At 9:42 on the morning of April 11th, 1945, First Lieutenant Merritt Dwayne Francies banked his Piper L4H Grasshopper over a muddy road near Dannenburgg, Germany, watching a German motorcycle with sidecar racing east through the trees below.
24 years old, 142 combat missions, zero air-to-air kills.
The fifth armored division had pushed within 48 mi of Berlin.
Behind Frances, somewhere in the low clouds, 500 American tanks and self-propelled guns rolled east at 12 mph.
The war was ending.
Germany was collapsing.
But Vermach units still held pockets of territory, and some of them still had radios.
Frances flew an artillery spotter plane.
Fabric stretched over a welded steel tube frame.
65 horsepower.
Maximum speed 85 mph.
No armor.
No guns.
No radios capable of reaching friendly fighters.
His job was simple.
Fly ahead of the division.
Find German positions.
Radio coordinates back to the howitzers.
Stay alive.
His observer, First Lieutenant William Martin, sat in the rear seat with binoculars and a map board.
They had been airborne since 0700, searching roads and tree lines for targets.
The motorcycle had appeared 10 minutes earlier, moving fast on a secondary road parallel to the American advance.
Frances dropped to 400 ft to get a better look.
The motorcycle kept moving.
The driver wore a vermocked field grey uniform.
The man in the side car held what looked like a radio pack, a messenger, probably carrying reports about American positions back to a command post somewhere east.
Then Martin tapped his shoulder and pointed up.
700 ft above them, a Feasler FI 156 Storch moved through the clouds.
Frances recognized the silhouette immediately.
High-wing monoplane, fixed landing gear, single engine, the Luftvafa’s version of the L4 Grasshopper, an artillery spotter, a reconnaissance plane.
Germans used them the same way Americans used the Grasshopper to find targets, to adjust fire, to report enemy movements.
The Storch was larger than the L4, faster, more powerful, and right now it was flying directly toward the Fifth Armored Division’s lead elements.
Frances pulled back on the stick and climbed.
The Little Continental engine strained.
The Grasshopper gained altitude slowly.
Fabric rippled against the slipstream.
Martin kept his binoculars on the storch.
The German pilot had not seen them yet.
He was flying straight and level heading west toward the American tanks.
Frances understood the situation immediately.
If that storch reached German lines, its crew would radio exact coordinates for every Sherman, every M7 priest, every supply truck in the column.
German artillery would have perfect targeting data.
The fifth armored would drive into a prepared ambush.
Men would die.
Frances had seen it before.
September 19th, 1944 near Arakort, France.
German observers had spotted American armor movements.
30 minutes later, 88 mm shells rain down on B company.
11 tanks destroyed, 27 men killed before the column could disperse.
He thought about radioing for help, but American fighters operated at 10,000 ft or higher.
By the time they descended, the storch would be gone.
By the time they found it again, German artillery officers would already have their coordinates.
The Grasshopper had no weapons.
The army did not arm observation planes.
Too much weight, not enough power.
The L4 was built for one purpose.
Fly low, find targets, get out.
But Frances and Martin each carried a standard issue M1911 45 caliber pistol.
Seven rounds per magazine, one spare magazine each, 28 bullets total.
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Back to Francy’s.
The storch was now 600 feet above them and slightly east, still flying straight, still unaware of the tiny American plane climbing through the clouds below.
Frances looked at his pistol in its holster, then at the storch, then at the road below, where 500 American tanks were rolling into what could become a killing zone.
He reached down and unlatched his door.
The wind hammered into the cockpit.
Martin did the same on his side.
Both doors swung open against the slipstream.
Frances drew his 45 and chambered around.
Behind him, Martin did the same.
The grasshopper climbed toward the storch at 60 mph.
Two men in a fabric observation plane, two pistols, one enemy aircraft.
Frances pushed the throttle forward and aimed for a point just ahead of the storch’s flight path.
Frances dove.
The grasshopper dropped 300 ft in 12 seconds.
The storch grew larger in the windscreen.
500 ft 400 300.
The German crew still had not looked down.
They flew straight and level.
The pilot focused on the horizon ahead.
The observer probably studying his map or writing coordinates.
At 200 ft separation, Frances leveled out and came up behind the storch.
80 yards back.
60 40.
The German aircraft filled his vision.
He could see the observer’s head through the rear canopy glass.
Could see the black balcony crosses on the wings.
