Escape & Evasion Report No. 686: The True Story of an American Fighter Pilot's Escape from Nazi-Occupied France
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Escape & Evasion Report No. 686: The True Story of an American Fighter Pilot's Escape from Nazi-Occupied France
Short Nonfiction: On April 30, 1944, a swarm of P-51 Mustangs worked their way down the Rhône Valley, destroying anything that could feed the Nazi war machine. Just outside the city of Valence, as Fred Glover pulled out of his first attack dive, a German gun crew got off a lucky shot.
When his squadron mates returned to base, they reported last seeing Glover's Mustang hemorrhaging engine coolant and limping toward the Swiss border. A month later, out of the blue, Glover returned to England. But, he was sworn to secrecy, and those four weeks remained a mystery for more than 70 years.
Now, with the declassification of once-secret documents, we can tell the story of how Fred Glover was aided by two legendary Americans (Peter Ortiz, the spy and commando leader, and Charles "Chuck" Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier in level flight) to enable him to evade capture in Nazi-occupied France, and return to combat and become one of the very best fighter Aces to serve in WWII.