Flight Journal – August 2019

58 FlightJournal.com

THE BOY NEXT DOOR GOES TO WAR

let me be conscious when I hit the ground.’

But pretty soon, the pilot chute popped and

whistled as it opened. In fact, it jerked me so

hard that I blacked out momentarily. When

I came back to the States, I read a pamphlet

from the Air Force on the procedure for bailing

out. You were supposed to wait until you lost

your forward speed and you just had gravity

pulling you down, but I didn’t. I had my

forward speed, and it ripped my harness some.

“I think I was at about 6,000 feet when I

bailed out, and it was a good ride down. The

fellows I had been flying formation with saw

my parachute open, and they started pulling

closer in on me. I thought, ‘Don’t get too

close! You’re going to collapse my chute!’ My

P-40 exploded and then it hit the ground and

caught fire in a wheat field. I had a chipped

bone in my leg before that flight and it was

all bandaged up, but we didn’t have pilots,

so I was flying with that injury. I thought,

‘Boy, what am I going to do with that when

I hit the ground?’ So I got completely out of

my harness and held on to the straps, and

I looked down. Just before I hit the ground,

I let the parachute go so that it wouldn’t

drag me, and I rolled on the ground when I

landed. Everything was OK.

“I had bailed out several hours away from

my airfield, and a Frenchman picked me up

in a horse-drawn cart and took me to his

house. I knew the guys would be back the

next morning, and sure enough, I heard a

plane. So we got a sheet, went out, and waved

it at the pilot. He was leading a jeep cross-

country to pick me up. The Frenchman gave

us a lamb, a bucket full of lard, and some

bread. We hadn’t had meat in months, and

we did slaughter and cook the lamb.”

Invasion of Sicily

After flying and fighting in Africa, Jones and

the squadron started flying into Sicily. “We

started out flying strafing missions,” recounts

Jones. “But I guess one of the worst beatings

we ever took was escorting some bombers out

of Africa going into Sicily. The Germans had

a lot of air force over there, with crack pilots;

our losses were really bad. We were stationed

at Cape Bon, which is on a peninsula at the

northern tip of Africa surrounded by the

Mediterranean Sea. We were briefed on the

Sicily invasion on September 10, 1943. So

we took off and flew about 90 miles over to

Above left: One of the
earliest airframes to see
combat in WW II, some
of the P-40’s systems
were greatly improved in
next-generation aircraft,
like the Mustang. (Photo by
John Dibbs/courtesy of the
Fighter Collection)

Above right: Pictured here
at 98 years old in 2017, Ben
still fits nicely into his Hell’s
Belles A-2 jacket. (Photo
courtesy of C. Ben Jones)