Could see scratches in the paint where tree branches had scraped the fabric during lowaltitude missions.
20 yards.
Martin opened fire first.
Three shots.
The reports cracked over the engine noise.
Francies could not tell if any rounds hit.
The storch kept flying straight.
Francancy squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times.
The pistol kicked against his palm.
Empty brass casings tumbled past his face into the slipstream.
He fired again.
The storch was so close he could see rivets in the tail structure.
Then the German pilot saw them.
The storch banked hard left.
Frances yanked the stick and followed.
The Grasshopper turned inside the German aircraft’s radius.
The L4 was slower than the Storch, but it could turn tighter.
It was built for spotting artillery in tight valleys and over treetops.
Maximum maneuverability, minimum speed.
The Storch climbed.
Frances climbed after it.
Both aircraft spiraled upward through 500 ft, 600, 700.
The German pilot was trying to gain altitude and speed, trying to run, but the grasshopper stayed behind him.
Frances fired his last two rounds.
The slide locked back on an empty magazine.
He had no idea if he had hit anything.
The storch showed no signs of damage, no smoke, no loss of control.
Nothing.
He needed to reload.
The problem was simple.
He needed both hands to drop the empty magazine, retrieve a fresh one from his belt, and slam it home.
But he also needed both hands to fly the airplane.
The Grasshopper had no autopilot, no trim system sophisticated enough to hold altitude and heading in turbulent air.
Frances jammed the control stick between his knees.
His left hand dropped the empty magazine.
It tumbled out through the open door and disappeared toward the German countryside 800 ft below.
His right hand pulled the spare magazine from his belt.
Seven fresh rounds.
He slapped it into the pistol grip and released the slide.
The weapon was ready.
The stick slipped between his knees.
The grasshopper’s nose dropped.
Frances grabbed the controls with his left hand and pulled back.
The little plane leveled out.
He had lost maybe 50 ft of altitude, and the storch had gained some distance, but not much.
Martin was also reloading.
Frances could hear the metallic click of a fresh magazine seating home behind him.
The storch was now circling, not running.
The German pilot had apparently decided he could not outrun the American plane, so he was trying to outmaneuver it instead.
Turning, diving, climbing, trying to shake the grasshopper off his tail.
It did not work.
Every turn the storch made, Frances matched it tighter.
Every climb, he followed.
The L4 stayed within 50 yards of the German aircraft, sometimes closer.
The two planes spiraled through the morning sky above Dannenburgg like hawks fighting over territory.
Francy’s closed to 30 ft.
Close enough to see the German observer pointing at them through the canopy glass.
Close enough to see the pilot’s leather flight helmet.
Close enough to see their faces.
He fired.
Martin fired.
Both pistols cracked in rapid succession.
Frances saw his muzzle flashes reflecting off the storch’s tail.
Saw Martin’s tracerless rounds disappearing toward the enemy fuselage.
Then he saw something else.
A spiderweb pattern appeared in the storch’s windscreen.
A bullet hole.
Then another.
The German aircraft’s nose dipped slightly.
The pilot jerked the controls.
The storch pitched up then rolled right.
Francancy stayed with him.
He fired again and again.
The pistol slide locked back, empty, but Martin was still shooting.
Frances watched his observer empty his magazine into the Storch’s right wing and engine cowling.
The Storch’s propeller stuttered.
Black smoke puffed from the engine.
Not a lot, just a thin trail, but enough.
The German pilot pushed his nose down and dove toward the trees.
The storch descended through 600 ft, 500, 400.
The thin smoke trail thickened.
The German pilot was heading for a clearing near the road, trying to make an emergency landing, trying to save his aircraft and his crew.
Frances followed him down.
The grasshopper stayed 30 ft behind the storch’s tail.
Martin kept his pistol aimed through the open door, but held fire.
Both magazines were empty now.
No ammunition left.
28 rounds expended.
The fight was over.
At 100 ft, the storch leveled out over the clearing.
The pilot was good, even with a damaged engine, even with smoke trailing from the cowling.
He brought the aircraft in steady.
The fixed landing gear touched down.
The wheels rolled across grass and mud.
Then the right wing tip caught the ground.
The storch pivoted.
The right wing crumpled.
Metal shrieked.
Fabric tore.
The aircraft spun 90 degrees in a spray of mud and grass.
The landing gear collapsed.
The propeller struck dirt and shattered.
Pieces of wood blade flew in different directions.
