Hours after the Allies began their historic landing on the beaches at Normandy, Josh looked down at the Omaha beach battlefield as he flew his P-51 Mustang fighter across the English Channel and over the French mainland. The beach was littered with dead bodies, armor, smoke from naval and air bombardment, soldiers running, firing, desperately trying to advance across the beach.

Josh and two other fighters were escorting a bomber group to an area near Paris. The Luftwaffe posed no threat in the area, but after the bombs were dropped a German convoy and armament train appeared, heading toward the coast. The fighters attacked, determined to cut off the German’s supply lines.

It was then that things took a turn for the worse. Flying close to the ground Josh heard an explosion…and another…and another. Anti-aircraft fire! He knew the sound well; he’d been through it a dozen times or more during the war.

Josh glanced out the window of his plane and saw one of the fighters on fire. Moments later the plane went into a nose dive. Josh closed his eyes tightly for a moment, unable to look at the streaking fireball as it crashed, killing his fellow pilot.

The attack continued as bursts of anti-aircraft fire and clouds of black smoke filled the air near Josh’s plane. He climbed another thousand feet to avoid the anti-aircraft barrage as the squadron began to scatter across the sky.

But then it came…a direct hit on the left wing of his plane. The impact from the flak rocked the plane to one side, and Josh yanked on the joystick. For a moment he steadied his plane, but another shell hit the engine, and the plane began to lose altitude. Josh pulled back on the joystick, but the plane continued dropping. On the edge of panic, he made one last attempt to steady the plane, but it was too late. The fighter was going down, turning over and over in a corkscrew motion as the fire in the engine neared the cockpit. Josh shouted and pushed open the cockpit window. He tugged at the parachute harness fastened to his waist and jumped out of the plane.

As he hit the cold air and began free-falling, he saw his beloved plane go screaming toward the ground, and then, as he pulled the rip cord and felt the parachute break his fall, he saw the plane disappear amongst a grove of trees. Moments later he heard a horrible explosion, and then he saw the burning wreckage of his plane, the flying machine that had been his life-line through so many battles. As the parachute brought him down tears filled his eyes until he landed in a field somewhere in Normandy.