Vanished Hero: The Life, War and Mysterious Disappearance of America’s WWII Strafing King

by Stout, Jay

  The group’s 343rd Fighter Squadron arrived over the airfield at Kamenz, about 25 miles northeast of Dresden. Based there were elements of Schlachtgeschwader 77, or SG 77. SG 77 was a ground-attack unit that operated heavily armed and armored FW-190s. At that time, loaded with bombs and antitank rockets, its pilots were engaged in operations against Red Army units advancing from the east.

  Robert Welch and Philip Erby spotted a pair of SG 77 FW-190s that had just gotten airborne out of Kamenz. Welch led Erby on a diving attack. “I took the one on the left, and he [Erby] took the one on the right. They were flying line abreast at 3,000 feet. We came down on them from 9,000 feet and attacked, from dead astern.” The German pilots did not react and apparently never spotted their attackers. “We both knocked them down at about the same time,” said Welch. “I watched his 190 crash, just south of mine, in a woods near a lake. It exploded and burned upon crashing.”

  Welch and Erby paid for their aggressiveness. “Suddenly I was hit by flak,” Welch recorded, “so I called Lieutenant Erby and told him I was heading for Russian lines.” Erby responded that he had also been hit and asked Welch to wait for him. In the haze, the two pilots had lost sight of each other. Welch decided to turn back toward the American lines and radioed his intentions to Erby who agreed to do the same. “He called about four minutes later and said he was going to bail out,” Welch said. “He never called again and I could not raise him after repeated attempts.”1

  Richard Gibbs and his wingman followed Welch and Erby, but broke away as antiaircraft fire from the airfield intensified. As Gibbs felt his way around Kamenz—clear of the deadly guns—he caught sight of two more FW-190s just taking off to the west. He waited until the two German pilots were well clear of the airfield and then dived after one of the FW-190s, opening fire at a range of five hundred yards. “I was on his tail and closed all the way to 40 yards, firing all the time. The 190 burst into flames and did a half roll into the trees. We were both at 100 to 200 feet when he dove to the ground.”

  With oil from the downed enemy aircraft smeared across his windscreen, Gibbs pulled up and away. “I started doing climbing turns looking around for something else to latch onto.” Spying another FW-190 crossing above him, Gibbs raised the nose of his P-51 and sprayed the enemy aircraft with his six machine guns. Noting hits on the German aircraft’s wings, he turned hard behind it and fired several more bursts, “hitting him along the fuselage. The FW-190 continued in his dive and I passed him up at 1,000 feet, noting holes in the tail, and the canopy gone, with the pilot looking over at me. By the time he hit the ground he was smoking badly. The pilot tried to belly land, but was not very successful.”2

  The four aircraft that Gibbs, Welch and Erby knocked down were among the nine total aerial victories the 343rd claimed that day against SG 77. Still, the action around Kamenz that day was costly. Aside from Erby, George Apple and Daniel Langelier were shot down and killed by antiaircraft fire. Neither Erby’s remains, nor Langelier’s, were ever recovered.

  Righetti and Carroll Henry—with the 338th overhead—found the enemy at Riesa. And that is where Righetti’s Katydid was caught by the enemy antiaircraft fire.

  Immediately after being hit, Righetti called that he was losing oil pressure. Carroll Henry watched antiaircraft rounds streak past Righetti’s Katydid. “I saw a burst,” he said, “and I saw the plane losing coolant.” Henry called over the radio and warned Righetti that his aircraft was streaming the water and glycol mixture that was so critical to keeping the engine operating within its temperature limits. It was the P-51’s Achilles heel. Oil system aside, without coolant the engine overheated and seized—often within just a minute or so.

  Righetti reefed Katydid into a hard, climbing turn as soon as he was hit. Once he was satisfied that he did not need to immediately bail out, he checked his engine gauges and saw nothing good. Nevertheless, there wasn’t much he could do about it and he glanced away to check for enemy fighters.