The fuselage twisted and stopped.
The engine quit.
Silence replaced the sound of tearing metal.
Smoke continued to drift from the cowling, but no fire.
The storch sat in the clearing, broken, but intact.
The cabin appeared undamaged.
Francancy circled once.
The clearing was maybe 200 yd long, wide enough for the grasshopper.
Soft ground, but not swampy.
No visible obstacles.
He dropped to 50 ft and lined up his approach.
The problem was location.
Frances had no idea exactly where he was.
He had been chasing the storch for maybe 4 minutes, circling, diving, climbing.
He had lost track of landmarks, lost track of heading.
The fifth armored division was somewhere west, maybe three miles, maybe five, maybe 10.
And he was landing in Germany, somewhere east of American lines, somewhere inside territory that might still hold Vermach units, might hold Vulkerm home guard, might hold nothing but retreating soldiers and abandoned equipment.
He did not know.
The Grasshopper touched down 70 yard from the wrecked storch.
Frances cut the engine.
The propeller windmilled to a stop.
He and Martin climbed out.
Both men drew their pistols.
Both magazines were empty, but the Germans would not know that.
They approached the storch on foot.
Mud sucked at their boots.
The morning air smelled like aviation fuel and burned oil.
Frances could see movement inside the cabin.
The canopy was intact.
Someone was alive in there.
The German crew was trying to get out.
The pilot pushed his door open.
It stuck halfway.
He shoved harder.
The door swung free.
He climbed out onto the wing, then dropped to the ground.
Feld Vebble rank insignia.
Sergeant, maybe 30 years old.
No visible injuries.
He stood beside the wreckage and raised his hands.
The observer came out next.
Younger, maybe 22.
He tried to step down from the wing, but his right leg buckled.
He fell, hit the ground hard, did not get up, just laid there in the mud next to the landing gear.
Frances and Martin moved closer.
30 ft 20.
The pilot kept his hands raised.
He was not reaching for a weapon, not moving toward the trees, just standing there beside his wrecked aircraft with his hands up.
But Frances was watching the treeine.
They were alone in a clearing somewhere in Germany.
Two American officers, two German air crew, no backup, no radio contact with the fifth armored, no way to call for help.
And somewhere in those trees, there might be more vermached soldiers.
Might be a German patrol.
Might be a command post that had heard the aircraft circling and diving and shooting.
The wounded observer was bleeding.
Frances could see it now.
The man’s right boot was dark with blood.
A bullet had hit him.
Probably during the final pass when Martin emptied his magazine into the Storch’s cabin.
The round had gone through the aircraft’s thin fabric skin and struck the observer somewhere in the foot or ankle.
The German pilot shouted something, pointing at his observer, pointing at the blood.
His voice was urgent, but Frances could not understand the words.
Martin kept his empty pistol aimed at the pilot.
Frances moved toward the wounded man.
Francis knelt beside the wounded observer.
The German was maybe 22 years old, pale, sweating despite the cold morning air.
His right boot had a hole just above the ankle.
Blood soaked through the leather and into the mud beneath him.
Frances had taken premed courses at college, enough to understand basic field medicine, enough that his battalion called him doc.
He pulled out his first aid kit.
Sulfa powder, bandages, morphine ceret, standard army issue.
The observer stared at him, terrified, probably expecting to be shot.
Probably expecting this American pilot to leave him bleeding in the mud while they took his aircraft commander prisoner.
That was what happened to downed air crew sometimes.
Not always, but sometimes.
Frances cut the boot away with his pocketk knife.
The bullet had entered just above the ankle bone and exited through the sole of the foot, clean through.
No bones shattered, no major arteries severed, but it was bleeding heavily, and the man could not walk.
He poured sulfa powder into both wounds.
The observer flinched, but made no sound.
Frances wrapped the foot with gauze from the kit, tight enough to slow the bleeding, not tight enough to cut circulation.
He tied it off and sat back.
The German pilot was still standing with his hands raised.
Martin stood 10 ft away with his empty pistol aimed at the pilot’s chest.
The situation was stable for now, but only for now.
Frances looked at his watch.
958.
They had been on the ground for 6 minutes.
The fifth armored division was somewhere west, probably 3 to 5 miles based on how far they had chased the storch.
But Frances had no map coordinates, no landmarks he recognized, no radio contact, and they were behind German lines.
Maybe not deep behind lines.
