Description

Mustangs P-51D of the 4th FG, 335th FS were engaged in a strafing mission on transportation targets along the French-German border, in order to prevent numerous German units to go back to Germany after the Battle of Normandy and liberation of Paris. Referring to site "Francecrashes39-45.net" file numbers 3050, 3051 & 3052 it is known that several 335th squadron leading pilots were severely hit by flak:

(1) Squadron leader Major Pierce Winningham "Mac" McKennon (P-51D s/n 44-13883 "Ridge Runner" coded WD*A),

(2) Major Archibald M Thomson Jr (P-51D s/n 44-13534 coded WD*F)

and (3) Caboose section leader Captain Albert Louis Schlegel (P-51D s/n 44-14066 coded WD*O). All pilots remained in flight and managed to fly back full West towards free French Allied territory, while looking for targets to strafe.

As they attacked a marshalling yard in Saint-Clément - Laronxe, near Lunéville in Eastern France, they got hit again. All three of them baled out around Lunéville and they landed safely.

Two of them were recovered by the French Resistance (McKennon by Mr Paul Bodot and Mr Gaston Pilot; Thomson by the Largentier family) and kept in the hiding for some weeks, until Lorraine liberation by the Allies. Major Thomson came back to UK on September 7, 1944 and Major McKennan did the same on September 22, 1944.

However, Captain Albert Schlegel fate was tragically different because he died the same day in Valmy, about 170 km (ca 100 miles) West from his Vathimenil crash site. How he has been able to go so far West in German combat zone remains a mystery. Has he been captured by the Wehrmacht near Lunéville and immediately transferred to Valmy in full daylight, under Allied air supremacy and what for? German Offlags Luft are located in the opposite direction. Or has he been first taken care of by the Resistance, possibly dressed in civilian clothes, then caught on a roadblock by the Germans?

After his execution, his body was initially buried in Valmy. In November 1944, he has been moved as "unknown American soldier" in the temporary American Military cemetary of Champigneul-Champagne. Later, in 1947, trasfered in the Lorraine American Cemetery and Mémorial in Saint-Avold, France with a headstone reading : "Here rests in honor and glory a comrade of arms only known to God".

In 2016, the US Department of Defence Bureau of MIA/POW exhumed his body and transfers him to Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska; medical archives and forensics research ensured his identification and cause of death: a gunshot behind the ear. This may be supported by local accounts of the time about an American airman captured by the German on August 28, seen in a Wehrmacht car by French civilians, then executed behind Valmy railways station later that day. The frontline was close : for the record, Valmy has been liberated by Patton's 3rd US Army on Aug 30, 1944, that is : two days after Schlegel's death. On March 30, 2017, Capt. Albert J Schlegel has been buried with all military honors in the Beaufort National Cemetery (South Carolina, USA). Before joining the 335th FS in Debden (UK), A. J. Schlegel had been a fighter pilot in the RCAF (Canada), then in the RAF as an American Volunteer. On August 1944, he was an ace, credited with 13 1/2 confirmed air victories, including 5 on ground, plus 2 1/2 probable.