in our cockpits at the end of the runway, engines on, ready to take off at a moment’s notice if the radar picked up incoming enemies.

Without warning, eight Focke-Wulf Fw-190s shot in right above us, almost at ground level, below the radar. The enemy fighters zoomed in toward two heavy bombers sitting in the middle of our air field, a B-17 and a B-24. They’d been destroyed and were waiting to be scrapped. But the Germans didn’t know that.

The Fw-190s opened up their machine guns on those burned-out bombers. They came to the end of the field and pulled up to make another pass, and our anti-aircraft guns opened up on them. Six of the enemy fighters were hit. The two that weren’t came around to make another pass. One of them dove toward the bombers and never pulled up, crashing on the runway.

When the coast was clear, we went out to the wrecked 190, which was in flames. The pilot was still in the cockpit, a bullet in his forehead. He looked to be 17 years old.

That same day, our squadron went on a mission. My other roommate, Ted Smith, was hit by flak, and his P-47 took a nosedive toward the ground.

“Tell my wife goodbye,” he said over the radio before crashing. Those were his last words.

The German retreat quickened after the Siege of Bastogne was lifted. We followed the 9^th Army once again in pursuit. We left our beautiful runways at Saint Trond and began taking off and landing on metal strips– Marston Mats or perforated steel planking, PSP—put down by engineers on farmers’ fields. When we landed, the mud splashed through the perforations. Then, it was on to the next field.

We lived in farm houses and outbuildings. The Germans had largely fled, the villages we encountered empty.

I flew my final mission, my 65th, out of Illesheim Air Field west of Nuremberg, Bavaria.

The war in Europe was over, and the 48^th Fighter Group prepared to fight in the Pacific.

Those of us with 65 missions or more could elect to go home. That’s what I chose to do because, while I was overseas, my daughter Carol had been born. I wanted to meet her.

I was discharged from the Army Air Force on July 24.

For decades after, I didn’t talk about the war. I wanted to forget it.

But then, at a squadron reunion about 15 years ago, someone said, “Maybe the country needs us to talk about our service, because back in World War II, when the country was in trouble, everybody pitched in. Our country could use that selfless, can-do spirit today.”

I pledged then that, if asked, I would talk about my military experience in the hope that my stories would inspire others.

I’m proud of the small role I played. And I’d do it again, if asked.