At 1447 on August 18th, 1944, Lieutenant Royce Priest watched his squadron commander P-51 Mustang erupt in flames over occupied France. Black smoke pouring from the engine as the crippled fighter dropped toward a wheat field 20 m behind German lines. 21 years old, 2 months of combat, and the man he idolized was about to become a prisoner of war.
The Germans had hidden a flack battery inside a rail car. When Major Bert Marshall led his four ship flight in for a strafing run near STN, the sides of the box car dropped away and revealed 20 mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns already tracking their approach. The ambush caught the formation at point blank range. By August 1944, the Eighth Air Force was losing pilots at an alarming rate over France.
German flag batteries had become masters of concealment. They disguised gun positions as haystacks, farm buildings, and now railway cars marked with red cross symbols. American fighters flying lowaltitude strafing missions faced a gauntlet of hidden fire. The 355th fighter group alone had lost 17 pilots in the previous two months.
Some were killed instantly. Others belly landed in enemy territory and spent the rest of the war in Stalagluft prison camps. A few simply vanished, their fates never confirmed. Major Marshall was not supposed to be flying that day. As the 354th Fighter Squadron’s commanding officer, he could have delegated the mission to his flight leaders, but Marshall had a reputation for leading from the front.
He had arrived at the squadron in early June with only 3 hours of P-51 flight time after transitioning from the P40. His second combat mission was D-Day itself. On June 6th, he shot down a German Ju87 Stooka over the Normandy beaches. 2 weeks later, he destroyed two BF 109s. By early August, he had five confirmed kills, making him an ace in the shortest time in the history of the 355th Fighter Group.
His aggressive flying style earned him rapid promotions. Pilot to flight leader in days. Flight leader to operations officer in two weeks. Operations officer to squadron commander in under two months. Now that same aggressive style had put him in a burning cockpit over enemy territory. Lieutenant Priest had known of Bert Marshall long before the war.
Marshall had been a three-time all-state quarterback in Texas high school football and an honorable mention all-American at Vanderbilt University. When Priest discovered they were assigned to the same squadron, he considered it the luckiest break of his military career. He had studied Marshall’s tactics, copied his maneuvers, and tried to absorb everything the older pilot could teach him.
Priest watched Marshall’s Mustang trail fire as it descended. Mying The P-51’s Merlin engine had taken a direct hit below the exhaust stack. A second round had punctured the radiator scoop and coolant was hemorrhaging into the slipstream. The aircraft had minutes of flight time remaining, maybe less. The standard procedure was clear. When a pilot went down behind enemy lines, his wingmen were supposed to note the location, radio the coordinates to search and rescue, and return to base.
Attempting a pickup was not just discouraged. It was considered impossible. The P-51 Mustang was a singleseat fighter. There was no room for passengers. There was no protocol for landing in enemy wheat fields. There was no training for what Lieutenant Priest was about to do. If you want to see how Priest’s impossible decision turned out, please hit that like button.
It helps us share these forgotten stories with more people. Subscribe if you haven’t already. Back to Priest. Marshall’s burning Mustang disappeared below the treeine. Priest pushed his control stick forward and began his descent toward the same wheat field. His radio crackled with an order from Marshall.
The squadron commander was telling him to abort. Priest hand moved to the radio switch. He could acknowledge the order and turn for England. He could follow procedure and let the Germans take Marshall. His hand stopped. He had already made his choice. The P-51 Mustang was never designed to land in wheat fields. Its liquid cooled Packard Merlin engine sat low in the fuselage with the radiator scoop extending beneath the belly.
Any obstruction taller than 18 in, could rupture the coolant system and destroy the engine. The retractable landing gear was built for paved runways, not soft French farmland. A single rut or hidden rock could collapse a strut and flip the aircraft onto its back. Priest ignored all of this.
He dropped his flaps to 40°, cut his air speed to 90 mph, and lined up on the longest stretch of golden wheat he could find. The Mustang’s nose blocked his forward view during the descent. He had to judge his approach by looking out the side of the canopy, estimating his height above the grain by the blur of stalks rushing past his wing tip.
The wheels touched down hard. The aircraft bounced once, twice, then settled into the soft earth. Wheatstalks whipped against the fuselage as Priest stood on the brakes. The Mustang slowed, shuddered, and finally stopped 300 yd from the tree line where Marshall’s burning aircraft had disappeared. Priest immediately swung the fighter around to face the direction he had come.
