The story that follows is based on the experiences of Roy Warren Fox. He was a First Lieutenant in the Army. He was trained in using self-propelled automatic weapons, which consisted mostly of anti-aircraft fire. Mr. Fox enlisted on February 1, 1940 but did not get into the fighting until February of 1944; he later returned home in October of 1945. He served on the Susan B. Anthony until it sank just before the invasion of Normandy. He later went on to participate in the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. He now lives in Winchester, Connecticut, and is working on starting a new business.

Muddy Man

Lieutenant Roy Fox steadied his troops and reassured them, now that they had finally gotten their equipment back, they could start doing what they were trained to do, shoot German planes down. As he and his troops began to set up their equipment near the hospital which was treating their wounded, they saw the balloons that were floating overhead, and they knew they were safe for the time being. There were massive balloons flying over their heads, which they all knew were used to stop German fighter planes from flying above. The balloons protected all of them as they set up their equipment. He continued to give orders to place the guns, thinking they were safe.

It wasn’t until later in the day when the balloons were taken down that they began to hear the roar of a plane’s engine flying overhead. Everyone began to get worried and ran to their respective positions, readying to fight. Finally someone yelled, “It’s only a British fighter” and everyone calmed down. However, the fighter didn’t just fly by. Thinking it was over German territory and not Allied troops, it began to fire relentlessly on them.

“What the hell?” Lieutenant Fox screamed, “What is he thinking?” Roy ran back to the halftrack with forty millimeter guns mounted on it in order to stop the pilot from hurting anyone. While others took cover, Fox took the guns and shot at the plane flying overhead. Finally he hit the plane as it made its third pass at the encampment, and he could see it go down into a nearby swamp. Just as it hit, Fox jumped into a jeep and rushed to meet the pilot where he crashed.

About a mile down the road to the west, towards the swamp, he saw the pilot, covered in mud and stinking of it too, on the back of a jeep driving towards him. Fox knew that if it had been an American pilot, he would have been punched in the nose for shooting him down. As he drove up to the pilot he said, “I’m sorry, but I think we shot you down.” On the other hand, since it was a British pilot, he simply said, “Oh, quite all right old man. I was wrong; I thought I was over Gerry territory” and he kept on driving.

As Fox looked farther down the road to the spot the pilot had crashed, he saw the engine, wings and tail were about a few hundred feet apart. As he looked closer, he saw the trail that the pilot had rolled when the plane broke up during the crash. The track that he rolled through was a muddy, swampy area, which had probably saved his life, though covered him head to toe in mud. Lieutenant Fox couldn’t help but laugh at the pilot’s luck and misfortune as he drove back to the encampment of men.