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Description
Mr. Yarnell describes flying top cover for General Mark Clark into Copenhagen, and the reception he received.
Cyrill St. Clair (Cy) Yarnell
M. Yarnell est né le 9 août 1920 à Carlow, en Irlande. Il a déménagé au Canada à l'âge de 8 ans. Il s'est enrôlé dans l'Aviation royale du Canada (ARC) en 1940 à l'âge de 20 ans. Il a suivi la formation initiale de pilote à Victoriaville (Québec), où il a appris à piloter le Fleet Finch pour enfin maîtriser le Harvard. Il a suivi la formation d'instructeur de vol à Trenton et formé des pilotes d'un grand nombre de pays. Après avoir été instructeur pendant un an, M. Yarnell a été envoyé outre-mer. Il a effectué des missions aériennes au-dessus de l'Afrique du Nord, de l'Italie et de l'Allemagne et participé aux batailles de la vallée du Liri et de Monte Cassino. Après la guerre, il est demeuré dans l'Aviation royale du Canada (ARC). Lorsqu'il a pris sa retraite de l'ARC en 1975, M. Yarnell avait le grade de colonel. Il est membre de l'Association des Forces aériennes du Canada et participe activement aux activités du musée de l'Aviation de Trenton. M. Yarnell et son épouse, Phyllis, ont trois enfants, sept petits-enfants et un arrière-petit-enfant.
Transcription
Two interesting escorts in Italy, may I go back to Italy? I was told to take four of us, myself, the Australian was leading and three others. Australian and his number 2, me and my number 2, we had to fly over to the mouth of the Volturno River and there wait on the strip. Finally two little communications aircraft landed, came up to where we were, turned around and the biggest man I have ever seen in my life unfolded out of one of these aircraft. It was General Mark Clark of the United States Army. He was a huge man. And he came over to us and met us all, “Thank you gentlemen for helping us today.” Still didn’t know what the hell we were doing. And we were, he was going to fly out over the, over the Mediterranean, over the water and come in, land at the Anzio strip and see how things were going and we were to provide top cover. Delightful man and they flew on the deck and we were about 1000 feet above them flying and we had to land and meet him again. Marvellous man, that impressed me. In Germany, we are now at Schneverdingen, B-154 was the name of the, and we were told that we were going to escort, I was going to escort with four aircraft, me and three others, to escort two Dakotas to land at Copenhagen. The war isn’t over. It turned out that this was the group going in to negotiate VE-Day and we were to provide top cover for them and we did.