[Leendert]

A further account by the pilot:

[i]Retired pilot recalls flight to surrender site SCRANTON (AP) - Of the thousands of flights loggfd by retired Pan Am pilot Capt. John T. Race, the one that stands out in his mind occurred 40 years ago when he flew the defeated Nazi leaders from Luneburg Heath near Hamburg to the surrender table in France. Race, of Crystal Lake, is now a Baptist minister and chief pilot of Project Orhis, the flying eye hospital for underdeveloped nations. lie Jretired from Pan Am In 1981. Race said recently he will never Jorget the day 40 years ago, May 7, ;1945, when he flew several Germans leaders, including Col. Gen. JGustav Jodl, German chief of staff ater hanged at Nuremberg, and XJen. Adm. Hans Georg Friedeburg Jo Reims, a sleepy French town northeast of Paris. ! "During the flight I could only focus my attention on getting my passengers and the plane safely to jReims," said Race. "Once theret however, I was jolted by the historic significance of the occasion. "Newsreel cameras whirled. Flashguns popped. Reporters from many areas of the world were on hand to cover the surrender negotiations." Race recounted how he had plotted the course for the important flight. "I knew navigational aids were virtually nil," he said. "The flight would involve dead reckoning, a lot of map reading, and constant reference to landmarks all the way." He said he plotted a direct line between the two cities, and took off in his specially outfitted C-47, the military version of the fabled I)C-3, which had been given to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgo-mery by Gen. Dwight U. Kisenhower, then Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. The flight took the Nazis and their Allied chaperones over Luneburg Heath, an area of Lower Saxony, extending roughly from the Elbe in the north to the Aller River in the sout h, and from the border of the Soviet Zone in the east to the Bremen-Hamburg autobahn in the west. "Even today, in my mind's eye, I still can see the lowering clouds," Race recalled. "Dropping to 1,500 feet, 1,000, 500 feet. As visibility decreased, I made the decision to fly above the clouds. But they still dogged the flight at 10,000 feet, at 12,000, at 13,000 feet. So I made the decision to hold the heading we had determined for the wind drift below the cloud cover. "Believe me, there were strong temptations to deviate from the heading in hope of finding a break in that cloud cover," he said. "But my experience had taught me that heading should be about the right one. So I held the course." Race said he was also concerned about the lack of an adequate oxygen supply at higher elevations. "I can remember going back into the cabin to check the passengers, all of them key figures in the surrender negotiations," he said. "All were OK." The C-47 remained above 10,000 feet for about 50 minutes. "We landed uneventfully and taxied to the tarmac right on time," Race said. Germany formally sued for peace unconditionally in the schoolhouse that served as Eisenhower's headquarters. The war officially ended in Europe at 2:41 a.m., May 7, 1945, after Jodl signed the surrender papers for the Nazis. The sur render was repeated May 8 in Berlin and officially announced.

Regards,
Leendert