  Righetti’s reputation as an extraordinarily aggressive pilot was well known, but his subsequent actions, especially considering the reality that his engine was about to quit, and the additional fact that he was still under fire from the antiaircraft guns that were positioned around the airfield, were almost farcical. “I have enough ammo for one more pass,” he called.3 Instead of limping away toward relative safety, Righetti hauled his aircraft around through several more hard turns, dropped down to the deck and shot up another aircraft.

  Although certainly too caught up in the moment to consider it, so much of what he had written home to Cathryn and his family—and much of what they had written to him—became suddenly, terribly and dreadfully real and relevant. I’m going off to war now, Mom … Words can’t express what a really wonderful game this is … Don’t be a fool, Bud … If I get home … I love you more than I ever have before … you don’t get knocked off until your number comes up … Hope this isn’t too ugly … I wonder too, occasionally, if I’m changing a little …

  Henry tried to follow Righetti, as he recorded in the Missing Air Crew Report, or MACR: “I called him, telling him that I was tacking on. He acknowledged, saying that he was heading out on 270 degrees [west]. I was about 3,000 feet and overran him due to excess speed gained while letting down. He was at six o’clock [behind] to me and I rolled out on 270 degrees.”4

  Henry pulled his throttle back and made several turns as he tried to regain sight of his commander. It was no good—Righetti was nowhere to be seen. Likewise, no one in the 338th orbiting overhead was able to track his aircraft through the haze.

  It was only a short time later that the engine gave up. Righetti opted to crash land rather than bail out, and he pointed Katydid toward an open space in the Saxony countryside. He left his landing gear tucked in the wings. If he landed on rough ground with his wheels extended there was a good chance they might snag on something and send the aircraft somersaulting.

  The silver fighter touched down and the shriek of its metal underside ripping across the ground drowned out every other sound. It decelerated violently and Righetti’s face smashed into the gunsight; he had forgotten to lock his safety harness. An instant or two later, Katydid heaved to a stop. Aside from his heavy breathing there was no sound but a faint ticking as the hot metal of the dead engine cooled and contracted.

  Still seeing stars, Righetti called over the radio. “Tell the family I’m okay. Broke my nose on landing. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun working with you, gang. Be seeing you a little later.”5

  “YOUR LITTLE DAUGHTER IS SURE GETTING CUTER”

  Ray Sharp, the rotund little smartass, orbited high overhead with the rest of the 338th. It was Sharp who, several months earlier, had told Righetti to fetch coal for the junior officers. Now, with Righetti down in enemy territory, he broke radio discipline to take one last dig: “Tough luck, Colonel!”

  Poor weather in England and low fuel compelled most of the 55th to land at bases on the continent that afternoon. Nevertheless, there was melancholy and angst among the group’s men upon learning that Righetti had gone down. “We felt that we’d had a little wind taken out of our sails,” said Ed Giller.1 Frank Stich, who shared the same birthday as Righetti, was left holding the bottle of champagne they had planned to finish upon Righetti’s return. The two Red Cross workers, Jan Houston Monaghan and Nelle Huse, wondered if Righetti would have been safe and sound that very moment if they had followed through on the idea to host a birthday tea for him.

  “When I found out what happened to Colonel Righetti,” said Don Downes, “I felt really badly.” Downes was the crew chief who had fled Wormingford in the wake of his run-in with Righetti prior to the mission. “He was a strong-minded man, but he was fair.”

  “We had all seen a number of our buddies go down,” recalled Carroll Henry, “but never before had I seen such a sad and downhearted bunch of fellows because of the loss of our best buddy and commanding officer.”2 Still, Righetti had made a successful crash landing, and the end of the war
was near at hand. There were real expectations that he would be back at Wormingford within weeks.

  Tom Welch included a tribute to him in the group’s mission summary report. It is obvious that he had no idea that Righetti had been shot down on his thirtieth birthday:

  We’re going to miss you, Colonel. All twenty-nine years of your bursting energy and vitality, your eagerness and courage, your initiative and leadership that moulded [sic] us into a deadly fightin’ machine, whipping the Hun at every turn. We’re going to miss your cheerfulness, your decisiveness, and your understanding of human nature. You spelled aggressiveness whenever and wherever you flew, and made us into one of the eagerest gangs of eager beavers.