The Vermacht was collapsing.
Units were retreating east or surrendering.
But pockets of resistance still existed.
Frances had seen it all week.
American columns driving through abandoned villages, then suddenly taking fire from a cellar or a church tower.
Diehard officers, fanatic SS troops, Vulkerm civilians with panzer fousts.
A sound came from the trees.
Frances froze.
Martin heard it, too.
Both men turned toward the treeine 70 yard east.
The sound came again.
Voices.
German voices.
Multiple speakers getting closer.
The pilot heard them, too.
His eyes widened.
He said something in German.
fast, urgent, pointing at the trees, pointing at Frances and Martin, then pointing west toward American lines.
Frances understood without knowing the words.
There were German soldiers in those trees, and they were coming to investigate the crashed aircraft.
The pilot was warning them to run, but Frances could not run.
The wounded observer could not walk, could not even stand.
If Frances and Martin left now, they could reach the grasshopper in 30 seconds, start the engine in another 20, take off in 45 seconds total, be airborne, and heading west before whoever was in those trees reached the clearing.
But the wounded German would be left behind, bleeding, unable to move, with American bullets in his foot and American bandages on his wounds.
When his own troops found him, they would know he had been treated by Americans, would know the Americans had been here, had landed, had taken the pilot prisoner, maybe.
The voices in the trees were getting closer.
Frances could hear branches snapping, boots on dead leaves.
Multiple men, at least four or five, maybe more.
Martin grabbed his arm and pointed toward the grasshopper.
Time to go.
Time to leave.
Get airborne.
Get back to American lines.
report the torch destroyed.
Mission accomplished.
But Frances looked at the wounded observer, at the bandages he had just applied, at the terrified kid lying in the mud.
He had learned something in premed courses at Seattle Pacific College, before the war, before the army.
Before 142 combat missions over France and Belgium and Germany, he had learned that doctors helped people.
All people, even enemies.
The voices were maybe 50 yards away now, still in the trees, still invisible, but close.
Very close.
Frances made his decision.
He grabbed the wounded observer under the arms and lifted.
Martin understood immediately.
He holstered his pistol and grabbed the Germans legs.
Together, they carried him toward the grasshopper.
The pilot followed, hands still raised, not running, not fighting, just following two American officers who were carrying his wounded crewman toward their aircraft instead of leaving him behind.
They reached the grasshopper in 40 seconds.
The wounded observer weighed maybe 160 lb.
Dead weight.
His injured foot dragged in the mud.
He was conscious, but not helping.
probably in shock, probably terrified that these Americans were going to throw him in their aircraft and then shoot him somewhere over the trees.
Martin climbed into the rear seat.
Frances and the German pilot lifted the wounded observer up.
Martin grabbed him under the arms and pulled him into the cramped cabin.
There was barely enough room.
The L4 was designed for two men with maps and binoculars, not three men, including a casualty with a bandaged foot.
The voices from the trees were closer now, maybe 40 yards.
Frances could hear German words clearly.
Commands, questions.
Someone was calling out, probably asking if anyone was alive in the crashed storch.
The pilot stood beside the grasshopper’s wing, looking at Francy’s, looking at the trees, looking at his wounded observer now cramped into the rear seat of an American spotter plane.
He could run, could disappear into the trees, could rejoin his own troops, could tell them two American officers were trying to take off from the clearing.
Frances pointed at the open front seat.
The pilot hesitated for 3 seconds, then climbed in.
Frances pushed in after him.
Two men in a seat designed for one.
The pilot sat on Francy’s lap, arms pinned.
No room to move, no way to fight.
The cabin smelled like aviation fuel and blood and fear.
Frances reached around the pilot and grabbed the stick.
His right hand found the throttle.
He pushed it forward.
The little Continental engine coughed once, twice, then caught.
The propeller spun up.
The grasshopper vibrated.
Figures emerged from the treeine.
Five soldiers, Vermach uniforms, rifles.
One had a panzer foust.
They saw the grasshopper, saw its engine running, saw Americans in the cockpit.
They started shouting, started running across the clearing.
Frances released the brake.
The grasshopper rolled forward.
Slow at first.
The tail came up.
Speed increased.
30 mph.
40.
The German soldiers were 100 yards away, running hard.
One dropped to a knee and raised his rifle.
50 mph.
Frances pulled back on the stick.
The grasshopper lifted off.
The wheels left the mud.
