As it turned out, I was the only one from our squadron of 16 planes that made it back to our airfield. Most of the others were low an gas by the time they got over land and were scattered all over England upon landing. One of our flights of four planes was unaware of the wind changes, were blown off course and were way south of England. They were still over land, luckily, when they ran out of gas and had to bail out. Al Johnson the big Swede was one of them and it was the only time in the year that he didn't owe me any money! They were along the coast of France and were captured by the Germans. He was not in our prison camp so I did not see him until we were in Atlantic City for discharge. He told me that all four had landed safely and that when he came down in his parachute, he went through an old barn roof and landed in a pile of manure.
At about this time we made another move to a field near Maidstone, a small town southeast of London. We were closer to the Channel here and the field was entirely different. Some one else flew my plane down here and I went by train with the rest of the group. It is interesting to note that we went through the village of Sittingbourne where my mother was born. The train didn't stop so I had no chance to visit there. Our living conditions at Maidstone were different: in a tent with a dirt floor in the middle of an apple orchard. There were four of us in each tent sleeping on army cots with a stove in the middle for heat. On warm days we could role up the sides of the tent for ventilation. Another tent was the mess hall and we ate sitting on the ground under the apple trees. We ate with our army mess kits and rinsed them out in a barrel of hot water.
This was much different from the beautiful place where Len Pierce was stationed. The runway at Maidstone was a grass field surrounded by trees. They put heavy wire mesh in the ground to keep us from sinking in when the field was muddy. It was a bumpy field to begin with! The field was not very long and you had to get down before running into the trees at the and of the runway. One time I came back from a mission and the wind was blowing across the runway. (Planes always landed into the wind and took off the same way) I was not lined up correctly with the runway and was drifting to the right. It was too late to pull up and go around again as I was down to landing speed. This decision had to be made quickly and I decided to land. When my wheels touched the ground I began to bounce to the right and by using brakes and all the other controls I kept from crashing, managing to stop Just before hitting the trees at the end of the runway. It was the worst landing I over made, but I was relieved not to have damaged my plane. I was very embarrassed when I got out in front of my crew.