We’ve been learning about Hendricks’ Archie Buseth and his experiences as an Army Air Corps pilot during WWII. Last week we accompanied him as he dropped paratroopers behind the Normandy beaches at midnight on D-Day and later flew medevac flights from those same beaches.

A month later, in July 1944, Archie and the rest of the air crews of the 439th Troop Carrier Group (TCG) began operating out of Italy, transporting cargo and evacuating wounded soldiers. Archie recalled that time.

“Italy was quite a place. We were at one field there and little kids would come around digging in the garbage and asking for candy. I didn’t realize how poor some countries were over there. The ladies would come up to the camp with the family and we maybe gave them a little work to do.”

While operating out of Italy the 439th TCG flew missions in support of “Operation Dragoon,” the invasion of southern France. Archie recalled, “We towed (gliders) into southern France.”

The air crews of the 439th Troop Carrier Group (TCG) returned to home base in England in August for more cargo missions before moving to a forward airfield at Juvincourt, France in September.

While operating from this airfield, the men of the 439th TCG participated in their third airborne combat assault – this time in Holland for Operation Market Garden. They made a daytime drop of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division near Nijmegen, Holland.

Archie remembered the drop as pretty normal, but he described a detail that stuck with him, “Our crew chief had a machine gun — a Thompson — I remember because when we flew into Holland, why he was standing in the doorway, shooting down.”

When I asked Archie what he was firing at, he laughed and replied, “I don’t know – we just let him stand there and shoot.”

This was Archie’s last combat drop. When I asked if his aircraft had ever been damaged, he reported, “I never had a hole in any plane I flew — amazing.”

The men of the 439th TCG relocated again to an air base at Chateaudun. The allied air forces had bombed the base when the Germans were there, so the facilities were sparse.

“Oh, there were just some tents and they got kind of cold over there in the wintertime. We used to draw cards in the night and low man had to get up and build the fire,” Archie recalled with a laugh.

He remembered the field kitchens did their best, but meals were sometimes uneven.

“I never knew they could make macaroni so many different ways,” he said, laughing. He added, “Sometimes we’d make our own meal in the tent – put it on top [of the pot-belly stove] in a flying pan or something. We’d buy eggs from farmers.”

General Patton’s 3rd Army was pushing across France at that time. Archie recalled how the aircrews of the 439th TCG tried to keep Patton’s army supplied.

“We were busy hauling gas then, I’ll tell you, in these jerry cans, you know? We went sunrise to sundown, hauling gas for a while.”

Archie described their flight schedule and other equipment they flew forward.

“Just about every day, often two flights a day — especially when we were following Gen. Patton and then flying wounded back. We flew these great, big, round, reels of cable. I don’t know how many we had — 2 or 3. We were flying one day and the co-pilot said, ‘I hope none of them ever get loose.’ It would have just sent our plane right down.”

Archie explained how the crew chief secured heavy loads in the aircraft.

“They had hooks along the cabin there and chains and stuff. We’d haul jeeps in there. That was for the engineers.”

Archie laughed, remembering some of the unusual fields they’d fly to.

“We had lots of landing fields in lots of strange places — cow pastures. Unsupervised — just the people there to unload and load and stuff. When we’d take off, we’d just swing and put the tail right up to the fence and open the throttles and go.”

Although the 439th TCG no longer flew combat drops, their cargo flights still involved danger. Archie remembered, “I saw one of them go down right ahead of me on take-off once. I don’t know what happened — overloaded or something went wrong.”

Germany’s surrender did not end flight missions. The men of the 439th TCG engaged in a humanitarian mission.

“After the war, we flew many missions into Germany to carry back the young men that had been taken in to work in the mines and stuff like that and flew them home to France to Orly Airport. That airport was lined with people every day, waiting to see if someone would come home.”

The men of the 439th TCG eventually departed Europe from Belgium.

“We left on these cargo boats that were made into troop carriers and hit a North Atlantic storm. Oh, brother! Nobody got out of bed for two days. We landed in Boston. Everybody was happy to get off, I know that.”

The Air Corps sent Archie on a last trip by train across the U.S. to California where he received his discharge papers and another train ticket back to Hendricks.

When I asked Archie what surprised him most about his service time, he replied, laughing, “How I was able to do those things and how I got what I wanted — flight.”

Thank you for your service, Archie!

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