Operation: Dive Bombing (attack ground troops at Corneillus France)

Date: 26th May 1944 (Friday)

Unit: No. 390th Fighter Squadron  366th Fighter Group

Type: P47D Thunderbolt

Serial: 42-76293

Code: B2-

Base: USAAF Thruxton, Andover, Hampshire

Location: Nucourt  France

Pilot: 2nd Lt Victor J. Grisanti 0-526348 USAAF Age 31. PoW Stalag Luft 1 (North 2 - Barrack 6 - Room 9)

REASON FOR LOSS: 

I was flying on Lt. Grisanti’s wing. Immediately following our attack on ground target at Cormeilles-en-Vexin we pulled up to 4,000 ft flying in a North West direction. Lt. Grisanti called me on the RT and asked if I was OK. I then noticed that thick black smoke pouring from his turbo exhaust. I called and told him that his ship was smoking. Flames immediately appeared under the fuselage and right wing and I told him to bail out. 

He came out of the right side about 5 miles west of the target, plane went into a gentle glide and crashed about 8 miles north west of target. Lt Grisanti drifted westerly and the last time I saw him he was about 8 miles west of the target at 500 ft approximately.

Hit by Flak at approximately 17:10 hrs, captured at 17:30 Hrs.near Cormeillus, France, sent to the Military Hospital Paris-Clichy with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on face and both hands.

Burial details:

None - survived the war as a PoW.

Researched by Michel Beckers for Aircrew Remembered November 2015. Photographs from the Michel Beckers collection.

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them. Franklin Delano Roosevelt