The aircraft climbed through 20 ft.
30.
A rifle shot cracked somewhere behind them.
Frances did not know if it hit.
Did not look back.
Just kept climbing.
60 feet.
80.
100.
The clearing disappeared below.
Trees passed underneath.
The German soldiers grew smaller.
Another shot.
Then nothing.
The grasshopper climbed west at 500 ft per minute.
Frances checked his watch.
10:07.
They had been on the ground for 15 minutes.
The pilot sat rigid on his lap, arms trapped, staring through the windscreen at nothing.
Behind them, Martin held the wounded observer upright.
The Germans head lulled against Martin’s shoulder, still breathing, still alive.
Frances spotted American tanks 12 minutes later.
A column of Shermans moving east on a road below.
He circled once, waggled his wings, descended to 200 ft, and looked for a place to land.
found a field north of the road.
Soft ground but flat.
Good enough.
The grasshopper touched down at 10:21.
Francies cut the engine.
Tank crews were already running toward them across the field.
Sergeant with a Thompson submachine gun.
Three privates with M1 rifles.
They surrounded the aircraft, weapons raised, ready to shoot if the Germans tried anything.
Frances climbed out with the pilot still in front of him, hands up, showing he was American, showing the German was a prisoner.
Martin climbed out next, then helped the wounded observer down from the rear seat.
The kid nearly collapsed.
Martin caught him, lowered him to the grass.
The sergeant stared at them, at the tiny observation plane, at the two German air crew, at the blood soaked bandages.
He said something Frances did not quite hear over the sound of tank engines on the road.
Frances explained in 30 seconds.
Chased a storch, shot it down with pistols, landed, bandaged the wounded German, got jumped by Vermach troops, took off with both Germans, flew west, landed here.
The whole story, start to finish.
The sergeant just nodded.
He had probably seen stranger things in the past 11 months.
He detailed two men to take the prisoners back to the division intelligence section.
Another man offered Frances and Martin cantens water.
They drank.
The wounded observer looked back at Frances as the tank crews led him away.
The German said something.
Frances did not understand the words, but understood the meaning.
Thank you for the bandages.
For not leaving him to bleed out in the mud.
For saving his life even though they were enemies.
Frances never learned his name, never learned the pilot’s name either, never found out if they were important, never found out what happened to them after that morning.
They disappeared into the prisoner system.
Two more Germans among millions.
Two more enemies who became statistics.
But for 15 minutes in a clearing near Dannenburgg, they had been something else.
They had been wounded men who needed help.
And Frances had helped them.
Frances and Martin flew back to the 71st Armored Field Artillery Battalion at 11:15.
The Grasshopper landed at the battalion’s forward air strip.
A dirt road widened into a makeshift runway.
Three other L4s sat parked under camouflage netting.
Mechanics were working on one, changing spark plugs, replacing fabric torn by ground fire.
The battalion operations officer met them at the flight line.
Major combat infantry badge.
He listened to Frances’s report.
Listened to the whole story.
Storch spotted, chase, pistol fight, crash landing, German troops, escape with prisoners.
The major wrote it down.
Every detail, then told Frances to write an afteraction report, full account, submitted by 1700 hours.
Francis spent two hours writing.
He used simple language, factual statements, times, and locations.
what happened and when it happened.
No speculation, no drama, just the events as they occurred.
He finished at 13:30, submitted the report to battalion headquarters, then went to find food.
The fifth armored division pushed deeper into Germany over the next 3 days.
American forces reached the Ela River on April 12th, 45 mi from Berlin.
Close enough that Francis could see smoke from the city during high alitude reconnaissance missions.
close enough that rumors started spreading.
Would they push to Berlin? Would they race the Soviets? Would the war end in a week or a month? It ended in less than a month.
Hitler killed himself on April 30th.
Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7th.
Victory in Europe Day came on May 8th.
Church bells rang across liberated France and Belgium.
Soldiers fired weapons into the air.
Tank crews painted victory slogans on their Shermans.
The European War was over.
3 years, 11 months, 13 days since D-Day.
Finished.
Frances had flown 149 combat missions, seven more after shooting down the Storch.
Seven more days of searching roads and tree lines for targets that became less common each day.
By May 1st, most German units had stopped fighting.
By May 5th, most had surrendered.
By May 8th, it was over.
