Who shot up Erwin Rommel's staff car that day in 1944

[Mattkline]

Norman,

What sort of research are you doing at NARA? It's a terrific place isn't it. We obtained a great deal of footage there for our film. Check out the trailer at:

www.militaryintelligenceandyou.com

I'd like to get back there and dig around some more.

MK

[Furyman]

A couple of years ago on CBC radio there was an interview with the Canadian pilot who supposedly shot up Rommels staff car.

[Peter Clare]

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazett...8-c3479e720e73

The Canadian Spitfire pilot often credited with seriously wounding storied German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in a strafing attack in the critical weeks after D-Day, has died. Charley Fox was 88.

The much decorated flyer from London, Ont., was killed in a weekend automobile crash near Tillsonburg, Ont.

It took years before Fox was cited for the attack on Rommel - there were counterclaims by the Americans that one of their aircraft was responsible. As well, a South African pilot is also thought to have carried out the attack.

Rommel was Germany's leading field commander during the Second World War, earning the nickname Desert Fox for his African campaign. He had been summoned to France to prepare for the expected Allied invasion.

The strafing effectively ended Rommel's career. While still recovering from severe head injuries suffered in the incident, he was implicated in a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler and committed suicide in October of 1944.

Although falsely accused, Rommel was convinced Germany would lose the war and historians now believe he wanted to secretly make peace with the Allies.

How history might have unfolded had Rommel not been incapacitated by the Spitfire remains one of the great "what ifs" of the history.

"He was badly, badly hurt," Fox said in a 2004 interview. "I end up thinking, 'What if I hadn't been airborne at the time? What if I hadn't shot him up? Would that have changed the war? Or would it have lengthened it?' "

On July 17, 1944, Fox and his squadron left their airfield at Bernières-sur-Mer in Normandy.

"As soon as we got airborne ... 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 nine 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."

The July 17 entry in his own wartime log book records "staff car damaged."

At the end of the entry, Fox had written: "Rommel - Yes."

A U.S. aircrew initially claimed to have fired on Rommel's car. Other accounts say South African pilot J.J. Le Roux carried out the strike.

But a Quebec historian researching the controversy at Library and Archives Canada says the official operational record book of Fox's unit, 412 Squadron, puts him in the air at the right time and place to have taken out Rommel.

"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." "said Michel Lavigne.

Fox had a standout record as an airman. He ended the war with credit for nine enemy aircraft and 153 vehicles and locomotives destroyed or damaged, according to a 412 Squadron description of his exploits.

He was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar - equivalent to a second DFC - for "exceptional courage and skill."

Fox ended his tour of duty in January 1945 and served in the 420 Reserve after the war. He retired in 1956 and began to work at a shoe factory, from which he retired in 1998. In April of 2004, he was named honorary colonel of 412 Squadron.

[Oxby R]

Nice interesting post Peter - a fitting tribute to an extraordinary airman.