EvanL
04-27-2004, 02:03 PM
Sixty years later, a decorated Spitfire pilot from 412 Squadron is finally being credited with the strafing attack on a German staff car in France that severely wounded Hitler's most accomplished general
RANDY BOSWELL
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Canadian pilot Charley Fox is now credited with this Spitfire attack on a staff car that seriously wounded German general Erwin Rommel.
CREDIT: LANCE RUSSWURM, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
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Charley Fox at the cannon of his Spitfire during the war.
CREDIT: CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
A Canadian pilot long recognized for his Second World War heroics - including three sorties on D-Day alone - is now being credited with knocking legendary German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel out of action in the crucial weeks following the invasion of Normandy.
The story of how Spitfire pilot Charley Fox strafed Rommel's staff car as it sped through the French countryside July 17, 1944, is finally becoming clear after almost 60 years of uncertainty over who wounded the man known as "the Desert Fox."
A U.S. air crew initially claimed the strike. Many accounts credit South African pilot J.J. Le Roux.
But a Quebec historian researching at the Library and Archives of Canada says the official operational record book of Fox's unit, 412 Squadron, puts the Ontario-born pilot in the air at the right time and place.
"Charley Fox is probably the guy that fired at Rommel's car," concludes Michel Lavigne, author of several books about the Second World War.
"This is the official account from the time, usually filled out by a clerk with the squadron, recording when planes took off and came back. It's very precise, very exact."
Lavigne's findings confirm Fox's own log entry from that day, and his recollections.
"We took off late in the afternoon," recalls Fox, 84, who lives in London, Ont., and is to be installed as honorary colonel of his old wartime unit, 412 Squadron, this week in Ottawa.
"As soon as we got airborne at Bernieres-sur-Mer, we started heading toward Caen and we split up into three sections of four, and we were to look for 'targets of opportunity' - anything that was moving. It was the other side of Caen, and I saw this staff car coming along between a line of trees on a main road," Fox said.
"I made no motion until it was just about 9 o'clock, and I did a diving, curving attack down and I probably started firing at about 300 yards. I saw hits on it and I saw it start to curve and go off the road - and by then I'm on my way."
Fox says the incident remains "very clear in my mind." And the July 17 entry in his wartime log book records "1 staff car damaged" along with a mechanical transport vehicle destroyed. At the end of the entry, Fox had written: "? Rommel - Yes."
The attack marked the end of Rommel's brilliant career. While still recovering from severe head injuries suffered in the car crash, he was falsely implicated in a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler and forced to swallow poison pills in October 1944.
Fox, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, says initially he wasn't interested in pushing a claim for the attack.
"The day that this happened, July 17, that evening the Americans claimed that they got him with a P-47," he recalls. "As far as I was concerned, end of story."
But German reports soon indicated the attack had been carried out by two Spitfires. Recently, artist Lance Russwurm approached Fox about helping him depict the incident.
Around the same time, Lavigne told Fox about his findings.
At Fox's investiture Friday as honorary colonel, Russwurm's painting of Rommel Under Attack will be presented to 412 Squadron.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2004
RANDY BOSWELL
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Canadian pilot Charley Fox is now credited with this Spitfire attack on a staff car that seriously wounded German general Erwin Rommel.
CREDIT: LANCE RUSSWURM, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
ADVERTISEMENT
Charley Fox at the cannon of his Spitfire during the war.
CREDIT: CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
A Canadian pilot long recognized for his Second World War heroics - including three sorties on D-Day alone - is now being credited with knocking legendary German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel out of action in the crucial weeks following the invasion of Normandy.
The story of how Spitfire pilot Charley Fox strafed Rommel's staff car as it sped through the French countryside July 17, 1944, is finally becoming clear after almost 60 years of uncertainty over who wounded the man known as "the Desert Fox."
A U.S. air crew initially claimed the strike. Many accounts credit South African pilot J.J. Le Roux.
But a Quebec historian researching at the Library and Archives of Canada says the official operational record book of Fox's unit, 412 Squadron, puts the Ontario-born pilot in the air at the right time and place.
"Charley Fox is probably the guy that fired at Rommel's car," concludes Michel Lavigne, author of several books about the Second World War.
"This is the official account from the time, usually filled out by a clerk with the squadron, recording when planes took off and came back. It's very precise, very exact."
Lavigne's findings confirm Fox's own log entry from that day, and his recollections.
"We took off late in the afternoon," recalls Fox, 84, who lives in London, Ont., and is to be installed as honorary colonel of his old wartime unit, 412 Squadron, this week in Ottawa.
"As soon as we got airborne at Bernieres-sur-Mer, we started heading toward Caen and we split up into three sections of four, and we were to look for 'targets of opportunity' - anything that was moving. It was the other side of Caen, and I saw this staff car coming along between a line of trees on a main road," Fox said.
"I made no motion until it was just about 9 o'clock, and I did a diving, curving attack down and I probably started firing at about 300 yards. I saw hits on it and I saw it start to curve and go off the road - and by then I'm on my way."
Fox says the incident remains "very clear in my mind." And the July 17 entry in his wartime log book records "1 staff car damaged" along with a mechanical transport vehicle destroyed. At the end of the entry, Fox had written: "? Rommel - Yes."
The attack marked the end of Rommel's brilliant career. While still recovering from severe head injuries suffered in the car crash, he was falsely implicated in a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler and forced to swallow poison pills in October 1944.
Fox, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, says initially he wasn't interested in pushing a claim for the attack.
"The day that this happened, July 17, that evening the Americans claimed that they got him with a P-47," he recalls. "As far as I was concerned, end of story."
But German reports soon indicated the attack had been carried out by two Spitfires. Recently, artist Lance Russwurm approached Fox about helping him depict the incident.
Around the same time, Lavigne told Fox about his findings.
At Fox's investiture Friday as honorary colonel, Russwurm's painting of Rommel Under Attack will be presented to 412 Squadron.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2004