On April 24th, his battalion commander recommended him for the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The recommendation cited the engagement with the Storch, cited the decision to attack an enemy aircraft with only sidearms, cited the successful force landing of an enemy plane, cited the capture of two enemy air crew, cited extraordinary achievement in aerial flight.
The recommendation went up through channels, division headquarters, core headquarters, army headquarters.
Then it disappeared.
Not officially, not permanently, but it vanished into the military bureaucracy that was processing 10 million soldiers and airmen and sailors at the end of the largest war in human history.
The recommendation existed.
Someone had filed it.
Someone had stamped it.
Someone had forwarded it to someone else.
But somewhere in that chain, it stopped moving.
Frances waited.
Weeks passed.
The division moved to occupation duty.
Frances flew administrative missions, mail runs, supply checks, liaison flights, nothing dangerous, nothing requiring pistol fights at 700 ft, just routine peacetime flying over defeated Germany.
The Distinguished Flying Cross never came.
He received other awards.
The Bronze Star for rescuing a wounded forward observer in September 1944, the Air Medal for sustained operational flights against the enemy.
Both were legitimate.
Both were deserved, but neither was for shooting down an enemy aircraft with a pistol.
In October 1945, the Fifth Armored Division sailed home.
Francy’s arrived at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey on October 2nd.
The division was inactivated on October 11th.
Soldiers scattered.
Some stayed in the army.
Most went home.
Frances went home.
Back to Wachi, Washington.
Back to civilian life.
back to a world without combat missions in German fighters and pistol duels at 700 ft.
He married Joanne Hollson in March 1947.
Got a job, built a life.
The war became something that happened years ago.
The storch became a story he told sometimes at veteran gatherings, at reunions.
When people asked what he did in the war, he told them about the pistol fight, about shooting down a German observation plane with a 45, about landing and bandaging the wounded crewman.
People usually did not believe him.
It sounded too much like something from a movie.
Too dramatic, too impossible, but it had happened.
And somewhere in army records, there was a recommendation for a distinguished flying cross.
filed, forgotten, lost in the paperwork of a war that had ended 22 years earlier.
Then in 1966, someone found it.
Cornelius Ryan was writing a book about the final days of World War II in Europe, the last battle, a massive research project.
Ryan interviewed hundreds of veterans, American, British, German, Russian.
He combed through military archives, unit histories, afteraction reports, personal accounts.
He was looking for stories that showed what the end of the war looked like on the ground, what soldiers experienced in those final chaotic weeks when Germany collapsed.
Someone mentioned Frances, a veteran from the fifth armored division, said he had shot down a German plane with a pistol.
Ryan investigated, found the afteraction report from April 11th, 1945, found witness statements, found the recommendation for the Distinguished Flying Cross, found that the recommendation had never been processed, never approved, never denied, just filed and forgotten.
Ryan included the story in his book.
Not a long section, maybe two pages, but he included all the key details.
the storch, the pistol fight, the crash landing, the wounded German, the escape, and he included a footnote.
The footnote stated that Lieutenant Francis had been recommended for the distinguished flying cross, but had never received it.
That despite performing what might be the most unusual aerial victory in the European theater, the army had never officially recognized the achievement.
The Last Battle was published in 1966.
It became a bestseller.
Hundreds of thousands of copies sold.
People across America read about the final assault on Berlin, about Soviet armies crushing into the city from the east, about American forces stopping at the Elb, about Hitler’s suicide in his bunker, about the Reich’s final collapse, and some people read the footnote about a lieutenant from Washington State who shot down a German plane with a 45 caliber pistol and never got his medal.
One of those people was Senator Henry Jackson, Democrat from Washington, known as Scoop.
He represented Francy’s home state.
He had served in Congress since 1941.
He understood military bureaucracy.
He understood how paperwork disappeared, how recommendations got lost, how soldiers who deserved recognition sometimes fell through the cracks.
Jackson’s office contacted Frances in early 1967.
Asked if the story in Ryan’s book was accurate.
Asked if he had really never received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Asked if he wanted the senator to investigate.
Frances confirmed everything.
Yes, the story was accurate.
Yes, he had never received the medal.
Yes, he would appreciate any help getting the record corrected.
Jackson went to work.
His staff pulled files from the National Archives.
Found the original recommendation dated April 24th, 1945.
Found supporting statements from Major William Martin.
Found the battalion commander endorsement.
Found that the recommendation had moved through Fifth Armor Division headquarters.
had been approved at division level, had been forwarded to 9inth Army headquarters in May 1945, and there it had stopped.