  Arthur Thorsen recalled that Welch, “Voiced the feeling of every man in the group.”3 Third Air Division’s magazine, Strikes, reproduced Welch’s tribute to Righetti in its edition of April 21, only four days after he had gone down.

  And then, nothing happened. The 55th flew its last mission four days later on April 21. As expected, the war ended early the next month on May 8, 1945. And with the battle for Okinawa still raging in the Ryukus, and the invasion of Japan anticipated for late that year, the group started training for operations in the Pacific. Although attention was focused elsewhere at that point, Righetti’s record of 27 enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground stood as the highest tally in the Eighth Air Force.

  And still, there was no word of him.

  In fact, all through the remainder of that spring there was no information on Righetti or his whereabouts. This seemed particularly odd since, on the day he had gone down, the American lines were only about forty miles to the west while the Red Army was roughly the same distance to the east. Both forces closed on the area rapidly, and met at the Elbe River a week later on April 25.

  The area within which Righetti was presumed to have put his aircraft down was later occupied by the Soviets. In as much as it is implicit that invading armies create chaos, the Red Army was in a class of its own. No nation had been so brutalized by Germany as had the Soviet Union and its soldiers exacted retribution whenever, wherever and however they could. Armed lawlessness was the norm as the Soviets raced into the Reich, and many Germans were unable to protect their personal property. Indeed, the best that most could hope for was to go unmolested as robbery, rape and capricious killings were commonplace, and resistance virtually guaranteed a bullet. The following story from Riesa stands as an example:

  After the Russian army arrived they went into the houses and plundered and did many other terrible things. Most of the Russian soldiers were drunk. On one farm the Russians found an automobile, quite a rare thing then, and they wanted to take it. But there had been no gasoline for a long time and therefore they couldn’t start it. The Russians gave the farmer five minutes to get the car started and if he couldn’t they wanted to shoot him. Of course the car wouldn’t start. Only because the farmer’s wife and children stood in front of the farmer and wouldn’t move, the Russians let him live, but then burned down his farm.4

  When it is considered that the Soviets lost tens of millions of lives in the fighting, and were otherwise busy exacting retribution on the German populace, the imperative to investigate the fates of a few downed American airmen was not strong. There is no indication that they spent any time doing so, at least not in the case of Righetti. And although the United States was already spending significant resources to discover the whereabouts of its servicemen—both living and dead—elsewhere, it was exceedingly difficult to do so in areas controlled by the Red Army.

  Lorraine worked at the Pentagon and was the first of the Righettis to learn that her brother had been shot down. “I was on duty one morning at my desk when another soldier came by and said he had read a brief article in the Washington Post that an Elwyn Righetti had gone down and was missing in action. I called home and Elwyn’s wife Katie answered the phone. I told her what I had heard but I didn’t talk to Mom or Dad.”5

  The War Department sent a telegram to Cathryn on May 3, 1945, just more than two weeks after Righetti went down. It informed her that he was missing and little else. The family feared the worst, but held tenaciously to the hope that Righetti was alive. Everyone on the ranch watched for the arrival of the telegram that would bring news of his safety, and there was always someone within reach of the telephone. Day after day, Ernie noted in his diary, “No word of Elwyn.”

  No one talked of the possibility that he might be dead—doing so might just make it so. It was a nearly a month later when a letter received from the Air Staff, dated May 31, 1945, outlined the information that Carroll Henry had provided in the 55th’s mission summary report for April 17, 1945.6

  For a month or so the family continued to write letters to Righetti just as regularly as when he was still flying out of Wormingford. Mom, who wrote to “Dearest Elwyn, our Hero,” was the most devoted. She stayed away from the dramatic and histrionic, and instead wrote of day-to-day doings. “Your little daughter is sure getting cuter every day, and so sweet too. This evening as she was ready for bed she came out to the back porch where I was busy at something and said, ‘Grandma, I want to kiss you good nite.’ She looked so sweet and clean and adorable as Kaki [Cathryn] had just bathed her. She is sure growing like a weed.”

