Germans go gunning for Martini — and miss

One of Allen “Dry” Martini's most vivid memories of World War II was getting hit by enemy fire while piloting a B-17 during a bombing mission over Paris on April 14, 1943.

“It was a beautiful Sunday, clear as a bell,” Martini said.

Painted on the nose of the Flying Fortress was a martini glass and his moniker.

Martini and his bomb group were on the way back to an air base in England after flattening a Renault factory in Paris where trucks were being built for the German army.

Then halfway between Paris and the English Channel, an FW 190 — a German fighter plane — zeroed in on Martini's B-17 and started blasting away.

The FW 190 Yellow Squadron — the fighters had a yellow stripe around the engine — was comprised by Germany's top pilots, assembled by Hermann Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe — the German air force.

The gunfire from the fighter's machine guns hit Martini's right wing man and took out the plane's number three engine.

A blast from a 20-mm cannon nearly killed Martini.

“It went right through the windshield between the co-pilot and me. It knocked me out temporarily.”

The plane, flying on auto pilot, stayed level, but it did lose altitude while Martini was unconscious.

“I lost 1,000 feet,” he said. “It was so cold I (finally) woke up.”

It was 60 degrees below zero and the freezing air blowing in through the broken windshield jolted him out of unconsciousness.

“My group had gone on. I came into consciousness and took control of the airplane I kept it running, I got it across the channel.”

Before making it back to base, 60 German FW 190 fighters appeared above Martini's limping plane.

“My gunners shot down 14 of the 60,” Martini said.

When Martini returned to the air base, he was told that headquarters in London heard on a British broadcast that Goering, speaking from Berlin, issued a challenge to the American pilot.

Goering — a World War I flying ace with 21 confirmed kills as a fighter pilot — took aim at Martini, the veteran said.

The message relayed to Martini: “Field Marshall Goering has promised to shoot down the pilot of the Dry Martini and bury him in Germany.”

“I flew about 12 more before I retired,” he said. “They never got me.”

By the time the 27-mission veteran finished flying in combat, he'd amassed a number of military awards, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the British Distinguished Flying Cross, a Silver Star — “for gallantry in action,” and the French Legion of Honor medal.