Not rejected, not disapproved, just stopped.
The 9th Army had been dissolving.
Units were going home.
Staff officers were processing discharge papers and closing bases and shipping equipment back to the United States.
Someone had probably put the recommendation in a file intending to process it later, then got transferred or discharged or forgot, and the file sat for 22 years.
Jackson pushed the case through the Department of Defense.
His office sent letters, made phone calls, followed up weekly.
The bureaucracy moved slowly, but it moved.
By February 1967, the Distinguished Flying Cross had been officially approved.
By March, arrangements were being made for a presentation ceremony.
On March 13th, 1967, Captain Merritt Dwayne Francies stood at Holman Field in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
He was 45 years old now, a commercial pilot, a father, a civilian who had not worn a military uniform in 22 years.
But today, he wore his old army uniform, ribbons on the chest, captain’s bars on the shoulders.
He had stayed in the army reserve after the war, had been promoted twice, had never stopped being a soldier even after he went home.
Major General Lucius D.
Clay stood in front of him, the general who had commanded the Berlin airlift, the general who understood what it meant to fly dangerous missions in tiny aircraft.
He held the distinguished flying cross, blue ribbon with red and white stripes, bronze cross with propeller blades in the angles.
Simple, elegant.
22 years late.
Clay pinned the medal on Francy’s chest, shook his hand, said something about extraordinary achievement, about heroism, about an action that exemplified the American spirit.
Francancy stood at attention, said thank you, said it was an honor, said he was just doing his job.
22 years from a clearing near Dannenburgg to an airfield in Minnesota, from combat to recognition, from war to peace.
The metal felt light on his chest, but it felt right.
The story of the pistol fight at 700 ft became known after 1967.
Not famous, not legendary, but known.
Aviation historians wrote about it.
Military journals published articles.
The Distinguished Flying Cross Society added Frances to their records as one of the most unusual aerial victories in American history.
But what made it unusual was not just the pistols, not just the tiny fabric observation planes fighting like fighters, not just the crash landing or the wounded German or the escape from Vermach troops in the trees.
What made it unusual was the decision Francis had options.
On the morning of April 11th, 1945, when he saw that storch heading toward American lines, he could have radioed for fighters, could have flown back to report its location, could have followed it from a distance and marked its position for artillery.
Those were all reasonable choices, safe choices, choices that would not require him to attack a military aircraft with nothing but a sidearm.
But those choices would have taken time and time meant the storch would reach German lines would radio coordinates would give German artillery the exact locations of 500 American tanks.
Men would die the same way 27 men had died at Araore when German observers spotted their positions.
So Frances chose differently.
He opened his door, drew his pistol, flew at an enemy aircraft because waiting was not an option.
because calling for help was too slow.
Because sometimes the only way to save lives was to risk your own.
That decision defined the kind of soldier he had been, the kind of man he became.
Frances continued flying after the war, commercial aviation, cargo routes, passenger flights.
He logged thousands of hours in aircraft much larger and more powerful than the L4 Grasshopper.
But he never forgot April 11th.
Never forgot the storch circling above Dannenburgg.
Never forgot the feel of the pistol in his hand or the sound of bullets hitting fabric or the face of the wounded German observer lying in the mud.
He died on May 5th, 2004 at his home in Chalan, Washington, 82 years old, 59 years after the end of the war in Europe.
He left behind a wife, children, grandchildren, a career of civilian flying, a drawer full of medals, including the distinguished flying cross he had waited 22 years to receive.
And he left behind a story.
A story about two men in a tiny observation plane who decided to fight back.
About pistols and fabric and courage at 700 ft.
about landing behind enemy lines to help a wounded enemy, about doing what needed to be done even when the odds said it was impossible.
The last dog fight on the Western Front was not fought by P-51 Mustangs or Spitfires or Thunderbolts.
It was fought by an L4 Grasshopper with 65 horsepower and two 45 caliber pistols.
It was fought by men who understood that wars are not won only by the biggest weapons or the fastest aircraft.
They are won by soldiers who see what needs to be done and do it no matter how small their plane, no matter how inadequate their weapons, no matter how impossible the mission.
Frances proved that on April 11th, 1945.
Proved it again when he bandaged his enemy’s wounds instead of leaving him to die.
proved it one final time when he waited 22 years for recognition and never complained, never demanded, never gave up.
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