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Paupack, Pa. —
(See the related photo gallery)
Providence? Luck? Ask either of these two brothers, Harold K. Coutts, age 89, and George “Bud” R. Coutts, age 90. They were raised on the family farm in Paupack, and both went off to war. Forward to April of 1945. The Germans were close to defeat. Bud, a 2nd Lieutenant, was a pilot in the Army Air Corps, busy flying in supplies. His brother, also a 2nd Lieutenant, was listed as “missing in action.”
The family -including Bud- had no idea Harold was captured by the Germans. No one had any idea that it would be Bud who would find him and bring him on his first leg of his journey home.
The sons of George E. and Anna (Gumble) Coutts, they both attended Hawley High School and were each studying at Penn State University when the U.S. entered World War II in 1941. A large family, George and Anna raised eight sons and one daughter.
Another of their sons, Robert C. Coutts, was an Army private in the Spring of 1945, studying diesel engineering in anticipation of deployment.
Bud graduated in 1939 from Hawley High School and entered Penn State University. Brother Harold followed; they were in college together one year, when the United States entered World War II. Harold was drafted into the Army. Bud was taking the advanced ROTC course which exempt him from the draft.
Piloted a C-47
Bud went on to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and started at Fort Benning, Georgia in the infantry as a second lieutenant. There was a great need in the Army for pilots, and that intrigued him. He switched to the Army Air Corps and became a pilot for a C-47 troop carrier.
The C-47s and their crews were vital to the success of the US Army in stopping the advancing Third Reich. 2nd Lt. George “Bud” Coutts was among the legion of sky angels bringing ammo, food, parts, blankets, fuel and other supplies to General Patton’s forces in Europe, once Normandy was breached in June 1944. From the C-47s also dropped legions of paratroopers.
Bud and another pilot had been assigned their own plane, which carried the designation M-2, and a snappy looking Bugs Bunny below the cockpit and the carrot-munching rabbit’s famous line, “What’s up, Doc?”
Describing the experience of commanding a C-47, the veteran said from his kitchen table overlooking Lake Wallenpaupack that his plane was in a line of hundreds. He had another pilot aboard, a crew chief and a radio operator. There was no gunner. All they had was their personal weapons. Were there fighter planes accompanying them? “I never saw any,” he said.
They flew low to the ground, sometimes barely over the tree line. Weather was perhaps their greatest danger. There were a couple times, he said, that he was almost killed due to low visibility. They flew in formation, with two planes following the running light of a lead ship. He recounted one incident where the clouds hung so low, they had no idea there was a mountain straight ahead until they almost hit it. Bud pulled up hard just in time. “I thought we’d have brush through the window,” he said.
Another day they flew over the Rhine and were over German territory. They dropped paratroopers and pulled around fast. Bud’s C-47 took enemy small arms flack with some bullet holes in the fuselage. Thankfully, no one was hurt and they were able to fly back to base in France. “I saw one go down,” he said of another plane. Paratroopers were sitting ducks. “They had a rough deal,” Bud said.
On a lighter note, one time he was sent to Italy with other planes, to bring back comedian Bob Hope and his entourage for a USO show.
“It was interesting,” Bud spoke of his piloting a C-47. “I loved it, really.”
Front page news in
The Hawley Times
2nd Lt. Harold Coutts a co-pilot, of a B-17 Flying Fortress. It was April, 1945. It wasn’t the Luftwaffe or German ground fire that brought him down to earth. The B-17 developed engine trouble.
“We lost one engine, then two more,” Harold said, on the phone from the Air Force retirement community where he and his wife Janet reside, in San Antonio, Texas. “I had flown 26 bombing runs before I bailed out.”
Back home, The Hawley Times was published weekly, and was carrying news on the front page practically every issue of service members from the community. A headline in the May 10, 1945 edition declared, “2nd Lt. Harold Coutts Former Paupack Boy Missing in Action.”
The story, citing a bulletin from the War Department stated that Harold, age 22, became missing in action over Germany April 18. The news had come from a telegram received by his parents.
Harold had been inducted into the service Feb. 27, 1943, and was based in England with the 8th Air Force.
News was slow getting home.
