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Show With Ernie PyJe at the Front: British Flier Hero Wins Hard Fight Against Death Rescued by Americans, He Finally Ends in Army Hospital in England By Ernie Pyle (EDITOR'S NOTE: While on his way back to the Vnited States for a much needed rest, Ernie Pyle interrupted his vacation to bring readers this special story from London, England.) LONDON. The story about the RAF pilot who was trapped in his wrecked plane for eight days had a happy ending. He is alive, and doing nicely. And even though he has a long hospital hos-pital ordeal ahead, he is happy and grateful and the sun shines for him again. ! When I returned to London from France on my way to America I be-ean be-ean tracing the V Ernie Pyle pilot' s . where--. abouts. It took al- most a week to I find him. Finally 1 I located his hos-1 hos-1 pital, and I trav-I trav-I eled halfway across England I to see him. My 1 friend, Bill Strand of . the Chicago Tribune, made the long trip with me just for company. An RAF station wagon, driven by a WAAF, met us at the station and took us to a hospital out in the country. coun-try. The lieutenant had been informed in-formed we were coming. We were ushered into a small, sunny ward, and the lieutenant began smiling as we walked through the door. He held out his left hand, for the right one was still tender from bullet wounds. When we got him out of his plane that day almost a month ago we knew that in a very few days he would either be dead or over the hump toward recovery, because his burned back was gangrenous, and gangrene works fast. Well, he was first taken to a clearing clear-ing station of the American 30th division. divi-sion. He was very drowsy from morphine. mor-phine. When he began to come to, all he could hear was a lot of chatter to German, with voices answering to Hans, Herman, etc. The drowsy lieutenant figured that he must be in German hands after all. But it turned out that he was hearing wounded German prisoners pris-oners talking to each other. The lieutenant's back responded re-sponded to treatment. The gangrene gan-grene was cut away, and it was seen that he would pull through. He was moved next day to another an-other field hospital, and then three days later he was evacuated evacu-ated to England by air. You may remember that when we got him out of his wrecked plane he asked the date and said his wed-ling wed-ling anniversary was only three days away and he hoped to make it back to. England for that. He was nearer right than we had thought. He arrived in England one day after the anniversary. After that he was in an Ameri-;an Ameri-;an general hospital for 16 days. As lis wife says, he was treated like "my lord." He was their prize patient. pa-tient. And then he was removed to ;he RAF hospital where he is now and will be for a long time to come. His wife and baby come to see him twice a week. His present condition is this: His back is still painful but is healing heal-ing excellently. Unfortunately he has to lie on it, because of his shattered leg being in a rack. His right hand, on which a bullet iad cut the fingers to the bone, is ?ut of the bandage now but is still yery tender. His right leg, which was not wounded at all, is giving him trouble. Because of lying for eight days in one position, with the leg bent and pressure on certain nerves, he has lost control con-trol over his foot. He can move the leg all right, but the foot just flops around. The doctors think it will eventually be all right. His left leg is the worst problem. Vs you may recall, his left foot was pinned under the rudder bar all that time, and the calf of his leg aad a shell hole in it. We couldn't tell just how bad the wound was hen we got him out. Well, the wound was apparently ;aused by a 20-millimeter shell which exploded inside his leg. It completely destroyed about an inch jf both bones in the leg. There was limply a cap there, with no bone whatever. He has already had three operations opera-tions on this leg, and he will have nany more. They will have to raft in new bone and then give it Tionths to grow and strengthen. The toctors say it will be 10 months to year before he can walk, but that eventually he should have 90 per cent use of his leg. That means he will probably walk with a limp, but he will walk. As his wife wrote me, in a beautiful beauti-ful letter: "We have our fingers crossed to get him home for Christmas. After that I guess he and Clare Margaret can teach each other to walk." Clare Margaret is their baby, now nine months old. At the hospital the RAF pilot and I enjoyed living over again the climax to those eight days of imprisonment im-prisonment in his wrecked plane in France. When we rescued, him that day I had not wanted to badger him with trivial questions, so there were some things I didn't get straight, and other things I had straight which he was mixed up on. I thought his leg had been wounded while he was still in the air. But he told me it didn't happen until about three hours after he had crashed, when there was shelling and shooting shoot-ing all around him. He said that whatever kind of sVell it was made a terrific racket when it came through the plane and struck him. The little hole in the side of the plane through which he had thrust his hand we thought that had been torn when the plane crashed. But actually the pilot had made it himself during those eight days, trying try-ing to tear a hole big enough to get out. He worked at it off and on with a little crowbar he had in the cockpit. cock-pit. He asked me if I thought he could ever have made the hole big enough by himself. I told him there wasn't a chance. He said the worst thing in those eight days was the thirst. After the first couple of days he wasn't hungry at all, but the thirst was torturing. He said that for hours and days he visualized creeks full of water, and all the pubs where he had left a little beer in the bottom of glasses. He had seen the columns 1 wrote about his rescue, and he was mod- estly pleased about them. He laughed at one thing I had said that his eyes, as he rolled them there in his imprisonment, were like "big brown tennis balls." Actually his eyes did seem like that. But in the hospital that effect had gone, and his eyes seemed of normal size. His face had filled out and his color was fine. He smoked and laughed, and his discontent was only because the hospital wouldn't let him out on leave immediately. ' The lieutenant has strong leanings lean-ings toward America. He didn't tell us on that day of the rescue, but he had his flight training in the slates. He trained at Clewis-ton, Clewis-ton, Fla., and was in America from October of 1011 till April of '42. He had been flying in combat for two years, and although his plane had often been hit, this was the first time he had been shot down. He remarked over and over again how lucky lie was to be alive. He was regretful that his wound would take so long to Ileal that the war would undoubtedly be over before be-fore he was well again. As he said, he would "like one more crack at those Jerries." The lieutenant was smoking Lucky Strikes when we visited him, and he said, "You can see I've been in an American hospital." I look him a Zippo lighter as a gift, and he was very proud of it. As soon as he can use a pen he is going to write notes of thanks to the two American soldiers who discovered him. During those eight days of anguished an-guished imprisonment he never gave up hope that he would get out. It was even stronger than hope, for he said he was positive posi-tive all the way through that he would get out. He is Flight Lieut. Robert Gordon Fallis Lee, of Selbourne, Orchard road, Shalford, Surrey. |