I have been a friend and supporter of George McGovern's for nearly three decades. I knew something about his career in the Army Air Forces, which I always felt he could have used to more effect in his 1972 presidential campaign. Politics aside, I had long been an admirer of what he had done in his B-24 bomber. He seemed to me to be a good representative of his generation, a man who had risked all not for his own benefit but to help bring about victory.

McGovern would have one instructor through the program, and he was crucial. When he arrived in Liberal and got Eleanor settled in a room and himself in the barracks, a colonel told him that he would find his name in the operations room on the blackboard underneath the name of his instructor. Along with his classmates, he ran to the board. Each instructor had four students chalked below his name. McGovern's name was right at the top on his list. He saw that First Lieutenant Ray would be his instructor and wondered if he was related to Norman Ray, the man who had talked him into taking flying lessons back at Dakota Wesleyan

As McGovern was wondering if Ray was related to his college friend, the instructor came into the room, and it was Norman Ray himself. Ray had joined the AAF immediately after completing the course at Wesleyan and been in the service for a year and a half. When he completed his training he was so good a pilot that the AAF, instead of sending him overseas, had made him an instructor on the B-24 bomber. "Didn't surprise me," McGovern said, "because the guy just ate, slept, and breathed flying."

On August 30 (1944), with the Red Army overrunning the country, Romania abruptly changed sides in the war. That development in turn led to a buoyant episode for the Fifteenth Air Force. There were over 1,000 AAF men who had bailed out over Romania and were being held there as POWs. Those in camps near Bucharest were in danger of being evacuated to Germany or having to spend a long time in Russian hands before they got home. One of the internees, Lt. Col. James A. Gunn III, took matters into his own hands. He climbed into the radio compartment of an ME 109 after painting it with the Stars and Stripes. He had persuaded Captain Cantacuzene, a prince of the royal family of Romania, who was the top Romanian ace against Allied aircraft, to be his pilot. Cantacuzene flew Gunn to Italy and managed to land safely. Gunn talked General Twining into sending a rescue mission. Twining had the Fifteenth hurriedly convert fifty-six of its B-17 bombers into transports and had Cantacuzene fly a P-51 (there was no suitable fuel for the ME 109) to the airport outside Bucharest to see if it was clear of Germans. It was and the B-17s started coming in. The POWs, happy beyond belief, crowded into the bombers, twenty of them in each plane, and flew back to Italy in relays. In all 1,274 of them got out over a three-day period. Deloused, fed, and treated as necessary in hospitals, they were soon on their way to the States.

On the flight deck, McGovern tried yet again to bring the prop under control. He pushed the button and this time it (to feather the prop and reduce the drag - ed.) worked. "Resume your stations," he ordered over the intercom. "We're going to try to bring her home."

He looked at his map, however, and decided they would not get home. The airplane "just couldn't go that far, it wouldn't stay in the air that long." The gas supply was low and the fuel was leaking. McGovern got on the intercom to his navigator, Sam Adams, to ask if Adams knew of any landing strips between where they were and Cerignola. "I'll call you right back," Adams replied. "The best bet is a little fighter strip on the isle of Vis out on the Adriatic," Adams told him, "but it's only got a 2,200-foot runway and we need 5,000 feet to land. Do you think you can bring it in on a 2,200-foot runway?"

Well, McGovern thought, that's better than our being up here with two engines out and one windmilling. "How far is it?" he asked Adams.

On such a heading, Adams replied, "we can make it in less than an hour."