“It was Harold”
The date was April 25, 1945.
Bud was aboard his C-47 and was one of many flights taking in supplies to occupied areas of Germany. Hitler’s campaign was in its death throes. That day he landed with fuel supplies on a captured German air strip, like so many others. They were in Bavaria, near the town of Ulm.
“I came onto the airfield,” Bud remembered. “Lo and behold, it was Harold. He knew my plane.”
The two brothers previously had a reunion in England, where Harold had a chance to see the Bugs Bunny painted on the side.
Harold and his crew mates had been captured by a German patrol and turned in.
“I became a POW for seven days,” Harold said. He said they were put up in a prison in a bombed-out town and had not been taken to a prisoner camp. The Germans treated them well, he said. “They knew it was almost over.” Food was scarce, however, and the town water system was no longer operating.
With him were two medics, a navigator and another pilot, a captain of a P-47 that had also crashed.
The town was liberated by the 44th Infantry 10th Armored Division, and he and his mates were taken back to headquarters at the air strip.
They were only there 10 minutes, when the Bugs Bunny plane landed.
“I knew his plane,” he said. Seeing the “M-2” and the cartoon, Harold went up to the plane and inquired.
The Hawley Times reported on May 17, 1945, “Reported Missing: Liberated Prisoner Meets Brother.” Then on June 7, 1945, complete with a page one photo of Coutts brothers Harold and Bud, was an account of how they found each other. It tells:
“... the cargo doors opened and someone yelled, ‘Hey Lieutenant, how about a ride to France?’
“Lt. [Bud] Coutts, without turning, replied with a question, ‘Any orders?’
“’No,’ came the retort.
“The C-47 pilot asked, ‘What’s your name?’
“’Lt. Coutts,’ the answer came.
“’Not Harold Coutts!’
“’Yes, why?”
“’Bud, how did you get here?”
In a letter to his parents, published in The Hawley Times, Bud said he “nearly fell out of the cockpit” upon seeing Harold. He described his brother as “a rough looking character with a week’s growth of beard, blood-shot eyes, and carrying a huge Nazi flag. On either side he carried a pistol for war trophies.”
Bud went on to write, “He was a cocky, scrappy little cuss, and I’m just now able to handle him in the old way.”
Side by side
The reunited brothers from a farm in Paupack, Pennsylvania flew out side by side in the cockpit, with the other liberated POWs eager to go home. They flew to Reims.
They were supposed to have official orders to leave on the plane, but the captain who was liberated with Harold only had his own orders he scratched out himself. Once back in France, the situation was questioned, and Harold asked if he was expected to go back to Germany. The matter was passed over, and instead, Harold went on to England on his journey home for a 60 day leave.
Before that, however, Harold and Bud flew up to Paris to meet with the well-known NBC broadcaster Ted Malone, who interviewed the two pilots about their story for Blue Network radio listeners back in the States.
The Germans, however, surrendered on May 7, and as far as they know, the tape was never broadcast.
While their reunion was going on, their folks back home still had no word on Harold’s fate. From France, Harold sent a letter home to his mother. Bud related, “My sister said that was the only time she saw my mother cry.”
The Hawley Times published letters from Bud and Harold, sent from France to their parents. Bud wrote in his letter of the happy reunion, “So all of you had better kneel right down on your knees and do some genuine, first class praying, for the Pilot of all of us was doing the navigating. Never have I felt so humble in the face of such mercy and goodness. It has practically overwhelmed me...”
Coincidence?
After the war, Bud stayed in the Reserves two or three years. He and his late wife of 63 years, Christine, raised three girls and a boy, and made their home in Paupack. Both Bud and Harold pursued construction careers. Harold stayed in the Army Reserves 20 years and retired as a major.
Both reflected that they made out well from the war. Harold stated that he did not receive the brutal treatment some POWs found in Japanese camps, or later in Vietnam. Bud stated that so many others had a bad experience. “I was lucky,” he said.
Harold said it was the only time either of them had been on that airfield. With planes coming and going so quickly on the captured German air strip, both Harold and Bud said they feel it was more than a coincidence that they had met. Just 10 minutes sooner or later, Harold added, and they would have missed each other.
“It was a miracle,” Bud said.
