During the following days, Dahlberg and his hosts plotted an escape back to the American lines, estimated to be about forty miles away. “I broke the first rule of a downed airman, and I changed into civilian clothes. We were told never to do that, because if you’re caught, they’ll shoot you immediately as a spy. They dressed me in plus fours and a white, civilian shirt. I don’t know what happened to my uniform. They put a towel around my head, and they put some ketchup or some kind of red sauce on it to look like I was bleeding. Denis told me that we’d be going through some checkpoints and passing a lot of German soldiers, because they’re retreating. The roads were jammed with horse-drawn wagons and stalled cars and general chaos, but the Germans were still in control.
“Denis told me that if they stopped us to just play dumb. I didn’t know a word of French. So we rode on bicycles like that for twenty or thirty miles. It was a long way through all these Germans and all that chaos. I got glancing looks from some Germans, but I played my part, and I lucked out. They had bigger fish to fry at that point. Finally, I saw an American tank and a Jeep, and we knew we were in friendly territory. I asked them how I could get out of there, and how I could get to my base.
“I did get back to my airstrip and went right back to flying, just like nothing had happened. That was a good thing. You didn’t have to go through all the folderol of retraining or flying check rides to see if you’re psychologically prepared. You said, ‘Let’s go’ and you go.”
Dahlberg did have to sign a waiver, because, according to the Geneva rules of warfare, once a soldier has been behind enemy lines and goes behind enemy lines again, he can be shot as a spy. He went through an intense debriefing by Army intelligence. “They always wanted to know what anybody knew who had been behind the lines.”
He also found out that despite not having any gun film, he had been credited with the three victories on his last flight. It made him an ace—with five kills—after only twenty-four missions. There was no major celebration. “We’d kid each other a little bit, but there was no big deal made about it. It became a bigger deal after the war. At the time, you have a different perspective. I suppose it’s the subliminal excitement that’s going on all the time. It was an incredible place we had in the war at that time. We were above the fray, but very much in the fray. It looked like a cleaner job than being on the ground. What we did was a combination of adrenaline and fear. We were moving fast.”
