Frank Speer

One Down, One Dead: the Personal Adventures of Two Fourth Fighter Group Combat Pilots As They Face the Luftwaffe over Germany Frank Speer

Two WWII fighter pilots, raised on different continents and trained in different countries, fight life or death combat with the Luftwaffe over Europe. They flew P-51 Mustangs in the 4th Fighter Group and contributed to the Group score of a record 1000-plus enemy planes destroyed, the highest total of any Allied Group. They became Aces within a day of each other; then one was killed in combat on D-Day, while the other, having been shot down, trekked across northern Germany in a futile effort to evade capture. He is finally captured and as a POW, is forced to participate in a "Death March." After several unsuccessful attempts, he and a fellow POW finally escape. Leading a handful of French forced-laborers they capture 25 German soldiers, turn them over to Patton's advancing Third Army and eventually return to the U. S. by hospital ship.