(See the related photo gallery)
Providence? Luck? Ask either of these two brothers, Harold K. Coutts, age 89, and George “Bud” R. Coutts, age 90. They were raised on the family farm in Paupack, and both went off to war. Forward to April of 1945. The Germans were close to defeat. Bud, a 2nd Lieutenant, was a pilot in the Army Air Corps, busy flying in supplies. His brother, also a 2nd Lieutenant, was listed as “missing in action.”
The family -including Bud- had no idea Harold was captured by the Germans. No one had any idea that it would be Bud who would find him and bring him on his first leg of his journey home.
The sons of George E. and Anna (Gumble) Coutts, they both attended Hawley High School and were each studying at Penn State University when the U.S. entered World War II in 1941. A large family, George and Anna raised eight sons and one daughter.
Another of their sons, Robert C. Coutts, was an Army private in the Spring of 1945, studying diesel engineering in anticipation of deployment.
Bud graduated in 1939 from Hawley High School and entered Penn State University. Brother Harold followed; they were in college together one year, when the United States entered World War II. Harold was drafted into the Army. Bud was taking the advanced ROTC course which exempt him from the draft.
Piloted a C-47
Bud went on to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and started at Fort Benning, Georgia in the infantry as a second lieutenant. There was a great need in the Army for pilots, and that intrigued him. He switched to the Army Air Corps and became a pilot for a C-47 troop carrier.
The C-47s and their crews were vital to the success of the US Army in stopping the advancing Third Reich. 2nd Lt. George “Bud” Coutts was among the legion of sky angels bringing ammo, food, parts, blankets, fuel and other supplies to General Patton’s forces in Europe, once Normandy was breached in June 1944. From the C-47s also dropped legions of paratroopers.
Bud and another pilot had been assigned their own plane, which carried the designation M-2, and a snappy looking Bugs Bunny below the cockpit and the carrot-munching rabbit’s famous line, “What’s up, Doc?”
Describing the experience of commanding a C-47, the veteran said from his kitchen table overlooking Lake Wallenpaupack that his plane was in a line of hundreds. He had another pilot aboard, a crew chief and a radio operator. There was no gunner. All they had was their personal weapons. Were there fighter planes accompanying them? “I never saw any,” he said.
They flew low to the ground, sometimes barely over the tree line. Weather was perhaps their greatest danger. There were a couple times, he said, that he was almost killed due to low visibility. They flew in formation, with two planes following the running light of a lead ship. He recounted one incident where the clouds hung so low, they had no idea there was a mountain straight ahead until they almost hit it. Bud pulled up hard just in time. “I thought we’d have brush through the window,” he said.
Another day they flew over the Rhine and were over German territory. They dropped paratroopers and pulled around fast. Bud’s C-47 took enemy small arms flack with some bullet holes in the fuselage. Thankfully, no one was hurt and they were able to fly back to base in France. “I saw one go down,” he said of another plane. Paratroopers were sitting ducks. “They had a rough deal,” Bud said.
On a lighter note, one time he was sent to Italy with other planes, to bring back comedian Bob Hope and his entourage for a USO show.
“It was interesting,” Bud spoke of his piloting a C-47. “I loved it, really.”
Front page news in
The Hawley Times
2nd Lt. Harold Coutts a co-pilot, of a B-17 Flying Fortress. It was April, 1945. It wasn’t the Luftwaffe or German ground fire that brought him down to earth. The B-17 developed engine trouble.
“We lost one engine, then two more,” Harold said, on the phone from the Air Force retirement community where he and his wife Janet reside, in San Antonio, Texas. “I had flown 26 bombing runs before I bailed out.”
Back home, The Hawley Times was published weekly, and was carrying news on the front page practically every issue of service members from the community. A headline in the May 10, 1945 edition declared, “2nd Lt. Harold Coutts Former Paupack Boy Missing in Action.”
The story, citing a bulletin from the War Department stated that Harold, age 22, became missing in action over Germany April 18. The news had come from a telegram received by his parents.
Harold had been inducted into the service Feb. 27, 1943, and was based in England with the 8th Air Force.
News was slow getting home.
“It was Harold”
The date was April 25, 1945.
