| Notes |
MACR No. 13919
2/Lt. Frederick C. Wirth Jr. reported: "As we were letting down near
Dresden, Germany, we passed over an airfield, believed to be Riesa/Canitz,
at 51 degrees, 18' N. - 13 degrees, 14' E.
with quite a few planes on it. We did a 180 degree turn and we
passed over the field again at an altitude of 4,500 feet three bursts of
flak (heavy) exploded right under Lt. Thacker's plane and immediately he
began streaming black smoke. He veered off to the northwest and I
followed him, attempting to get tight on his wing for a good visual check
on his plane but was unable to pull up there even with 55" and 2800 RPM.
About one and a half minutes after leaving the airfield he bailed out at
an altitude of 3,000 feet. We had radio communication but I could
hardly understand him and was not much help to him. I circled as his
chute opened and he floated to the ground. He landed safely and
gathered up his chute and ran for the woods. His aircraft hit the
ground and exploded. That was 1505 on 17 April 1945."
As the war in Europe was almost over at this time, record keeping
became a bit sketchy. Lt. Thacker was taken prisoner and sent to
Moosburg, Stalag Luft VII A. He was returned to military control May
2, 1945.
Reproduced with kind permission of
Mr. Robert M. Littlefield from the author's book Double Nickel - Double
Trouble
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