If he needed to take off in a hurry, he could not afford to waste time turning. The Wheatfield stretched roughly 800 yd in the direction of the wind. It would have to be enough. Above him, the two remaining pilots from his flight circled at 1500 ft. They had watched his landing with disbelief. Now they scanned the roads and hedros for any sign of German response.
The answer came within seconds. A military truck had appeared on a dirt road half a mile to the east, moving fast toward the wheat field. The canvas cover over the truck bed meant infantry. Priest estimated 20 to 30 soldiers based on the vehicle’s size. The two Mustangs overhead rolled into their attack runs without hesitation.
Their six 50 caliber machine guns each could fire 14 rounds per second. The lead pilot opened fire at 400 yd, walking his tracers across the road and into the truck’s engine compartment. The vehicle swerved, caught fire, and rolled into a ditch. The second Mustang strafed the wreckage to ensure no survivors would reach the field, but the circling pilot spotted more movement.
A second truck was approaching from the north. A motorcycle with a sidec car had appeared on a farm track to the south. German patrols were converging on the crash site from multiple directions. The clock was running. Priest stood in his cockpit and searched the treeine for Marshall. Smoke rose from the woods where the squadron commander had gone down.
Marshall would have destroyed his aircraft by now. Every pilot carried thermite grenades specifically to incinerate crashed fighters and prevent their technology from falling into enemy hands. The Mustang’s Merlin engine, its K14 gun site, its IFFF transponder, all of it had to burn. 2 minutes passed. The Mustang’s overhead made another strafing run on the approaching motorcycle, scattering its riders into a hedge row.
Priest calculated his remaining time. The soft ground had left deep ruts behind his wheels. Taking off would require full power in every inch of the field. Adding a second man’s weight to a single seat cockpit would raise his stall speed and extend his takeoff roll. The mathematics were brutal. He might not have enough runway. 3 minutes.
Still no sign of Marshall. The second truck had stopped a/4 mile away. Priest could see soldiers dismounting, spreading into a skirmish line, beginning to advance through the wheat on foot. Then a figure emerged from the tree line. Major Bert Marshall was running toward the Mustang. His flight suit blackened with soot, his face twisted with anger.
He was waving his arms, not in greeting, in fury. He was ordering Priest to leave without him. Priest did the only thing he could think of. He climbed out of the cockpit, unbuckled his parachute harness, and dropped it onto the wing. Then he removed his survival dinghy, and tossed it into the wheat. Without a parachute, he could not bail out if the engine failed on the flight home.
Without the dinghy, he would drown if they went down over the English Channel. He was making his intentions unmistakable. He was not leaving France without his commanding officer. Marshall stopped running. He stood 50 yards from the aircraft, staring at the discarded equipment on the wing. The German soldiers were now visible above the wheat, their helmets bobbing as they pushed through the stalks.
The Mustangs overhead had exhausted most of their ammunition on the trucks. they could make one more strafing pass, maybe two, before their guns ran dry. Marshall sprinted the final distance to the aircraft. The cockpit of a P-51D Mustang measured 38 in wide and 42 in from the seat to the canopy rail. The space was designed for one pilot wearing a parachute, a survival vest, and a seatpack dinghy.
It was not designed for two full-grown men. Marshall was 5′ 11 in tall and weighed approximately 170 lb. Priest was slightly smaller, but still filled the standard flight gear dimensions. Together, they would occupy a space meant for a single human being. Marshall climbed onto the wing first. He lowered himself into the cockpit and slid as far down as possible, his back pressed against the armored seat plate, his legs extended beneath the instrument panel alongside the control stick.
Priest climbed in after him, settling onto Marshall’s lap with his own legs straddling his commander’s thighs. Their bodies compressed together like cargo in a shipping crate. The control stick jutted up between Priest’s knees. His shoulders pressed against Marshall’s chest. Their heads nearly touched the canopy glass.
Priest reached up and pulled the canopy closed. It latched with less than an inch of clearance above his flight helmet. The two men could barely breathe in the confinedspace. The August heat inside the greenhouse canopy was suffocating. Sweat immediately began soaking through their flight suits. The instrument panel was partially blocked by priest’s knees, but he could see the essential gauges: fuel pressure, oil temperature, manifold pressure.