Bud was aboard his C-47 and was one of many flights taking in supplies to occupied areas of Germany. Hitler’s campaign was in its death throes. That day he landed with fuel supplies on a captured German air strip, like so many others. They were in Bavaria, near the town of Ulm.
“I came onto the airfield,” Bud remembered. “Lo and behold, it was Harold. He knew my plane.”
The two brothers previously had a reunion in England, where Harold had a chance to see the Bugs Bunny painted on the side.
Harold and his crew mates had been captured by a German patrol and turned in.
“I became a POW for seven days,” Harold said. He said they were put up in a prison in a bombed-out town and had not been taken to a prisoner camp. The Germans treated them well, he said. “They knew it was almost over.” Food was scarce, however, and the town water system was no longer operating.
With him were two medics, a navigator and another pilot, a captain of a P-47 that had also crashed.
The town was liberated by the 44th Infantry 10th Armored Division, and he and his mates were taken back to headquarters at the air strip.
They were only there 10 minutes, when the Bugs Bunny plane landed.
“I knew his plane,” he said. Seeing the “M-2” and the cartoon, Harold went up to the plane and inquired.
The Hawley Times reported on May 17, 1945, “Reported Missing: Liberated Prisoner Meets Brother.” Then on June 7, 1945, complete with a page one photo of Coutts brothers Harold and Bud, was an account of how they found each other. It tells:
“... the cargo doors opened and someone yelled, ‘Hey Lieutenant, how about a ride to France?’
“Lt. [Bud] Coutts, without turning, replied with a question, ‘Any orders?’
“’No,’ came the retort.
“The C-47 pilot asked, ‘What’s your name?’
“’Lt. Coutts,’ the answer came.
“’Not Harold Coutts!’
“’Yes, why?”
“’Bud, how did you get here?”
In a letter to his parents, published in The Hawley Times, Bud said he “nearly fell out of the cockpit” upon seeing Harold. He described his brother as “a rough looking character with a week’s growth of beard, blood-shot eyes, and carrying a huge Nazi flag. On either side he carried a pistol for war trophies.”
Bud went on to write, “He was a cocky, scrappy little cuss, and I’m just now able to handle him in the old way.”
Side by side
The reunited brothers from a farm in Paupack, Pennsylvania flew out side by side in the cockpit, with the other liberated POWs eager to go home. They flew to Reims.
They were supposed to have official orders to leave on the plane, but the captain who was liberated with Harold only had his own orders he scratched out himself. Once back in France, the situation was questioned, and Harold asked if he was expected to go back to Germany. The matter was passed over, and instead, Harold went on to England on his journey home for a 60 day leave.
Before that, however, Harold and Bud flew up to Paris to meet with the well-known NBC broadcaster Ted Malone, who interviewed the two pilots about their story for Blue Network radio listeners back in the States.
The Germans, however, surrendered on May 7, and as far as they know, the tape was never broadcast.
While their reunion was going on, their folks back home still had no word on Harold’s fate. From France, Harold sent a letter home to his mother. Bud related, “My sister said that was the only time she saw my mother cry.”
The Hawley Times published letters from Bud and Harold, sent from France to their parents. Bud wrote in his letter of the happy reunion, “So all of you had better kneel right down on your knees and do some genuine, first class praying, for the Pilot of all of us was doing the navigating. Never have I felt so humble in the face of such mercy and goodness. It has practically overwhelmed me...”
Coincidence?
After the war, Bud stayed in the Reserves two or three years. He and his late wife of 63 years, Christine, raised three girls and a boy, and made their home in Paupack. Both Bud and Harold pursued construction careers. Harold stayed in the Army Reserves 20 years and retired as a major.
Both reflected that they made out well from the war. Harold stated that he did not receive the brutal treatment some POWs found in Japanese camps, or later in Vietnam. Bud stated that so many others had a bad experience. “I was lucky,” he said.
Harold said it was the only time either of them had been on that airfield. With planes coming and going so quickly on the captured German air strip, both Harold and Bud said they feel it was more than a coincidence that they had met. Just 10 minutes sooner or later, Harold added, and they would have missed each other.
“It was a miracle,” Bud said.