  During the first couple of months following Righetti’s disappearance, the family’s hopes were not unreasonable. Europe was in a state of frenzied pandemonium at the close of the war, and for months afterward, as new governments came to power, old governments collapsed and borders were redrawn. Diplomatic relationships were still being established or patched, and the rift between the United States and the Soviet Union that would eventually grow into the Cold War was evident and growing. Moreover, refugees clogged cities that were unable to care for them, and disease and hunger were endemic. That there was no word from Righetti in such a scenario could be rationalized by loved ones desperate not to believe the worst.

  This was especially true when words of encouragement came from other sources. Major Tom Welch, Righetti’s good friend, and the 55th’s intelligence officer, was still in England. He made it clear to Elwyn’s mother and the rest of the family during July 1945 that finding Righetti was of primary importance to him. “I regret that at this time that I have no positive information concerning Rig’s whereabouts, however, rest assured that I am, to the best of my ability, trying to track him down. Things in general are still in a very confused state over on the continent, and you can appreciate the difficulties that are encountered.”7

  It was clear in his letter that Welch understood, to some degree, the family’s fretfulness. “I am fully cognizant of the continuous state of anxiety which you, Kate [Cathryn], and the others are suffering, and I wish that I could give you some positive assurance that would ease your minds. Lacking that, however, may I suggest that you think of me as your own personal family representative over here, at your disposal, and searchingly and thoroughly carrying out the one task that fills all our minds, namely that of locating Rig.” Welch’s fondness for Righetti and, by extension, the Righetti family, is what likely compelled him to make an incredibly imprudent statement, even though he surely knew better: “I am confident, and I want you to be too, that Rig is all right.”

  He shared his theory that he believed that Righetti crashed near Grossenhain, a small town about fifteen miles north of Dresden and about ten miles east of Riesa. This information was inconsistent with what was recorded in the 55th’s mission summary report immediately after Righetti went down. He also raised the possibility that Righetti might be under treatment in a German or Soviet hospital and unable to get word to the proper authorities. Welch closed his letter with a note that was too cheery—even condescending. “Please try not to worry, and feel confident that I will send you any information that I dig up, and as soon as I dig it up. Keep your heads high, and as they say in the Air Forces, your ‘thumbs up.’”

  It is curious that Tom Welch believed Righetti could have still been alive months after he h
ad been shot down. Welch knew Righetti as well or better than anyone from the 55th Fighter Group and understood his considerable energy and single-minded resourcefulness. Certainly, hospitalized or not, Righetti would have made his whereabouts known to the authorities and his family very quickly. After all, notwithstanding the very real confusion, discord and turmoil in Europe, the continent had not degenerated into total chaos.

  Any hope that Righetti simply hadn’t yet been processed through the Prisoner of War, or POW, system faded quickly. Although the Germans moved or marched many of them great distances during the last months of the war, American POWs were accounted for fairly quickly and accurately. Accordingly, Welch’s theory was little more than a thin weave of hopefulness and naiveté, and not nearly substantial enough to justify his belief that Righetti was alive and simply had not been located.

  Nothing continued to happen while the Righettis waited and clung to Welch’s reassurances. In fact, it seemed that the only time the government or anyone else took action was when the family asked, pleaded, or cajoled. For example, sister Lorraine wrote to the Associated Press to ask about a source quoted in an article that described the mission on which Righetti disappeared. “It has been four months since he was shot down, and to this day all we have had to go on is the usual ‘Missing in Action’ message from the War Department. We have contacted men in his group, but they have been unable to give us any help.”8

  The exasperation and hurt in Lorraine’s voice continued: “I would like to get to the source of that story to see if I might get a lead as to what became of him. Is there any way you can help me? I should appreciate anything you can tell me.” To its credit, the Associated Press answered her three days later, but gave her nothing new other than the name and address of the article’s author.