He pushed the throttle forward and felt the Merlin engine surge to full power. 1,200 horsepower roared through the airframe. The propeller clawed at the air, pulling the overloaded Mustang forward through the wheat. The aircraft accelerated slowly. Too slowly. The combined weight of two pilots, full ammunition, and remaining fuel pushed the Mustang far beyond its designed gross weight.
The soft ground dragged at the wheels. Wheat stalks battered the radiator scoop beneath the fuselage. Priest watched his air speed climb. 60 mph, 70, 80. The tree line at the end of the field rushed toward them. A P-51 Mustang normally lifted off at approximately 100 mph. With the additional weight, Priest estimated he would need at least 115.
His airspeed indicator showed 95. As the trees filled his windscreen, he pulled back on the stick and felt the wheels leave the ground. The aircraft staggered into the air, barely climbing, the stall warning horns screaming in his ears. The treetops passed beneath them by what felt like inches.
Branches scraped against the belly of the aircraft. Then they were clear, climbing slowly over the French countryside. Two men crammed into a single seat fighter, alive against every reasonable expectation. Behind them, German soldiers emerged from the wheat field and watched the Mustang disappear to the west. Their quarry had escaped, but Priest and Marshall were still 200 m from England.
The aircraft was dangerously overweight. The engine was overheating from the strain, and somewhere ahead, German fighters were hunting for stragglers. The two remaining Mustangs from the flight formed up on either side of Priest’s aircraft as they climbed to 8,000 ft. Their role had shifted from combat to escort.
With their ammunition nearly depleted, they could not engage enemy fighters, but they could watch for threats and guide the overloaded aircraft home. Priest leveled off and reduced power to cruise settings. The engine temperature gauge had been climbing steadily since takeoff, and he needed to cool the Merlin before it seized.
The radiator scoop beneath the fuselage had ingested wheat stalks and debris during the ground roll. Air flow through the cooling system was partially blocked. The needle crept toward the red line with every passing minute. The flight path to England crossed 180 mi of occupied France before reaching the channel coast.
German flag batteries dotted the route. Luftwaffa airfields at Ivru Drew and Bouvet could scramble interceptors within minutes if spotters reported American aircraft. Priest kept his altitude low enough to avoid radar detection, but high enough to glide to a landing if the engine failed. Inside the cockpit, the heat was becoming unbearable.
The canopy acted like a greenhouse, trapping the August sun. Both men were drenched in sweat. Marshall’s position beneath priest meant he absorbed the full weight of his rescuer pressing down on his legs. Circulation was cut off within minutes. His feet went numb first, then his calves, then his thighs. He could not shift position even an inch.
The confined space locked them both in place like prisoners in a medieval torture device. Priest focused on flying. The control stick moved between his knees with limited range of motion. His elbows were pinned against his ribs by the narrow cockpit walls. Every input required careful precision. A sudden movement could jam the stick against Marshall’s legs and send the aircraft into a roll.
The escort pilots watched the engine cowling of Priest’s Mustang with growing concern. Coolant was beginning to stream from the radiator, leaving a white trail in the slipstream. The Merlin engine was slowly cooking itself. They estimated 15 to 20 minutes before catastrophic failure if the temperature continued rising. Priest spotted the problem on his gauges.
He had two options. He could reduce power further and extend his flight time but risk not reaching the channel before nightfall. Or he could maintain speed and hope the engine held together long enough to reach friendly territory. He chose speed. Better to crash in the channel where rescue boats patrolled than to go down over occupied France where German patrols would be waiting.
The French coastline appeared after 47 minutes of flight. The white cliffs of the Kotantan Peninsula passed beneath them. Still held by Allied forces following the Normandy breakout. Priest allowed himself a moment of relief. They had cleared occupied territory. If the engine quit now, they would land among friends.
The channel stretched ahead, 21 mi of cold gray water between France and England. Priest had discarded his dinghy in the wheat field. Marshall hadabandoned his with the burning aircraft. If they went down in the water, neither man would survive more than a few minutes in the frigid current. The engine temperature gauge touched the red line as they crossed the halfway point.
Priest watched the needle quiver at the upper limit, waiting for the sudden silence that would mean the Merlin had finally surrendered. The coastline of England appeared through the haze. White cliffs, green fields, the distinctive outline of the aisle of white to the east. The Mustang crossed the English coast with its engine still running.
