Desperate journey

On August 27, 1944, at the San Giovanni airfield in Italy, the Army Air Force personnel of the 454th Bomb Group saw the unmistakable profile of a Messerschmitt 109G-emblazoned with American stars and stripes-approach their field as if to land.

Moments later-to their amazement-it did indeed land, and the Romanian pilot, after being relieved of his pistol, requested they open the small radio hatch on the rear of the fuselage. Out scrambled a familiar figure: Col. James "Pappy" Gunn, acting group commander of the 454th, who had been shot down over Ploesti on August 17, 1944.

After he had bailed out of his burning B-24 over Romania, he found himself in a prison compound sandwiched between retreating Germans and advancing Russians. With the help of the Romanian royal family and the Air Ministry, Gunn volunteered to fly back to his own airfield in Italy to help organize Allied rescue efforts. The mission would be flown by the most renowned pilot in the Romanian Air Force, Capt. Centacuzescu, a victor of many battles on the Eastern Front against the same American bomber crews as they were now trying to rescue-the irony of war.

The subsequent rescue effort, which was led by the Romanians with a force of 38 stripped-down B-17s, flew to Bucharest, and over the next two days, rescued as many Allied airmen as they could find and returned them to the safe haven of Allied-occupied Italy. And all because of Pappy Gunn's "Desperate Journey."

The painting was commissioned by his nephew for the Gunn Family Trust.

-James Dietz

Copyright Air Age Publishing Apr 2000
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