John Kester was a pilot in the 55th Fighter Group / 338th Fighter Squadron. He was flying on P-51D Serial 44-13663 (CL-N) on an escort mission of bombers to Ludwigshafen, Germany, 26 Aug 44. On the way back to base, Kester and Squadron mates Samuel D. Gevorkian and Samuel E. Hansard strafed a railway depot in Nancy France. Flying over Belgium in the vicinity of Ghent on a flight path to the Belgian seaport of Zeebrugge, they flew through a violent thunderstorm. Flying on, they didn't notice that their navigational instruments had been put out of order and, following the readings on their compass, they headed South instead of North. Fearing to be too short on fuel, Kester and Gevorkian decided to crash-land their planes on a beach and they landed a few hundred meters from each other. It was only later that they found out they had landed in the South of France, near Cap Ferret, West of Bordeaux. Lt Hansard was seen by witnesses to have continued flying towards the sea, which he most certainly thought to be the Channel, hoping to reach England. Nor his Mustang nor his body were ever found. Some sources mention that he would have been recovered by an English naval vessel and presumably buried at sea.

Lt John Kester flew again on operations with the 338th FS. He was flying on P-51 Serial 44-15405 “Sunday Morning” on the 14 January 1945 escort mission to Stendal, Germany. After strafing the Luftwaffe Parchim airfield, his Mustang was hit by Flak and he warned Major Darrell S. Cramer who was leading the Acorn Yellow Section. Cramer saw Kester’s plane streaming coolant. When he called back some minutes later, Cramer heard Kester tell him first that he was trying to fly back to base, then that he was going to bail out. That’s the last that was heard from John Kester, whose plane apparently crashed near Parchim, Germany.

► See John Kester’s page at http://www.evasioncomete.be/fkesterje.html