Priest began his descent toward Steeple Mortyn, the 355th Fighter Group’s home base in Cambridge. The runway was still 60 mi ahead. The engine temperature was still climbing. He had saved his commander from the Germans. Now he had to save them both from the aircraft. The Mustang’s engine began misfiring 12 mi from Steeple Morton.
The steady roar of the Merlin fractured into an irregular stutter as overheated cylinders started failing. Priest enriched the fuel mixture and prayed the engine would hold together for another 5 minutes. The airfield appeared through the summer haze. Two concrete runways formed an X pattern across the Cambridge farmland.
Fire trucks and ambulances were already positioning along the main strip. The tower had received radio reports from the escort pilots. Everyone at Steeple Morton knew that an impossible aircraft was inbound. Priest entered the landing pattern at 140 mph, far faster than normal. The overweight Mustang needed the extra speed to maintain lift.
He dropped his landing gear and felt the reassuring thunk of the wheels locking into place. Flaps came down in stages 40°. The aircraft ballooned slightly, then settled. The runway rushed up to meet them. Priest flared the aircraft and felt the main wheels touch concrete. The tail dropped. The Mustang rolled down the center line, decelerating smoothly, the engine coughing and sputtering, but still turning.
He applied the brakes and brought the aircraft to a stop halfway down the runway. Ground crews sprinted toward the Mustang before the propeller stopped spinning. They expected to find a wounded pilot, perhaps a dying man who had somehow nursed his crippled aircraft home. What they found was something no one had ever seen before.
Two pilots unfolded themselves from a single cockpit like circus performers emerging from an impossibly small box. Marshall could not walk. His legs had been compressed beneath Priest’s weight for nearly 2 hours. The circulation had been cut off so completely that he collapsed when he tried to stand on the wing. Ground crew members carried him to a waiting ambulance.
Priest climbed down under his own power, his flight suit soaked with sweat, his legs shaking from exhaustion and adrenaline. The news spread through the 355th fighter group within minutes. Pilots gathered around the aircraft to examine the evidence. Wheat stalks protruded from every opening in the airframe. The radiator scoop was packed with vegetation and debris.
Oil streaked the cowling where the overheated engine had begun leaking. The ground crew chief estimated that the Merlin had been within seconds of seizing when priest shut it down. Mechanics spent two days cleaning the aircraft. They extracted wheat stubble from the landing gear wells, the tail wheel housing, the radiator fins, and the gun ports.
The radiator itself required complete disassembly to remove the packed debris. Several coolant lines had to be replaced. The engine needed a full inspection and partial rebuild. The rescue was unprecedented in the history of the Eighth Air Force. Other pilots had attempted similar landings to retrieve downed comrades.
Most had ended in disaster. Aircraft had flipped on soft ground, crashed into obstacles, or been destroyed by enemy fire before takeoff. No one had successfully landed a single seat fighter behind enemy lines, loaded a second pilot into the cockpit, and flown home. Word of priest’s action reached group headquarters that evening.
By morning, it had spread to eighth air force command. The story presented military leadership with an uncomfortable problem. Lieutenant Priest had directly disobeyed a lawful order from his commanding officer in combat twice. He had risked a valuable aircraft and his own life on an unauthorized rescue attempt.
Every regulation and procedure said he should face court marshall, but he had also saved the life of one of the most promising squadron commanders in the European theater. Major Bert Marshall was an ace with five confirmed kills. He was a proven combat leader with aggressive tactics that inspired his men. His capture would have been a significant loss.
The question landed on the desk of Major General James Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force. The same man who had led the famous raid on Tokyo in 1942, now had to decide the fate of a young lieutenant who had done something simultaneously heroic and insubordinate.General James Doolittle had faced impossible decisions before.
In April 1942, he had launched 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of an aircraft carrier, knowing that none of them could return. Every plane had crash, landed, or been abandoned when fuel ran out. Eight crewmen were captured by the Japanese. Three were executed. Doolittle himself had expected court marshal for losing all 16 aircraft.
Instead, he received the Medal of Honor. Now, he confronted a mirror image of that situation. A young pilot had risked everything on an unauthorized mission and succeeded. The parallel was uncomfortable. Doolittle requested the full afteraction reports from the 355th fighter group. He reviewed the radio transcripts, the witness statements from the escort pilots, and the maintenance logs documenting the condition of Priest’s aircraft. The evidence was unambiguous.
