IN THE AIR ,AGAIN Our Sq. stayed a few more weeks at Villa Coublay before moving to Cambrai, France and then to St. Trond , Belgium. I can recall one operational mission that Tommy and I were on after returning to combat duty. I do not remember the target except it was near the German border. It was a cloudless day, we were at 15,000 ft nearing the target, when I saw in the distance ahead, a wiggly plume of smoke ascending straight up into the sky and disappear. We were exercising strict radio silence so no one commented on this phenomenon we had not seen before. At the intellegence briefing after the mission we concluded we had seen the launching of a V-2 rocket with which the Germans were indiscriminately dropping high explosives on London. Midway on the way back to base, it was with a great feeling of relief when a large barrage of .40 mm ammo harmlessley exploded below us forming a dense black cloud. Had we been flying 500 or so feet lower the outcome could have been much different. As we neared Paris it was apparent the city was covered by a dense overcast. Soon we could see the top one-fourth of the Eiffel Tower sticking out of the clouds. Oh,Oh! That meant the clouds were really near the ground and landing would be a real challenge. When we arrived over Paris we discovered it was not clouds--but smog! A temperature inversion existed that did not allow the smog to dissipate into the atmosphere trapping the pollutantsl near the surface. The sun was low in the West and the reflecting rays made the smog look like clouds as we viewed from above. We could see the ground only by looking straight down from the cockpit. We were three flights of four aircraft; who was leading the last flight? You guessed it! I circled the Airfield as the first eight P-47's went in and landed successfuly---that is, all except Number eight who landed on the only runway with his wheels up, blocking me from bringing in my Fligh!. It had been a long mission, fuel was becoming a factor. Engineering advised they would remove the disabled plane as quickly as possible. My Sq. Commander gave me two choices. 1. If I thought we had enough fuel, to continue circling until the runway was cleared--15 to 20 minutes,or, 2. Go and land at Orly Field in Paris. Under normal conditions, option no. 2 would have been a piece of cake. Conditions were not normal. I could see us wasting valuable fuel in an unsuccessful search for Orly and not enough fuel to find our way back to Villa Coublay. So we leaned our fuel mixture controls to the maximum and circled the field at the lowest possible airspeed. All of our low-fuel warning lights were glowing when the "runway now clear" announcement came. We landed without delay--and our last pilot ran out of fuel on the runway and had to be towed to the ramp! How many more times is Divine Providence going to intervene and save me from destruction or disgrace? Two more times immediately come to mind and when I purge them from my memory, this Mini-Bio will end. ©whcameron2000