D-Day+1: “Hat Jane’s” Fall and Renaissance From The Loire Valley
Private Venture

Upon his arrival in England, 2nd Lt. Robert D. Couture was assigned to the 8th Air Force’s 355th Fighter Group. Upon reporting for duty at the group’s headquarters at Steeple Morden, Lt. Couture was attached to the 354th Fighter Squadron on May 24, 1944, and began flying combat missions on June 2, 1944, in a P-51B Mustang..
During the Normandy landings, both the 8th and 9th Air Forces provided air cover, tactical support and low altitude strafing. On D-Day, the 354th FS flew three high altitude cover missions over Omaha Beach and on D-Day+1 they attacked German installations and troop movements. Their first objective was to strafe enemy trains and a Luftwaffe airfield near the town of Evreux, some 95 miles southeast of Omaha Beach and 50 miles west of Paris. Afterwards, the 354th’s Mustangs marauded towards the southwest to the Loire Valley village of Nogent-le-Rotrou. Approaching the village they spotted a German armored vehicle column and attacked it at 2:15 P.M.

Lieutenant Couture was about to make his third pass when Flak from the column began to weave a curtain of hot steel denying the strafers their previous uncontested passes. Shrapnel then hit Couture‘s aircraft, penetrating his cockpit and damaging his flight controls. Struggling to keep his fighter in the air and too low to bail out, Couture left his formation to find somewhere to quickly land his crippled plane. The Mustang was losing altitude and not responding well to his commands when the engine lost power – now he had only seconds to land onto the flatest surface within sight.