Lieutenant Priest had received a direct order from Major Marshall to abort the rescue attempt. He had acknowledged the order. Then he had ignored it and landed anyway. When Marshall repeated the order on the ground, priest had ignored it again. The uniform code of military justice was clear.
Disobeying a lawful order in combat was a court marshal offense. The punishment could range from reduction in rank to imprisonment. In extreme cases, it could mean execution. The regulations existed for good reason. Military operations depended on the chain of command. If every pilot made independent decisions based on personal judgment, coordinated action became impossible.
But Doolittle also understood something the regulations could not capture. The Eighth Air Force was losing pilots faster than replacements could be trained. Every experienced aviator who survived another mission increased the odds for the men around him. Marshall was not just any pilot. He was a squadron commander, an ace, a tactical innovator whose aggressive style had influenced the entire fighter group.
His capture would have damaged morale across the command. There was another consideration. The war was entering a critical phase. Allied forces had broken out of Normandy and were racing across France. The Luftvafa was weakening but still dangerous. American pilots needed to believe that their comrades would not abandon them if they went down.
Priest’s rescue demonstrated something powerful. It showed that the bonds between pilots could transcend orders, regulations, and personal risk. Doolittle weighed these factors for 3 days. He consulted with his staff. He reviewed the precedents for similar situations. There were none that matched exactly. Other pilots had attempted rescues behind enemy lines.
All had failed. Some had resulted in two prisoners instead of one. Others had ended with crashed aircraft and dead pilots. Priest was the first to succeed. The general made his decision. He would not court marshall Lieutenant Priest. Instead, he would recommend him for the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor.
The recommendation would acknowledge both the extraordinary courage of the rescue and the unprecedented nature of the achievement. But Doolittle added a caveat. He was uncomfortable with the message that a Medal of Honor might send. If other pilots attempted similar rescues and failed, the cost would be measured in lives and aircraft.
The eighth air force could not afford to encourage unauthorized heroics. Every pilot who landed behind enemy lines on a rescue attempt was gambling not just his own life but the resources of his unit. Doolittle revised his recommendation. Instead of the Medal of Honor, he proposed the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest award for valor.
The citation would praise Priest’s courage and skill while implicitly acknowledging that his actions, however successful, should not become standard practice. The paperwork moved through channels. 8th Air Force headquarters approved the recommendation and forwarded it to Washington. A ceremony was scheduled at Steeple Mortyn for late September.
Lieutenant Priest would receive his medal from General Doolittle personally. The general planned to deliver a message along with the decoration. He wanted priests to understand exactly why the Medal of Honor had been withheld. The ceremony took place on September 21st, 1944 at Steeple Morton. Pilots from all three squadrons of the 355th Fighter Group assembled on the flight line.
Ground crews paused their work to watch. The group commander stood beside General Doolittle as Lieutenant Priest marched forward to receive the Distinguished Service Cross. Doolittle pinned the medal to priest’s chest. The blue ribbon with red and white stripes hung below the silver cross. It was the same decoration Doolittle himself had received for the Tokyo raid before being upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
The symbolism was not lost on anyone present. The general held priest’s hand for a moment after the pinning. He looked the young lieutenant in the eyesand delivered the message he had planned. He had never considered issuing a regulation prohibiting pilots from landing behind enemy lines to rescue comrades.
The idea seemed so reckless, so fundamentally impossible that no reasonable person would attempt it. Priest had proven that assumption wrong. What he had done was simultaneously the bravest and most foolish action Doolittle had witnessed in two years of commanding the eighth air force. The medal recognized the bravery. The decision to withhold the Medal of Honor acknowledged the foolishness.
Priest accepted the decoration without protest. He had expected court marshall, not commendation. The distinguished service cross was more than he had dared hope for. In a letter written decades later to Bert Marshall’s son, he admitted that the uncertainty about his fate had been the most stressful part of the entire experience.
The flight itself had been terrifying. The waiting afterward had been worse. The rescue entered eighth air force legend as the first successful piggyback extraction in a P-51 Mustang. It would not be the last. Priest’s example inspired other pilots to attempt similar rescues over the following months. On August 28th, 10 days after Priest’s flight, another 355th Fighter Group pilot landed in occupied France to rescue a downed comrade.
His aircraft became stuck in mud. Both pilots evaded capture and eventually returned to Allied lines on foot. On October 3rd, two more rescue attempts occurred on the same day. One pilot successfully extracted his wingmen in a single seat fighter. The other became mired in soft ground. Both he and the pilot he tried to rescue were captured by German forces.
