Charles Blount was often the last person to see a paratrooper as he dove out of the plane over a drop zone. “I counted them as they went out,” Blount says, detailing the events that took place aboard his plane in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. From Normandy to Holland to the Battle of the Bulge, Blount saw the beginning of three major campaigns for victory in Europe. The following is the record of the plane crash he was involved in:
The plane was loaded with approximately 150-200 Jerry cans of gasoline. As Lt Estelle lowered the landing gear and made his approach to land, he instructed his crew chief to look out the glass dome for enemy planes. Charles Blount spotted two ME-109s behind and above them. He dropped to the floor and attempted to shout a warning, but 20MM explosive rounds were already ripping through the plane. A fragment from an exploding round struck TSgt Blount in the shoulder. The impact drove him back to the floor, landing behind the co-pilot’s seat. He managed to get into the cockpit and found the pilot and co-pilot uninjured. The pilot had shut all systems down to reduce the danger of fire inside the plane. One wing was ablaze as the pilot made a safe landing. In the words of TSgt Blount, “they landed without spilling a single can of gasoline.”
Later TSgt Blount found the base of the 20MM exploding round inside the plane, which he kept as a souvenir. The fragment in his shoulder remained there the rest of his life.
In 1981 in a bar, in Michigan, two men struck up a conversation. One said he had grown up in Germany, but now lived in the US and practiced law. The two men were about the same age which caused the second man to ask if the lawyer had been in the war. He stated he had been a fighter pilot. The second man said he had also been a C-47 pilot. The German said “I shot down a C-47 one morning near Kassel, Germany.”
The two pilots had first met 26 years earlier in the air near Kassel, Germany as war time enemies.
We honor you, Charles Blount.
(#Repost @Veteran’s History Project and National Purple Heart Hall of Honor)