The mathematics of the gamble were becoming clear. Some rescues succeeded, others doubled the losses. The 20th Fighter Group recorded a successful piggyback rescue on November 18th, 1944. First Lieutenant Jack Ilfrey landed his P-51 in a pasture and extracted his wingman under enemy fire. The fourth fighter group added another on March 18th, 1945 when a pilot rescued Captain William McKinnon from occupied Germany.
By the end of the war, the Eighth Air Force had documented at least five successful singleseat fighter rescues. An unknown number of attempts had failed, resulting in additional casualties and lost aircraft. The tactic remained officially unauthorized. No regulation ever endorsed or prohibited it. Commanders simply looked the other way when pilots made the choice to risk everything for their comrades.
Major Bert Marshall returned to combat duty within days of the rescue. His legs recovered fully from the circulation loss. He continued leading the 354th Fighter Squadron through the fall of 1944, adding to his victory count and earning a silver star for his leadership. By October, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed deputy commander of the 355th fighter group.
When another rescue attempt in his squadron resulted in two pilots being captured, Marshall felt the weight of the precedent Priest had established. The war in Europe ended on May 8th, 1945. Marshall had survived. Priest had survived. The aircraft that carried them both to safety had been repaired and returned to service, flying additional combat missions until Germany surrender.
But the story of that August afternoon in a French wheat field was only beginning. Both men would carry it with them for the rest of their lives. Colonel Royce Priest retired from the United States Air Force in 1968 after 28 years of service. His career had taken him from the wheat fields of France to the mountains of South America.
He served three years as personal pilot to the president of Chile, where he met his wife, Anita. He trained fighter pilots for allied nations. He flew jets that would have seemed like science fiction to the young lieutenant who landed a propeller-driven Mustang behind enemy lines.
The Distinguished Service Cross remained his most prized possession. He rarely spoke about the rescue unless asked directly. When he did discuss it, he deflected praise toward the two escort pilots whose strafing runs had bought him time and toward the ground crews who rebuilt his damaged aircraft. He considered himself fortunate, not heroic.
Lieutenant Colonel Bert Marshall finished the war as commander of the 355th Fighter Group. His final tally included seven confirmed aerial victories. The Silver Star he received recognized his leadership of the 354th Fighter Squadron during some of the most intense air combat of the European theater. After the war, he continued his Air Force career, eventually commanding fighter wings in Japan during the occupation.
His three-time all-state quarterback record in Texas high school football was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1971. The two men remained friends for the rest of their lives. Their bond had been forged in a cockpit barely wide enough for one man, flying over enemy territory with a dying engine and no parachutes.
That kind of experience does not fade with time. In December 2002, Colonel Priest wrote a letter to Bill Marshall, Bert’s son. The letter contained the most detailed account of the rescue ever recorded. Priest described the hidden flack battery, the burning Mustang, the desperate landing, and the agonizing flight home.
He wrote about the fear he had felt waiting to learn whether he would face court marshal. He wrote about the moment General Doolittle pinned the distinguished service cross to his chest. Most importantly, he wrote about why he had done it. Bert Marshall had been his hero long before the war. The chance to serve in his squadron had felt like destiny.
When Marshall’s aircraft caught fire over France, Priest had not calculated the odds or weighed the regulations. He had simply refused to let his hero die in a German prison camp. Colonel Royce Priest passed away on May 18th, 2004 in Riverside, California. He was 81 years old. His obituary identified him as one of the few remaining World War II fighter aces and recipient of the nation’s second highest award for valor.
It mentioned his service in Chile, his long Air Force career, and his devotion to his wife and family. It did not mention that he had once squeezed two men into a singleseat fighter and flown them home through enemy territory. Some stories are too extraordinary for obituaries. The P-51 Mustang that carried Priest and Marshall to safety was never preserved as a memorial.
It served out the war, was likely sold as surplus, and disappeared into history like thousands of other war birds. No museum displays a plaque commemorating the first piggyback rescue in 8th Air Force history. But the story survived. It passed from pilot to pilot, from veteran to historian, from father to son.
Bill Marshall wrote two books about his father’s squadron. Both included accounts of the rescue that saved his father’s life. If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor, hit that like button. Every single like tells YouTube to show this story to more people. Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. We rescue forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.
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